Sir Patrick Stewart on Shakespeare, ‘Star Trek,’ and new memoir ‘Making It So’

Actor Patrick Stewart’s wildly successful acting career on stage and screen didn’t happen overnight. The Olivier Award-winning actor admittedly didn’t hit his stride until his 40s, when he landed the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since that turn, he has appeared in many films, perhaps most famously as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men franchise. Equally acclaimed are his performances on the stage, memorably in the works of Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett.

Now, Elvis Michell welcomes Stewart, actor and now author, to The Treatment to detail his robust and winding career from his new memoir Making It So. He discusses his difficult “Victorian” upbringing and how it informed his life. He also speaks about learning to relax and not take everything so seriously in his work — and how he breaks down Shakespeare.

Other authors on KCRW

• Mike Rothschild joins Press Play to discuss his book Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories.
• Novelist Yiyun Li examines Wednesday’s Child and the beauty of storytelling on Life Examined.

A Broadway special on KCRW: Sara Bareilles brings ‘Waitress: The Musical’ to a (movie) theater near you; Plus BroadwayHD creators on expanding fan base

With the holidays just around the corner, it feels like the perfect time to give our regards to Broadway. And we have just the man for the job. NPR contributor Jeff Lunden has produced more than a dozen documentaries centering musical theater, including the three part audio series A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.

For The Business, Lunden is examining the many considerations involved with bringing a theatrical performance to the screen (and vice versa).

First, Lunden looks into BroadwayHD, a streaming platform which focuses on capturing the theater on film. Tony-winning producers and its co-founders Bonnie Comley and Stewart F. Lane are here to break it down.

Then, singer-songwriter-actress Sara Bareilles and producer Jessie Nelson talk about what it took to bring Waitress — an adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 feature film — into a filmed theater experience. The limited Fathom events run of the Waitress: The Musical will play in select movie theaters beginning Dec. 7.

Todd Haynes parses the gray areas of ‘May December’

Director Todd Haynes’ films tend to center around female characters in domestic spaces who lack agency in their own lives, and who also might be battling some kind of illness, real or perceived. His latest in that canon is May December, starring Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and Charles Melton, now streaming on Netflix. The film unfolds as an actress, played by Portman, visits a married couple who became involved when the wife, played by Moore, worked at a pet store Melton frequented when he was in middle school.

Haynes tells The Treatment about why illness has often been central in his films. He talks about how certain characters are often marginalized both in the plot of his films and also within the frames, and discusses the very gray areas of May December.

See ‘unnervingly candid’ Miles Davis in new graphic novel

The new graphic novel, Miles Davis and the Search for the Sound, documents the many turbulent stories of the singer’s life, including his comeback from heroin abuse, when he received a standing ovation for his performance at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival. Musician and cartoonist Dave Chisholm created the book, adapting it from Davis’ autobiography, interviews, and other writings.

Chisholm tells Press Play that this project took him 10 months to complete, but in a way, it lasted his whole life. He says the first music he remembered listening to was his dad playing the album Sketches of Spain, and since then, he became “a lifelong Miles Davis obsessive.”

And on Greater LA, rock photographer and Angeleno Henry Diltz talks about the upcoming release of his new book, CSN&Y: Love the One You’re With, which contains hundreds of photographs from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the ’60s, as well as personal notes and contributions from rock stars like Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt.

Partner Screening: Maestro

KCRW, Vidiots, and Netflix invite you to a special screening of Maestro at Vidiots, located in Eagle Rock followed by a conversation with costume designer, Mark Bridges, and rerecording mixers, Dean Zupancic and Tom Ozanich moderated by KCRW’s Dan Wilcox.

Maestro is a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.

FREE RSVP HERE.

ACT UP LA chronicles 35 years of its AIDS activism

Greater public awareness and advancements in medicine have largely removed the stigma surrounding AIDS. But a few decades ago, the dangers of AIDS were being ignored or sometimes suppressed by public officials.

The Los Angeles branch of ACT UP was formed 35 years ago in response to this lack of action. Through protests and demonstrations, the organization demanded public officials and the private sector to inform the public about AIDS and invest in treatment options.

ACT UP LA was active for about a decade. In that time span, their work led to the creation of the first public AIDS ward, and Los Angeles’ first needle exchange program.

Now, ACT UP LA is focusing on an oral history project to document the organization’s activism, and chronicle the difficulties of advancing AIDS awareness during the 1980s.