
Elizabeth Blair
Elizabeth Blair is a Peabody Award-winning senior producer/reporter on the Arts Desk of NPR News.
Blair produces, edits, and reports arts and cultural segments for NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. In this position, she has reported on a range of topics from arts funding to the MeToo movement. She has profiled renowned artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Mikhail Baryshnikov, explored how old women are represented in fairy tales, and reported the origins of the children's classic Curious George. Among her all-time favorite interviews are actors Octavia Spencer and Andy Serkis, comedians Bill Burr and Hari Kondabolu, the rapper K'Naan, and Cookie Monster (in character).
Blair has overseen several, large-scale series including The NPR 100, which explored landmark musical works of the 20th Century, and In Character, which probed the origins of iconic American fictional characters. Along with her colleagues on the Arts Desk and at NPR Music, Blair curated American Anthem, a major series exploring the origins of songs that uplift, rouse, and unite people around a common theme.
Blair's work has received several honors, including two Peabody Awards and a Gracie. She previously lived in Paris, France, where she co-produced Le Jazz Club From Paris with Dee Dee Bridgewater, and the monthly magazine Postcard From Paris.
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Little Richard was an explosive performer who inspired generations of musicians from Otis Redding to The Beatles to David Bowie. He died Saturday morning.
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Live audiences help comics get exposure and work out new material. Colin Quinn says virtual platforms don't replicate "the tension" of being in front of a room full of strangers.
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The company's new CEO Bob Chapek said on the earnings call Tuesday that when he started in the role, "None of us could've imagined the suffering and sacrifice that we're now seeing around the world."
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Hollywood stars, Jews and non-Jews, celebrated Passover by streaming a Seder online Saturday night. It raised some $2 million for the CDC Foundation's Emergency Response Fund to battle COVID-19.
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The package marks $75 million each for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, $7.5 million for the Smithsonian, and $25 million for the Kennedy Center.
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Student Shelbie Rassler, eager to bring her community together amid quarantine and isolation, organized a massive performance of the classic "What the World Needs Now Is Love" and put it on YouTube.
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President Trump upset the architectural world when he proposed an executive order mandating traditional, classical architecture for new federal buildings, and calling some buildings "just plain ugly."
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The grant, thought to be the largest-ever from a philanthropic institution for poetry, will enable the academy to fund its Poets Laureate Fellowship program for the next three years.
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When a teacher suggested Gina Yashere become an actor, her mom said: "Actor? No, no, no. You can act like a doctor when you become a doctor." Yashere is now a co-creator of Bob Hearts Abishola.
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All Things Considered's Best of 2019 lists are going highly specific. Up next: the best bits from stand-up comedy specials, from Best Joke about the Immigrant Experience to Best Bit about Pregnancy.