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January 6, 2013 WBURThe experimental Swiss mime troupe took Broadway by storm in the 1970s. Now the masked performers are bringing their hard-to-describe characters back to the U.S. for a five-month national tour celebrating the troupe's 40th anniversary.

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December 21, 2012 With hordes of tourists descending on New York for the Christmas season, Broadway is looking to turn a profit — by staging limited-run holiday musicals like A Christmas Story and Elf. But with production costs so high, how can these shows make money back? The answer, it turns out, is complicated.

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December 6, 2012 NPR's Michel Martin speaks with actor Larry Marshall and playwright Cheryl West about Pullman Porter Blues, a play that tells the story of three generations of African-American railway porters in 1937.

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December 1, 2012 After 35 years and 186 artists, only two honorees have been Hispanic — Placido Domingo in 2000 and Chita Rivera in 2002. "When you paint that picture and you leave the Latino artist community out of it, there's a huge hole," says Felix Sanchez, president of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.

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November 30, 2012 Peony Pavilion is one of China's most famous operas, but uncut performances of this romantic 16th century work can take more than 22 hours. An adapted version of the dream-like opera will take place at the Metropolitan Museum.

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November 27, 2012 The old organ was in bad shape and beyond repair. Now, after more than two years of construction and installation, a new organ has arrived and will make its debut on Nov. 27.

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November 24, 2012 Her highness — known outside the big dress as Mary Alice LeGrow — is a professional party princess. She uses her best princess voice and dresses up in full regalia to charm children. But life in the kingdom isn't all candy and sugarplums; it takes a lot of muscle to be a princess.

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November 8, 2012 A repurposed robot prototype named KUKA, originally designed by the auto industry, is the breakout star of Sans Objet, a performance piece making its debut in the U.S. this month. Randy Gener describes the rewards — and the challenges — involved in working with a nearly 3,000-pound diva.

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November 1, 2012 New York's theater workers mobilized to get their shows back up and running by Wednesday. But with no trains, very few buses and massive traffic jams, the commute wasn't easy. One actress had to walk about two hours to Manhattan from her home in Queens.

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October 28, 2012 A much-anticipated revival of The Heiress, a 1947 play based on the Henry James novella Washington Square, opens in New York on Thursday. It marks the Broadway debut of two young stars — Jessica Chastain, the Academy Award nominee from The Help, and Dan Stevens from the hit series Downton Abbey.

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On Weekend Edition SundayPlaylist