Broadway icon Chita Rivera is a two-time Tony Award winner, has recieved a total of 10 Tony nominations and is the first Hispanic woman and the first Latino American ever to receive the Kennedy Center honors. Her first major role on Broadway was Anita in the original Broadway cast of West Side Story. She's also well known for starring as Rosie in the original Broadway cast of Bye Bye Birdie with Dick van Dyke, and as Velma Kelly in the original Broadway cast of Chicago opposite Gwen Verdon. Chita won her first Tony in 1983 for her performance in The Rink opposite Liza Minnelli. Ten years later, she won her second Tony for her starring role in Kiss of the Spider Woman on Broadway. Chita was also cast in the film version of Sweet Charity, in which she played Nicky opposite Shirley MacLaine. Chita's critically-acclaimed concert dates continued to play to ovations from packed houses around the world.

Interview with the Artist

IWTA, Episode 61: Chita Rivera

Seth Sikes is a performer and director. His directing credits include BUNKED! (Outstanding Musical at the New York Fringe Festival) and The 7th Annual Broadway Beauty Pageant.  He was the Assistant Director of The Nance (Broadway), Tribes (Off-Broadway), Pageant (Off-Broadway), and Sondheim: The Birthday Concert (at Lincoln Center).  As a performer he appeared in Fame on 42ND Street (Off-Broadway). He made his Feinstein’s/54 Below debut with his acclaimed show Seth Sikes Sings Judy Garland enjoyed a sold-out run and was named  Broadway World’s Best Tribute Show. His new show: Seth Sikes Sings Liza Minnelli will continue at Feinstein’s/54 Below on May 2 at 9:30 and June 8th at 7:00PM. For tickets, visit 54below.com

IWTA, Episode 60: Seth Sikes

Heart's Ann Wilson gets real with WBAZ'S Walker Vreeland ahead of her March 25th performance at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Purchase tickets online at www.whbpac.org

IWTA, Episode 59: Ann Wilson

Emmy Award winning film producer and director Marc Levin, along with his documentary film partner Daphne Pinkerson, has produced 11 films for HBO's documentary film division, most recently: Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags, and Hard Times: Lost on Long Island. His new film Class Divide, a look into the modern effects of gentrification in the New York neighborhood of West Chelsea is making its world premiere at this year's Hamptons International Film Festival. Levin is best known for the docu-series Brick City, about the city of Newark, New Jersey, its mayor, Cory Booker, and the people on the frontlines of a city struggling to change. The series won the 2010 Peabody award and was nominated for an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking. It aired on the Sundance channel. Levin's dramatic feature film, SLAM, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Camera D'Or at Cannes in 1998.

IWTA, Episode 58: Marc Levin

Artist Andrea Kowch has been described as “a powerful voice emerging, demonstrating a highly sensitive consciousness that informs a culturally-laced symbolism.” Her paintings are rich in mood, allegory, and precision of medium, reflecting a wealth of influences from Northern Renaissance and American art to the rural landscapes and vernacular architecture of her native Michigan. Andrea has receive numerous Best of Show awards in various juried exhibitions, and her work has been showcased at the Muskegon Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Jacksonville, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, ArtPrize, Art Basel Miami, the Los Angeles Art Show, ArtHamptons, SCOPE NYC, and Sag Harbor’s RJD Gallery.  Kowch resides and works in Michigan where she paints full-time, and serves as an adjunct professor at the College for Creative Studies. She is represented exclusively by RJD Gallery in Sag Harbor, New York.

IWTA, Episode 57: Andrea Kowch

Comedian Rita Rudner talk dancing, end-of-summer sales in Westhampton Beach, her love of dresses, men, Botox in Las Vegas, and how an in-flight meeting with Ben Stein lead her to adopt a child- all while delivering one zinger after another. If you need a good laugh, (or twenty), listen to this episode. You won't be disappointed. *Rita will be performing at 54 Below this weekend! For tickets, visit http://54below.com*

IWTA, Episode 5 [encore]: Rita Rudner

Joy Behar is a comedian, actress, writer and interviewer, best known as a co-host on ABC's The View for 16 seasons. From 2009 to 2011 she hosted The Joy Behar Show on HLN and Joy Behar: Say Anything! on Current TV from 2012 until 2013. This August, she's bring her new one-woman show Me, My Mouth & I to Guild Hall in East Hampton. In this conversation, Joy Behar talks about the times it got personal on The View, the real reason she left the show and why she turned down their offer to come back. Also- the crazy place she met her husband, why big houses in the Hamptons annoy her, Bill O'Reilly, the afterlife, Star Jones, piercings, death and the reasons it doesn't look good for God. Plus, Joy teaches Walker what the word "shkeaved" means. It's an action-packed 45 minutes.

