In episode 69 we spotlight the PBS Masterpiece series WOLF HALL: THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT, and a visit to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC for an exhibition, “How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition” curated by our podcast guest, Dr. Heather Wolfe Curator of Manuscripts for the Folger.

The 2024 film BLITZ, directed by Steve McQueen, which follows a nine-year-old biracial boy named George during World War II. The film explores George's journey in London and his encounters with racial hostilities. Guest Tré Ventour-Griffiths, a historian, discusses the portrayal of Black histories in the UK, particularly before, during and after World War II.

The Boston Sisters have selected BOYCOTT from their historical drama watchlist for a conversation about the film, the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the nuts and bolts that built a local movement that ended segregation on public transportation in Montgomery and nationwide.

In episode 66, The Boston Sisters (Michon and Taquiena) dive into the Tyler Perry film THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT with Brenda L. Moore, associate professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo and author of “To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II.” Both the book and film tell the story of the only Women’s Army Corps unit of color to serve overseas in World War Two and their extraordinary mission.

Part 2 of The Boston Sisters’s (Michon and Taquiena) conversation with award-winning poet, literary activist, and author E. Ethelbert Miller about A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, the Academy Award-nominated biopic about musician/songwriter Bob Dylan featuring Timothée Chalamet.

In episode 64, The Boston Sisters (Michon and Taquiena) are talking with award-winning poet, literary activist, and author E. Ethelbert Miller about A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, the biopic about musician/songwriter Bob Dylan featuring Timothée Chalamet, inspired by the book “Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties” by Elijah Wald. 

In Episode 63, filmmaker Billy Luther (Navajo, Hopi and Laguna Pueblo) takes us inside the writers room for the AMC series DARK WINDS. Billy is story editor, writer and director for the series based on the Leaphorn and Chee detective novels by Tony Hillerman set on the Navajo reservation.

Episode 62 features a conversation with Constanza Romero, widow of American playwright August Wilson and executive producer for THE PIANO LESSON based on Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play directed by Malcolm Washington and featuring John David Washington, Danielle Deadwyler, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Episode 61 features a conversation with Native American filmmaker Billy Luther about his 2023 feature film FRYBREAD FACE AND ME, a coming-of-age story. Two young cousins bond during a summer in 1990 with their Diné-speaking grandmother at her ranch on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.

Our annual PBS MASTERPIECE! preview with Executive Producer and Head of Scripted Content SUSANNE SIMPSON. Susanne spotlights two historical dramas from the new season premiering in 2025: WOLF HALL: THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT, based on the final Wolf Hall novel by Hilary Mantel; and MISS AUSTEN, based on the novel by Gill Hornby, premiering for the 250th anniversary year of author Jane Austen’s birth.

SHIRLEY, featuring Oscar winner Regina King as New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, tells the story of the first Black congresswoman and political icon and her trailblazing 1972 run for president of the United States. Our guest is Dr. Zinga A. Fraser, a foremost expert on Shirley Chisholm, Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism, and the historical consultant for the Netflix feature SHIRLEY. 

Podcast SEASON 4 PREMIERE - Episode 58 brings you a conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen, about the adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning espionage, thriller, cross-cultural satire The Sympathizer into an HBO miniseries. THE SYMPATHIZER is directed by Park Chan-wook featuring a Vietnamese cast -- Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Duy Nguyen; also featured are Robert Downey Jr., (in 4 roles) and Sandra Oh.

Episode 57 features a conversation with actor Rishi Nair who portrays Alphy Kottaram the new vicar in the PBS MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! GRANTCHESTER.

Episode 56 features a conversation with actor Ruth Gemmell, best known as Lady Violet Bridgerton in the BRIDGERTON series and its prequel QUEEN CHARLOTTE: A BRIDGERTON STORY from Shonda Rhimes’s Shondaland based on the Regency romance novels by Julia Quinn.

Episode 55 features a conversation with Damianne Scott “Dami,” creator of Black Girl Loves Jane about the Regency-era Shondaland series BRIDGERTON now in its 3rd season on Netflix. What would Jane Austen think about the people of the ton? Are we seeing a surge in new historical drama fans as a result of “The Bridgerton Effect”?

The Boston Sisters have selected 5 books for summer reading inspired by past episodes of the podcast since its launch in 2021. We’ve got your covered for historical drama for summer 2024.

The Boston Sisters take a deep dive into the series THE NEW LOOK. Not just a story about haute couture fashion by Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) and Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche), THE NEW LOOK is based on real-life events during World War II that include the impact of the 4-year Nazi occupation of France and the early months of Liberation on Paris’s community of designers, Resistance fighters, business owners, and everyday people struggling to survive.

We welcome back Ben Vanstone (ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL), showrunner and executive producer for the much-anticipate drama series, A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW an adaptation of author Amor Towles’s internationally best-selling novel of the same name. The series features Ewan McGregor as Count Alexandre Rostov, an aristocrat who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past has placed him on the wrong side of history.

Director Reinaldo Marcus Green talks about making BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE, starring Kingsley Ben-Adir as the Jamaican Reggae icon Bob Marley and Lashana Lynch as his wife, Rita Marley. BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE celebrates the life and music of Bob Marley who inspired generations through his message of love and unity. The film chronicles the reggae icon’s powerful story of overcoming adversity and the journey behind his revolutionary music.

It’s the 50th anniversary of the release of the 1974 film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’sTHE GREAT GATSBY. Author and scholar Emily Bernard from our PASSING conversation is back to explore the overlapping themes in this classic film directed by Jack Clayton, as well as the 2013 reimagining by Baz Luhrmann. THE GREAT GATSBY features Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby, Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway. The film is a window into the roaring 1920s and also a mirror on American social constructs for wealth, class, and illusion, as well as the destructive power to recapture the past.