The Colin McEnroe Show

Ben Vereen was plucked from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn to go to the prestigious Performing Arts High School because somebody thought he had talent. Influenced by song and dance men like Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr., Ben Vereen garnered accolades for groundbreaking roles in "Pippin," "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Roots," in which he challenged us to think about race, religion and who can make art.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we get updates from a few of our favorite former guests. UConn physicist Ron Mallett is looking to fund a feasibility study to pay for the first steps of his time machine. We’ll catch up with him.And New Haven-based filmmaker Gorman Bechard is working on two documentaries – one about animal cruelty, and the other on the New Haven pizza wars.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever since a photo of a Syrian boy dead on a beach made the rounds of the internet, there has been a new focus on the refugee crisis. The United Nations reports more than four million registered Syrian refugees and the country's neighbors are taking the brunt of the strain. Now Europe is struggling to handle a flood of migrants to that continent. Germany is among the countries imposing border controls in response to the flood of refugees who survived the long and dangerous journey away from war.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a rocky start to Stephen Colbert's Late Show debut. He admitted he went way over time, and barely got it on the air. But days later, his emotional interview with Vice President Joe Biden reminded us why we just love him so. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Caroline Jacobs is a grown woman with children of her own. But by all accounts, she's a wimp. She would prefer to suffer in silence than stand up for herself or anyone else -- until she couldn't stand it anymore.  One night, while at a public meeting and in a crowded room, she stood up, pointed her finger at the one she loathed, and shouted "F%$# You" to her nemesis. With that one phrase, she was ready to face her past. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joyce Carol Oates has been writing since before she could read, making "books" by drawing and coloring characters in her tablet. She preferred upright chickens and cats in confrontational poses and tried hard to make her books look like the ones read by adults.  She's wanted to be a writer since inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Those books changed her life and by extension, ours. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Born in Hartford and raised in Wethersfield, playwright Christopher Shinn pays homage to Connecticut in a new play called "An Opening In Time."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour we'll talk Evan Osnos' in-depth look at the nationalist movement behind presidential candidate Donald Trump. How much power lies with the fringe? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Einstein's general theory of relativity with author and scholar Marcia Bartusiak. Bartusiak's latest book is called  Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hunter S. Thompson was one of those writers whose lives start to matter more than their art. From almost the beginning, life and art were intentionally interwoven. Thompson's outsized appetites for drugs and food and stimulation were set into his hyperbolic prose. The story of the wrier was the story of the story. He was hardly the first to do it, but he did it in a fashion that made both the lifestyle and prose of Norman Mailer seem comparatively restrained. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.