IWTA, Episode 56: Joy Behar

IWTA Snippet: Betty Buckley on the Psychology of Grey Gardens

 Betty Buckley is a Tony award winning singer and actress. Best known to theatergoers for playing Grizabella in the original Broadway cast of Cats (for which she won the Tony in 1983) and for starring as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard both in London and New York, she's also appeared on Broadway in 1776, Pippin, Carrie, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Triumph of Love. She made her big screen debut in the Brian de Palma film Carrie before going to star in Eight is Enough for four seasons on ABC. Other film and TV roles include: Tender Mercies, Roman Polanski's Frantic, Woody Allen's Another Woman and a reoccurring role in the HBO series Oz. To date, Betty has recorded 16 solo albums. Her most recent Ghostlight was produced by T. Bone Burnett. In 2012, she was inducted in to the American Theater Hall of Fame. In this conversation, Betty looks back at her film and theater career, revealing the moment she knew she could act, the nights she felt most embraced by an audience, and how she always knew she would do her best work in her later years. She talks about what she learned from the late Dick Van Patten while shooting Eight is Enough, dealing with the shock of his death and how the challenges and losses we endure in life prove to be profound lessons in disguise that are designed to help us grow. Plus-- what was like working on her most recent album Ghostlight with T. Bone Burnett, how she's preparing for the Hamptons' first production of Grey Gardens: The Musical at Bay Street Theater, and why a recent riding accident means she won't have to act when she plays Big Edie.

IWTA, Episode 55: Betty Buckley, (The Summer 2015 Interview)

 Sue Costello is an actress, comedian, writer and producer. She's appeared in the Academy Award winning film The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, (directed by David. O Russell), and on countless television shows including NYPD Blue, Comedy Central's Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, NBC’s Last Comic Standing, (where she made it to the finals) and on the Fox sitcom Costello which she co-created and produced. She's been featured twice on Marc Maron’s podcast WTF and hosts her own podcast: The Kadoozie Kast. In this conversation, Sue talks about her journey from the streets of Dorchester to Hollywood, and how she found herself along the way. She talks about working with David O. Russell and Christina Bale on The Fighter, how her experience in Hollywood taught her to trust that she was enough, what she does when she has the instinct to throw a punch and how she always knew that love was more powerful than fear.

IWTA, Episode 54: Sue Costello

 Van Hansis is a three-time Emmy Award nominated actor, best known for playing Luke Snyder on As the World Turns and Thom in the dark comedy web series Eastsiders. Currently Van is crowd funding on Kickstarter for his latest project: Ms. Guidance, a dark irreverent comedy which he is producing, directing and starring in. Ms. Guidance tells the story of Jenny Bump, a talented but self-absorbed actress who, after having a mental breakdown on the New York stage, decides to give up her dream of stardom and return to her alma mater, Loch Hill School for the Arts where she becomes a guidance counselor. But listening to her students' dreams only makes her long to act even more, and soon she is scheming for fame and ruining lives, including her own. It's a show about theater kids and the life that waits for them in the real world. It's a show about unrealized dreams, the disconnect between what we hope we will become and the reality that we end up with. It's a show about trying to let go of a dream that won't let go of you. In this conversation Van and Walker reminisce about their days at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, the inspiration (and location) for Ms. Guidance. They talk about who they were then and who they are now. They talk about how unique a place Walnut Hill is, and how the school changed their lives. Also- Van remembers his time on As the World Turns and sheds light on how to stay sane as an actor: never compare yourself with others, define success for yourself and create your own work whenever you can. Plus, tune in to hear Van explain how the character of Walker Pate in Ms. Guidance is different from Walker Pate Vreeland. And there is a difference. :-)

