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Boston Derby Dames Get Rollin'

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:52 PM +0000

March 29, 2012

Watch the segment and discussion on "Greater Boston."

BOSTON — Given the arena, it’s fitting that Roller Derby has come around again. Locally, the Boston Derby Dames have revived the sport, with stars like “Shellby Shattered” and “Claire D. Way.”

They gnash and thrash their way through the roller derby rink. The Boston Derby Dames is a regional derby league whose 2012 season just got rolling.

Populated with 65 skaters among five teams, including the Cosmonaughties, the Nutcrackers and the Wicked Pissahs, the teams play at the Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington.

The Derby Dames’ bouts routinely sell out to 1300-person capacity crowds. Their all-star team, the Boston Massacre, competes nationally. It’s a sport enjoying resurgence over the last decade. Not since the roller reign from the 1940s to the 70s has it been so popular.

Three years ago, Drew Barrymore made her directorial debut with Whip It, an affectionate film about the bruising roller realm.

"If I were to take up roller derby what would be your first piece of advice? Um, wear your wrist guards, wear your pads. Wear a tailbone pad. I swear I don’t know how those girls do it without tailbone pads. I swear it sounds like smacking into concrete at full force is the scariest thing ever, but somehow you just, the first few times you roll off and get up and you’re like I’m okay, just this light bulb goes off and you’re like maybe I can do this,” Barrymore said.

As the Dames do, once a month, now through October.

Women of Color and the "Women's Agenda"

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:05 PM +0000

Basic Black presents a women's roundtable with Anita Hill, Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, Kim McLarin, Callie Crossley and Lani Guinier, exploring how women of color are represented in the political landscape.

Friday at 7:30pm on WGBH 2

There Is Always Room at the Top

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:02 PM +0000

Mar. 8, 2012

BOSTON — Charlotte Beers has been the CEO/chairwoman of two ad agencies and Undersecretary of State to Colin Powell. She’s known for her trailblazing climb to the top in the 1960s ad world made famous by the hit show "Mad Men." Believe it or not, she thinks it’s actually harder for women to get those leadership roles today. In Beers' new book "I’d Rather Be in Charge," she shares her philosophy and tactics for creating your best and most effective work self.

"We spend incredible hours at work. We have to find a way to make it all more fruitful," she said.

LISTEN: Beers talks about her book on "The Emily Rooney Show."

The challenges women face advancing in business are subtler now than in the bra-strap-snapping old days, but Beers believes it's still difficult for women to present themselves effectively.

Today, she thinks women tend to fall into one of two extremes when creating a work persona: too soft or too hard. On the one hand, "'Mother hens' don't run companies," Beers said. On the other hand, she had to learn to soften up. In her early days climbing the ladder, "I behaved like my boss who was extremely tough and I thought that's how I showed I meant business."

One key to the puzzle: Realizing that you can be different selves at home and at the office. "You get to practice different parts of you at work — and that's why we like work," she said.

And if a boss tries to tell you to choose between your different selves, as one did to Beers when she decided not to travel when her daughter was young, she suggested taking the long view: "It's a long life. You get to make some choices."

Get the complete conversation on "Greater Boston."

Wild Swans: A Memoir Brought To The Stage

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:35 AM +0000

Feb. 22, 2012

Watch the segment and discussion on "Greater Boston."

BOSTON —Wild Swans, a 1991-memoir by Jung Chang about her family’s survival during much of 20^th century China’s upheaval, has long been a global bestseller, with over 30 million copies in print. For years, Chang refused attempts to adapt her story for film or television. For theater, however, she gave the go-ahead. Its premiere production is now playing at the A.R.T.

The play covers a wide swath of time in China during the 20^th century, a period of extraordinary upheaval and ferocity. Idealism is wrenched into oppressive ideology under Mao Tse-tung. This is the first and only adaptation of Jung Chang’s phenomenally successful 1991 memoir of the same name, which recounted how three generations of her family endured China’s transformation from fledgling communist state to world superpower.

“Wild Swans is a personal book,” said Chang. “China is the background. And of course when I wrote Wild Swans I made sure the personal descriptions were absolutely accurate and what I wrote about China was accurate. It has stood the test of time.”

Chang’s story is often the stuff of horror. She relays such events as her grandmother made a concubine of a warlord general, rendered on stage in puppets. She tells of her parents’ relationship, shredded by the Communist Party and Chang’s own efforts to withstand her family’s traumas.

“This is my personal story and my mother is still alive and everything is in my heart. I so fear that something will go wrong and the portrait is not going to be accurate, and the description of the times is not going to be accurate. So I was very reluctant to let go,” said Chang.

