Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

In this new kind of interview show, Randy Cohen talks to guests about a person, a place, and a thing they feel strongly about. The result: surprising stories from great talkers. Learn more at http://personplacething.org/

Esther Adhiambo 10/05/2024

Esther Adhiambo This Kenyan gay rights activist is adept at working with her adversaries. “You have to keep pushing, and getting friend and allies.” But she’s no softy, adding: “and sue some people.” I generally go right to that last tactic. I’m an American. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/33338417

Natasha Jen 09/28/2024

Natasha Jen When this graphic designer worked at Sony Music, the handwriting was already on the wall, the tiny, tiny wall: “It was no longer LPs; it was CDs. The canvas kept shrinking.” And now with digital music, there’s no canvas at all. “It’s not the end of the world; it’s a different paradigm.” Disconcerting optimism, great design. Produced with the Center for Architecture. Music: Solange Prat. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/33242412

Claire Weisz 09/21/2024

Claire Weisz Does use determine design, or does design shape behavior? This architect asserts the latter: “A certain object does make you behave a certain way or do certain things.” For example, a simple lime-squeezer lured her and her family into more lime squeezing than anyone—or any lime—anticipated. Produced with the National Academy of Design. Music: Tomas Rodriguez /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/33150452

Ivo van Hove 09/14/2024

Ivo van Hove Among his many productions, he directed A View from the Bridge and West Side Story on Broadway and collaborated with David Bowie on the musical Lazarus. “It turned out to be—I didn’t know, of course, when we started—the last work that he ever made.” And a surprisingly happy experience. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/33051842

Terre Roche 09/07/2024

Terre Roche This singer-songwriter has been admired for fifty years, and yet: “I always wanted a Collings guitar, but it was too expensive, and I just didn’t feel worthy.” If she’s not worthy of the tools of her trade, then what hope is there for us mortals? (Happily, she now has a Collings.) Presented with Richard Barone. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/32953362

Peter Boyer 09/01/2024

Peter Boyer Composers not only create something non-corporeal but also enjoy bringing an actual object into the world. “One of my great great moments was when I finally had a recording of my own in a bin at Tower Records.” (Older people can explain to younger people what record stores were.) The delights of the irrefutably physical. Presented with BMI and the Ellis Island Honors Society. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/32851437

Ty Jones 07/20/2024

Ty Jones He is the producing artistic director of the Classical Theatre of Harlem, focusing on work from Sophocles to Shakespeare—the big S playwrights—to explore fundamental ideas. “These are living arguments, these classic plays.” Produced with . Music: Kaden Jones, cello; Roen Jones, violin; Emery Jones, piano. This is our last new episode of the season. We’re in reruns through August. Remember: they’re all new if you haven’t heard them. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/32226637

Zach Iscol 07/13/2024

Zach Iscol He served in Iraq as a Marine and is now commissioner of New York City’s Department of Emergency Management. “We are always activated. We’re always responding to stuff.” How to prepare for the worst. Music: Stephanie Jenkins (the best). Presented with the Department of Records and Information Services. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/32123242

Patrick Page 07/05/2024

Patrick Page Even as a child, this actor loved Shakespeare. “I would listen every night to John Gielgud’s Ages Of Man or Laurence Olivier’s Henry V or Richard III. I was just sort of marinated in it.” He’s since played many of the great villains, from Iago to the Grinch—Shakespeare and Shakespearean. Produced with Red Bull Theater. Music: Lance Horne. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/32025087

Thomas Gluck and Charlie Ortiz 06/30/2024

Thomas Gluck and Charlie Ortiz GLUCK+ architects designed and constructed a building for the WHIN Music Community Charter School, led by Ortiz. How do architects know if a design works well? It’s not their call, says Tom Gluck. “The judges of whether a building’s successful or not are the people in it.” And this building? A triumph, says Charlie Ortiz. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31944392

Fred Gitner 06/22/2024

Fred Gitner He was recently honored by the American Library Association for his work at the Queens Public Library on programs to assist migrants. “Over 200 languages are spoken in Queens,” he says. “We have collections in 50 or so and regularly purchase in about 30.” I struggled to write this paragraph in one. Music: Salieu Suso /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31848907

Santino Fontana 06/15/2024

Santino Fontana It can be a challenge for even terrific actors like him to stay fresh and focused night after night. Here’s how he does it: “I’ll make up, you know, Gandhi is in the fourth row; do a great show.” Not madness, technique. And he’s applied it from Hamlet to Tootsie. Produced with Red Bull Theater. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31756965

Pete McBride 06/08/2024

Pete McBride How did we allow the ruin of the Colorado River? “We think that water comes from the tap,” says this photographer of wild places. “We’ve lost the idea that water comes from natural systems.” See the results of our folly in his book, The Colorado River: Chasing Water. Then weep. Then fight. Then drink. Presented with Fotografiska. Music: some talented frogs. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31662432

Virginia Rauh 06/01/2024

Virginia Rauh This environmental epidemiologist knows the dismal effects of pesticides on the young, yet she loves to take her students to the neonatal intensive care unit. “The NICU is a place of hope, and little babies are very, very cute.” Produced with Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31560892