IWTA, Episode 53: Van Hansis

 Jeff Leblanc is a singer/songwriter who has twice broken into the Top 10 of the iTunes Top 200 Singer/Songwriter Chart.  Born and raised in Center Moriches, New York, he  began his career as a street busker in Westhampton Beach.  Jeff tours regularly and has opened for headliners such as Gavin DeGraw, Colbie Caillat, Lifehouse, Chris Isaak, Andy Grammer, Third Eye Blind and Goo Goo Dolls among many others. His music had been featured on Teen Mom, The Real World, The Challenge Rivals, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, FriendZone and Jersey Shore. In 2011, Jeff was nominated by SiriusXM's Coffee House Channel as Singer/Songwriter Discovery of the Year. In this conversation Jeff talks about his new album Vision, why he worries and what he worries about, how facing his fears helped him grow and evolve as a songwriter, and why he finds it hard to write when everything is going great. Plus- several acoustic studio performances!

IWTA, Episode 52: Jeff LeBlanc

 Sally Struthers is an Emmy Award winning actress, best known for playing Gloria Stivic on All in the Family, and Babette on Gilmore Girls. In 1970 she appeared on the big screen in  Five Easy Pieces opposite Jack Nicholson. She is currently starring in Nice Work If You Can Get It at Gateway Playhouse in Bellport, NY, for which she has received rave reviews and countless standing ovations. In this conversation, Sally and her co-star Jamie Beaman talk about what they love about Gateway, live theater and performing with each other; why comedy is difficult and dangerous and mysterious and the best high there is; and finding the balance between vulnerability and self-protection as an artist. Plus- Sally reveals why she doesn't get residual checks for All in the Family, how her daughter Samantha changed her life for the better, and why it's important for her to keep working.

IWTA, Episode 51: Sally Struthers, Part II (with James Beaman)

Lori Cuisinier is a painter and photographer whose work has been shown in the United States and Europe. The central theme in her recent paintings and drawings is self-portraiture. Specifically, this theme has led her through interpretation and reinterpretation of "self," as well as the inner world of her dreams. Her photographic images are featured in Academy Award-nominated director Mira Nair's 2006 film, The Namesake, in Adam Brooks’ 2008 film, Definitely, Maybe, staring Rachel Weisz and Mark Mann's 2013 film, generation Um..., starring Keanu Reeves. Lori maintains a studio in Southampton.   In this conversation, Lori talks about her many lives: as an athlete, a lawyer, a waitress, a jeweler, a coat check girl, and how one fall down a flight of stairs and a Leonard Cohen song prompted her to reinvent herself once again to become the artist she was always meant to be. Also- what inspired her new photography exhibition Desire, how she began to see her old journal entries as art, the vulnerability that runs through all of her work, and how everything she creates leads back to France.

IWTA, Episode 50: Lori Cuisinier

Bob Balaban is an actor, director and producer. As an actor, he's was featured in 1969's Midnight Cowboy, and in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Perhaps best known for his work in Christopher Guest's films and for his cameos on Seinfeld, Bob Balaban has also been seen in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, Absence of Malice, Lady in the Water and in Robert Altman's Gosford Park, which he also produced and for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He is currently directly the play The New Sincerity which is making its world premiere at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor and runs through June 14th, 2015. In this conversation, Bob talks about The New Sincerity, living in Bridgehampton, falling in love with the magic of movie making, how being an actor informs his directing, what he's learned from all the great directors he's worked with, and the benefits of being a character actor as opposed to a star.

IWTA, Episode 49: Bob Balaban

Interview with the Artist is a long form, in-depth interview show which airs on 102.5 WBAZ-FM on Long Island, and as a podcast. On this series, radio host and former actor Walker Vreeland lets you in on a different kind of celebrity interview. Featuring conversations with an impressive roster of guests from all facets of the entertainment industry, the show invites actors, directors, writers, musicians and comedians to reflect on their lives, the evolution of their careers, their creative process, and world view. With its own signature and voice, Interview with the Artist is a show that brings you honest , intimate and illuminating conversation between artists.

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Interview with the Artist

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