On the Radio with popular NPR show

Wait, Wait...It's Houston

"And they thought it would never happen: All the liberals in Southeast Texas in one room," Peter Sagal joked to the capacity crowd at the Wortham Center Thursday night, to lively applause.

For the first time ever, NPR's popular quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me made its way to Houston for a sold-out two-night event. It was equal parts entertainment and fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse of the making of a modern radio show.

Introduced one by one, host Peter Sagal and official judge and scorekeeper Carl Kasell stood at podiums on the left with panelists Paula Poundstone, Tom Bodett and Houston editor Kyrie O'Connor sitting at a table on the right, with an upholstered salmon-pink easy chair between them that Mayor Annise Parker occupied later in the show. Behind the panel, the seven-person crew worked in view of the audience.

Sagal warmed up the audience and apologized for any tardiness in the start of the production, mentioning that Kasell arrived in Houston from Washington, D.C. only 30 minutes before the beginning of the show, delayed almost a day from his original arrival time by the winter weather on the East coast. Sagal encouraged the audience to laugh and audibly have a good time, even if they had to "overcome their natural Texas quiet and reserve."

The show went, for the most part, exactly as heard on air, starting with a game of "Who's Carl," where a caller had to ID the source of three quotations (if "energy tax cuts lift American spirits" being written on Sarah Palin's left hand constitutes a quote), followed by Bluff the Listener and a Listener Limerick Challenge.

Paula Poundstone, still sporting her signature triangular bob and menswear attire, was by far the most talkative and funniest panelist, whether explaining her PopTart eating regimen, launching into an examination on the historical accuracy of F Troop or explaining her ambivalence on 3-D movies ("I see in three dimensions all the time. It's not that big of a deal to me").

Bodett was witty, if not loquacious, while O'Connor salvaged a mediocre night with her final assertion that under the Washington snow we'll find "Judge Cramer, Sasquatch, Jimmy Hoffa and the Republican Health Care Plan." When in doubt, know your audience.

In the middle of all this, Parker took to the stage and gamely tried to extoll the merits of Houston, though her defending it as an arts town somehow turned into trying to explain the Art Car Parade (and the possibility of pulling up next to a giant chicken car year-round), topped in ridiculousness only by Parker's mention that Houston strippers are required to wear official identification at all times.

(The show featuring Parker will be broadcast on KUHF-FM (88.7) Saturday at 10 a.m. Another show to be taped Friday night featuring ZZ Top will be broadcast later in the year.)

What was surprising was the length—the production ran just under two hours. Also funny was how at times the cast onstage would respond to each other without eye contact or recognition, a quirk of hearing everyone's voices through your headsets, I presume. After the show, Sagal and company ran through a three-minute set of corrections of flubs and then took questions from the audience, including one that I was thinking.

When Carl Kasell leaves the outgoing message on your voicemail (the standard listener prize), what does he say? Turns out, he says whatever you want. They played one example, and having now found more hilarious gems on the NPR Web site, I now covet my own Kasell message.

Hearing yourself on the radio? Meh. Hearing Carl Kasell sing "What's New, Pussycat?" on your machine? Priceless.

unspecified

hoop it up

Houston festival hosts dramatic reading of basketball-inspired TV show

Photo by Trent Wittenbach

Hoopzdreams tells the story of a gifted, multiracial athelete.

This year’s Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF), which starts this Thursday, November 6, offers plenty of film screenings – both feature-length films and shorts – as well as panel discussions, Q&As, workshops, etc. But the fest will also have a staged reading of the TV pilot Hoopztown, this Saturday at 2 pm at Six Foot Studios.

Hoopztown centers around Maya Hernandez, a gifted, multiracial athlete on track to be considered for the inaugural WNBA in 1996. She moves back to her hometown of Houston, where it’s revealed that her mother, a janitor at Houston Medical Center, is diagnosed with cancer.

The project is created and written by Fleurette S. Fernando, an educator, director, choreographer, arts administrator, and founding director of the M.A. in Arts Leadership Program at University of Houston, where she serves as an associate professor. “I wrote this story for the women in my life; my mother, my sisters, my teachers, my colleagues, my girlfriends, my students and particularly for my daughter,” says Fernando. “Her journey as a student athlete and the relationships she built with the girls on her various teams through the turbulent and magical years of her youth was an inspiration.”

hoopztown Fleurette S. Fernando Elizabeth Sosa Bailey Collaborators Elizabeth Sosa Bailey and Fleurette S. Fernando.Courtesy of Elizabeth Sosa Bailey

Hoopztown has gone through multiple iterations. During the 2015 ATX TV Festival Pitch Competition, Fernando was a finalist for her concept of the project. From there, the pilot (originally titled Hoopz) and loglines for a 10-episode run were put into motion. That first episode, titled “Rebound,” focuses on Maya’s first day at her new job, coaching a girls’ basketball team at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school.

“Hoopztown is an ode to a woman’s journey through the lens of many races, ages and circumstances,” she says. “It’s a tribute to the underdog and a homage to a woman’s perilous path through a man’s world. Nowhere is this struggle more acutely demonstrated, mentally, emotionally, physically and economically, than in the arena of competitive sports in America.”

Since Fernando and her creative partner, Elizabeth Sosa Bailey, are both active members of

the Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) board, they knew they had to do a reading during this year’s fest.

“There is so much of myself that I see in this story, as someone who left a career to return home when my father was diagnosed with cancer and as a mixed race Latina understanding the duality of identity,” says Sosa Bailey. “Even the high school that Hoopztown is set in is much like my own. I attended Lamar High School, making me about a decade younger than the characters in the story. There are all of these wonderful little coincidences in Hoopztown.”

The project is a beneficiary of its second Houston Arts Alliance grant made possible through the

City of Houston Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs (MOCA). The reading cast includes over 20 actors, with Eva Marie Thomas playing the main role. Open to the public with a Pay What You Can ticket structure, the event invites the audience to experience the first run-through of what is slated to be the first episode, filmed in Houston using local cast and crew. The audience can also provide feedback and contribute to the project’s fundraising initiative to get to the next stage of filming.

For tickets, go to the Houston Cinema Arts Festival website.

performing-arts tv festivals