Eddie Izzard 05/25/2024

Eddie Izzard Her solo performance of Hamlet—yes, all the parts (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern)—should be accessible to everyone. “Shakespeare is presented to people these days as 'this is good for you.' I’ve heard the term ‘spinach theater.’” The trick? Avoid vegetables, emphasize history, preserve the beauty of the verse: words, words, words! /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31464302

Elizabeth Streb 05/18/2024

Elizabeth Streb “I don’t like dance,” says this choreographer, “but we saw the bull riders at Madison Square Garden and, boy, I really wanted to get on that bull.” Her combination of disdain and desire results in exciting and surprising—I hesitate to say “dance” lest I incur her scorn— “organized movement.” /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31365937

Marc Norman 05/12/2024

Marc Norman This expert on affordable housing asks challenging questions: “Would you want greater-density boxy buildings to replace brownstones in Park Slope, and if not, where do we put them?” Now my head hurts. In a good way. Produced with Open House New York. Music: Kevin Nathaniel Hylton. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31248847

Eduardo Vilaro 05/04/2024

Eduardo Vilaro “I am Juan de Pareja,” says this choreographer about the subject of his new piece, the Afro-Spanish painter enslaved by Velazquez. Multiple identities? No. One artist fascinated by the life of another. We celebrate Vilaro’s fifteen years as artistic director of Ballet Hispánico. Music: Ahmed Alom. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31124693

Ann Goldstein 04/27/2024

Ann Goldstein The esteemed translator of Elena Ferrante and Pier Paolo Pasolini says of her work, “It is an impossible task, but nevertheless, it has to be done.” And she does it wonderfully. Presented with Rizzoli Bookstore, Europa Editions. and Words Without Borders. Music: Beppe Gambetta. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/31010108

Michael Henry Adams 04/20/2024

Michael Henry Adams When Europeans take one of his tours, do they seek the Harlem of today or of the Harlem Renaissance? “They’ve got a kind of fable of Harlem,” says this preservationist, and then he goes to work and reconciles the present with the past. Produced with Open House New York. Music: Hubby Jenkins /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30910363

Len Elmore 04/13/2024

Len Elmore “I had dreams of playing basketball then going to law school and doing what Perry Mason did.” Those dreams came true. The Knicks. Harvard Law. The Brooklyn DA’s office. And now he teaches at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies, a co-producer of this episode. (I had dreams that I could fly. I can’t.) /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30807343

Rachel Wax 04/06/2024

Rachel Wax The gender balance in her profession is disheartening, she says, “It has one of the smallest percentages of women. I mean the ratio is astounding.” U.S. Senator? Catholic priest? Not quite that bad. She is a magician. But things are improving. Produced with KGB Bar’s Red Room. Music: Teddy Horangic with Leonid Morozov /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30708083

Robin Steinberg and David Feige 03/30/2024

Robin Steinberg and David Feige They spent much of their professional lives as public defenders in the Bronx, working in an unjust system, and its flaws persist. Discouraged? Nah. “If you’re trying to solve a problem you can solve in your lifetime, you’re thinking too small.” /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30604613

Pádraig Ó Tuama 03/23/2024

Pádraig Ó Tuama Poet, theologian, host of the On Being Studios podcast Poetry Unbound, he has a favorite pencil but is not a fanatic: “I use anything to get the idea down. I have written with pens and pencils; I have written on the back of sick bags on airplanes.” Computers. Cellphones. No crayon, but he’s not above it. Produced with Columbia University’s School of Nursing. Music: Jefferson Hamer. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30509348

Adrian Benepe 03/16/2024

Adrian Benepe The president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is proud that it is a treasure for the entire city and maybe even prouder of its ties to its local community: “The neighborhood is deep into us, and we’re deep into the neighborhood.” Like roots. Or vines. Or some other sort of metaphoric floral something. Music: Craig Harris /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30401273

Ian Niederhoffer 03/09/2024

Ian Niederhoffer Music offers more than aesthetic pleasure, asserts this conductor: “Music has the power to transport its audiences to a time that no longer exists.” A gentler time, without covid or attack drones or Elon Musk. He’s founded a chamber orchestra, Parlando, on that belief. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30302093

David Leonhardt 03/02/2024

David Leonhardt Writer of “The Morning” newsletter for The New York Times and author of Ours Was the Shining Future, he admires A. Philip Randolph, who championed this idea: “Collective action around labor and workers is the most powerful vehicle for changing this country.” The echoes and implications of social class. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30198703

Joan Kron 02/24/2024

Joan Kron I’m against nose jobs for ordinary noses (like mine), but this journalist, who’s covered cosmetic surgery for decades, is less judgmental: “I believe everybody is free to do what they want with their body.” Incidentally, she’s just turned 96 and looks fabulous. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/30091868

Michael Miscione 02/17/2024

Michael Miscione This former Manhattan borough historian admires the enormously accomplished, nearly forgotten, 19th-century New Yorker Andrew H. Green: “He is often compared to Robert Moses. In a favorable way.” To be fair, so is my cat, who’s destroyed only my sofa but no entire neighborhood. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/29995013

Peter Riegert 02/10/2024

Peter Riegert As a young actor (Local Hero, Crossing Delancey, Animal House) he played Goldberg in The Birthday Party, overseen by Harold Pinter himself. One speech was particularly opaque. “I had no idea what it meant, but to say these words was to be Isaac Stern on the violin.” Learning to trust the writer. Produced with the Museum of Jewish Heritage. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/29884463

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

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