But when David Lan, Artistic Director of renowned British theater Company The Young Vic, approached to adapt her story, Chang finally acquiesced.

“It took me quite a while to persuade her to let us do it. And I still don’t know why she did,” Lan said.

In response, Chang said, “What they’re trying to do is be faithful to the spirit of the characters and the spirit of the times. I help them be accurate to these issues.”

"What’s distinctive about this story is it’s about a woman who really is so clear about who she is and is so committed to trying to work out a good way to live. The whole family is like corks bobbing on a very troubled sea. We tried to find scenes which are resonate in every way, and which when put together are coherent and give you the most you can expect,” said Lan.

In partnering with the American Repertory Theatre, the Young Vic took a huge risk, adapting Chang’s 800-page book for the stage. The result is a remarkably streamlined production. At just 90 minutes, it still feels epic. It begins in 1948 in a Manchurian marketplace, then moves to a peasant-filled field. From there it glides into the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and onto 1978, a modern China.

“The book is very critical of the experience people went through before the cultural revolution immediately afterwards. But it’s not about China now. It’s about how China got to be, how it is,” Lan said.

We are treated to glimpses of how Chinese policies affected the individual and how initiatives like Mao’s great purge—stripping homes of writings and books—affected people and families.

"It made me realize on a personal level how grateful and how lucky I am to be in this generation and away from all the politics of China and stuff, because my gran emigrated from there to Britain, eventually, and one can see why she did that,” said Katie Leung, who plays Chang on stage and is already known for playing Harry Potter’s love interest, Cho Chang, in film.
Leung says she had concerns about tinkering with Chang’s already beloved book.

“It’s not as big a pressure as being introduced as Harry Potter’s first girlfriend, but certainly it’s a big thing as well, and I think we just want to make sure that we get it right,” Leung said.

As for Chang, she’s maintained a respectful distance from the production. To her, the play is a new work of art. “I did whatever I can. What I have, what is my baby, is my book. And now they’ve created Wild Swans on stage,” she said.

Participate in the Wild Swans Community Memior project, created in collaboration with Harvard's metaLab and Zeega. The memior is an immersive experience of the community's relationship to China or Chinese culture. Meet new people and explore their stories in any order you choose.

Abortion Foes Push To Redefine Personhood

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:58 PM +0000

Activists want to rewrite laws to recognize someone as a person from the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg. But a redefinition could threaten the use of a long list of commonly used contraceptives, including some birth control pills and the intrauterine device.

May 14: Sinead O'Connor

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:35 AM +0000

This iconic and enigmatic rocker has taken on the role of punk-folksinger, priest, social gadfly, and spiritual interpreter of traditional Irish songs.

South Riding: Episode 2

Fri, 20 May 2011 16:28 PM +0000

At risk of losing his estate to pay family medical bills, Robert (David Morrissey) travels to Manchester seeking work. There, he chances to meet Sarah (Anna Maxwell Martin), and they have a drink together. Penelope Wilton also stars.

South Riding: Episode 3

Fri, 20 May 2011 16:20 PM +0000

As social improvements move forward in South Riding, Robert (David Morrissey) faces ruin after a principled stand against political corruption, and Sarah (Anna Maxwell Martin) confronts a crisis, both personal and professional.

Valentine's Day Recipes

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:38 PM +0000

Heat things up this Valentine’s Day with these decadent chocolate recipes from America’s Test Kitchen:

Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Chocolate Chewies
Chocolate-Raspberry Torte

Join Chris Kimball and the test cooks on America’s Test Kitchen as they solve everyday cooking problems and bring you useful equipment reviews, trusted taste tests, and foolproof recipes.

Shoshana Johnson: Former POW

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:49 AM +0000

After her convoy was ambushed while on patrol in Iraq in March 2003, Shoshana Johnson became the United States’ first black female prisoner of war.

Watch Saturday, February 26 at 6pm on WGBH2/HD.

Nell Irvin Painter

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 17:42 PM +0000

Noted historian Nell Irvin Painter is an author and professor emerita at Princeton. Her latest book, The History of White People, was featured on The Colbert Report and received rave reviews in the US and England. In this conversation with María Hinojosa, Painter explains what drives her, how the idea of beauty has changed in America, and why she doesn’t believe race exists.

Anti-Stress Yoga For Everyone

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:37 PM +0000

In Easy Yoga for Arthritis, Peggy Cappy demonstrates yoga exercises designed to address arthritis problems. Today at 4pm and 10pm on WGBH 44.