# Daniel Okrent

Top podcast episodes
Updated:

This Week on Broadway for July 5, 2026: Are You Now or Have You Ever Been, An American Docudrama @ New York City Center

Peter Filichia, James Marino, and Michael Portantiere review Are You Now or Have You Ever Been, An American Docudrama @ New York City Center, That Math Show @ Theater 555. We then talk about Michael’s production of 1776 at College of S.I. Center for the Arts and Ghostlight Players, as well as shows…

How Prohibition Backfired on America | Daniel Okrent

This is a Vintage episode from 2010. Why This Episode Matters How a freedom-loving nation came to outlaw the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol through a constitutional amendment. Why women’s suffrage, progressive reformers, wealthy industrialists and economic politics created unexpec…

Prohibition - Down and Out | 5

Closing Time by Daniel Francis provides a good account of the border wars and smuggling across the northern border. Robert Rockaway’s article “The Notorious Purple Gang” details the gang’s origin as well as the Cleaners and Dyers War.For information about the link between Prohibition and organized …

Prohibition - Drying Out | 2

When a German U-boat torpedoed the RMS Lusitania on Friday, May 7th, 1915, Americans found two new enemies: Germany and the beer it was so associated with. Anti-German sentiment grew, and with it hostility to the breweries founded in the 19th century by German immigrants. Soon, the war effort and t…

Prohibition - Closing Time | 1

On January 17, 1920, the United States passed the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, ushering in a 13-year dry spell known as Prohibition. But how did a country that loved to drink turn its back on alcohol? How did two-thirds of both the House and Senate and three-fourths of State legislatures …

Prohibition - Down and Out | 5

Closing Time by Daniel Francis provides a good account of the border wars and smuggling across the northern border. Robert Rockaway’s article “The Notorious Purple Gang” details the gang’s origin as well as the Cleaners and Dyers War.For information about the link between Prohibition and organized …

Prohibition - Drying Out | 2

When a German U-boat torpedoed the RMS Lusitania on Friday, May 7th, 1915, Americans found two new enemies: Germany and the beer it was so associated with. Anti-German sentiment grew, and with it hostility to the breweries founded in the 19th century by German immigrants. Soon, the war effort and t…

Prohibition - Closing Time | 1

On January 17, 1920, the United States passed the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, ushering in a 13-year dry spell known as Prohibition. But how did a country that loved to drink turn its back on alcohol? How did two-thirds of both the House and Senate and three-fourths of State legislatures …

Fern Shen

On this edition of What Are You Reading?, Host Tom Hall talks with Fern Shen, the Founder, Editor and Publisher of the Baltimore Brew. Fern is recommending: The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America b…

Art Isn’t Easy: revealing Stephen Sondheim through his music

Stephen Sondheim was the high priest of the modern musical, and almost five years on from his death, Daniel Okrent’s new biography Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn't Easy reveals probably more than the intensely private Sondheim would have liked. From the anger of Sweeney Todd, the struggle of the artist …