Hidden Brain

Do You Have Trouble Sleeping?

When you're sleep-deprived, you're often the last to know it. People who get six hours of sleep think they're doing just fine, but when you test them, they're performing as badly as people who've been awake for 24 hours straight.

Throughline

Why does everything get a standing ovation now? | Throughline

The groundlings at the Globe Theater, which is what they were actually called, were standing on the ground. They didn't have seats. So, so there's this standing part of standing ovation. But Shakespeare had a little trick to get people clapping. He would often write in the epilogue lines to get the audience to applaud.

Fresh Air

Best Of: Rhiannon Giddens / Investigating Diddy’s Rise & Fall

every night, I'm sort of just burying everything, you know, so that people can have an emotional connection to some really, really difficult history. I shouldn't have to do that, you know? And so I'm happy to do it, but it wears on you. It wears on you, and the years pass, and you continue to perform blackness for people in a way that is palatable, right?

Fresh Air

Best Of: Rhiannon Giddens / Investigating Diddy’s Rise & Fall

The work that I do is very culturally difficult, because what I'm doing is, in a large part, I'm talking about very difficult things in our history to mostly white audiences, you know. So every night, I'm sort of just burying everything, you know, so that people can have an emotional connection to some really, really difficult history. I shouldn't have to do that, you know.

Fresh Air

Best Of: Rhiannon Giddens / Investigating Diddy’s Rise & Fall

And the years pass, and you continue to perform blackness for people in a way that is palatable, right? In a way that keeps everybody there and not walking out the door. And that is only something I can do for so long, you know.

Fresh Air

Bluegrass virtuoso Billy Strings

people like Willie Nelson, people like Dolly Parton, these really great storytellers, when they're singing, you know, if you see Dolly Parton on TV singing, and you press mute, it just looks like she's talking to you, because she is. She's telling the story.

Fresh Air

Rhiannon Giddens traces the banjo from her ancestors to Beyoncé

every night I'm sort of just burying everything, you know, so that people can have an emotional connection to some really, really difficult history. I shouldn't have to do that, you know? And so I'm happy to do it, but it wears on you. It wears on you and the years pass and you continue to perform blackness for people in a way that is palatable, right? In a way that keeps everybody there and not walking out the door.

Fresh Air

Remembering Tim Curry

And his first note and recurring note to me is yes, that's great, it's very funny, now let's make it true. And I think that's his great gift to this material is that he's given it a great big sort of beating Arthurian heart. And that's an extra dimension that you just sort of don't expect.

Code Switch

Banana Ball's racial minstrelsy past

Lots of black folks and lots of people in black baseball really did not rock with the clowns. So, we can go back to the 30s when they started as the Ethiopian Clowns.

Fresh Air

Riz Ahmed takes on his inner critic

We all feel that we have to perform this version of ourselves that knows the script, that, as you said, is commanding and decisive and desirable, the best public version of ourselves. We're performing that. But actually the gap between that public self and the messy vulnerability of our private selves is often huge.

Fresh Air

Dolly Parton

I know it costs a lot to make me look as cheap. But anyway, thanks for having me on too.

Fresh Air

‘Wonder Man’ star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II on cancellation and confidence

The homework is there to support me, not to decide what it is that I'm going to do. Often when we're acting, we're acting with other people and other factors that we're not aware of when we're doing our rehearsal process. So I like to do the tightrope dance.

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

The Wait Wait 2026 summer spectacular, part 1! | Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

The band director said why don't you go upstairs and announce the band's set. So coming up next, Wheels of a Dream from Ragtime or whatever it was. And it was it was the first time I was behind a microphone.

Fresh Air

Colman Domingo loves a challenge

Most comedians I know are very serious people. And also, they're also a bit shy. I think my, I would say this, Tina's very shy. I would say Steve Carell's very shy. But they know how to get the thing done.

Fresh Air

Remembering Irish singer–songwriter Glen Hansard

I'm forced into the choice of having, you know, two actors who can probably half sing or two musicians who can half act. And he says, I'd rather, if it's a musical film, I'd rather have two musicians who can half act. And I'll get a performance out of you. And he says, as long as the music's convincing, I think people are going to believe it.

Fresh Air

Best Of: Broadway legend André De Shields / Apache Chef Nephi Craig

I believed from my very first conscious thought that my destiny would rise up and meet me

Fresh Air

Broadway legend André De Shields doesn't walk, he floats

I don't rush anywhere. I walk slowly. My reputation is that Andre DeShields doesn't walk, he floats.

Fresh Air

Broadway legend André De Shields doesn't walk, he floats

I believed from my very first conscious thought that my destiny would rise up and meet me.

Fresh Air

Broadway legend André De Shields doesn't walk, he floats

I've got a doctor. His name is Dr. Footlights. Her name. Her name is Dr. Footlights. And when I stand on that stage, and when those lights come up, and when the audience greets me, the pain disappears.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

Breaking News from Wait Wait: Our new Judge and Scorekeeper is announced!

I got in my suit with the helmet off stage and I pedled onto the stage in the car like knees to chest driving it and got out modeled my suit got back in and and tried to pedal but you know like it the floors were slick. So as I'm pedaling the tires are moving but the car isn't moving.

The New York Times

The Jump Rope Queen of Beverly Hills

I just feel like I'm in heaven when I jump. I'm floating when I'm jumping. I just love it so much.

Fresh Air

Riz Ahmed is chasing acceptance in 'Bait'

We're often our own worst critics. Yes, you know, I know a lot of people will be watching this series and thinking, is Riz playing himself, playing a character? And so much of this, you, well, all of it, you wrote. So it comes from real experience as well as your imagination.

Fresh Air

Riz Ahmed is chasing acceptance in 'Bait'

There's a lot of me and Shah, but I think actually there's a lot of Shah in all of us, more than we like to admit. And really the show is about this feeling that life sometimes feels like one big audition.