Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters

— a podcast where we talk about historical drama series and films. Biopics, Adaptations, and Costume Dramas—stories that give us a window to the past, and a mirror of the present. Makers, writers and other guests join us in the conversation about what’s new in historical drama and what’s worth watching. Hosted by real-life sisters Michon and Taquiena Boston who binge on historical drama.

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  • Michon is a writer (New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, Washington CityPaper) and media impact producer who works with documentary and narrative films to raise awareness and inspire action on the critical concerns of our times. She is also a cultural historian, and walking tour guide who brings the history of DC’s jazz age and literary history to life. Michon is the author of “Iola’s Letter: The Memphis Crusade of Ida B. Wells,” a play about the anti-lynching newspaper woman and activist, Ida B. Wells. She is writing a play inspired by “The Three Musketeers” author Alexandre Dumas’s food writings. While a student at Oberlin College she received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to research the history of Black women who attended Oberlin in the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

Meet The Boston Sisters

Michon and Taquiena Boston are real-life sisters who grew up surrounded by history in Washington, DC, where their parents introduced them to movies and took them to museums as entertainment.

 

  • Taquiena Boston, a culture change strategist and coach, has earned theater degrees from Howard University and the University of Michigan. In addition to streaming and binge watching historical drama, Taquiena enjoys travel -- especially by train -- museums, fashion, reading food history and cookbooks, and cooking. Her interests and adventures are influenced by watching films about history and historical dramas, including a train ride she made from Paris to Venice on the refurbished Orient Express. She saved for the trip as a special birthday gift after seeing the film, “Murder on the Orient Express.”

Michon Boston Michon Boston

Ep. 59 - It’s a Monumental Time for SHIRLEY

SHIRLEY features 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. 

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Ep. 53 - THE NEW LOOK: A Deep Dive with The Boston Sisters

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.

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Ep. 52 - A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW: A Room of One’s Own, A Heart Full of Others

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.

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Ep. 51 - Interpreting a Legend - Bob Marley: ONE LOVE Director Reinaldo Marcus Green

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.

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Ep. 50 - THE GREAT GATSBY (1974) at 50: Love, Lies and the Illusion of the American Dream

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.

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Ep. 44 - A Culinary Journey with JULIA and Janet Cam

JULIA, based on the life of the "French Chef" star and cookbook author Julia Child, is back for a 2nd season on Max. Also back on the podcast is wine expert and restaurant strategist Janet Cam, co-founder of Washington, DC's storied Le Pavillon restaurant, the first nouvelle cuisine restaurant of its kind in the U.S. We talk about the challenges for Julia Child to recreate classic French dishes in the U.S., women in the culinary industry, and Julia and Janet's journeys and adventures through wine and food in the domestically and abroad.

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Ep. 43 - Separate and Elite Society in THE GILDED AGE

Carla L. Peterson is back! The author of the 2011 book “Black Gotham” that inspired the Scott family in HBO’s THE GILDED AGE joins us for a conversation on “taste” as a value reflected in the lives of 19th century Black middle class communities in Manhattan and Brooklyn. We also talk about the separate and elite lives of 19th century New York “old money,” “new money,” and the Black elite and how they’re interpreted for the 2nd season of THE GILDED AGE.

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Ep. 42 - “By Request” THE GREAT: Comedy & Joy of Food

Episode 42 features THE GREAT “by request” by podcast subscriber MARSHA WEINER and a conversation with SAM DIXON, food stylist for THE GREAT’s 2nd and 3rd seasons for a behind-the-scenes look at food in the satirical comic series about the rise of Catherine the Great.

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Ep. 38 - Sanditon Sisterhood’s Victory for Fandom

The Sanditon Sisterhood #SaveSanditon campaign helped renew SANDITON for 2 additional seasons after it was canceled in its 1st season by ITV in the UK before its U.S. premiere on PBS MASTERPIECE in 2020. The How did they do it? We talk with Juliet Creese and Moni Sengupta, part of the Sanditon Sisterhood Strategy Group about their experiences, the friendships that came out of the fandom campaign, and if fans got the Jane Austen ending they were hoping for?

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Ep. 35 - Pearl Mackie Reimagines Honour in TOM JONES

In Ep. 35 we’re talking with actress Pearl Mackie about the PBS MASTERPIECE mini series TOM JONES. Pearl Mackie plays Honour Newton, the worldly-wise trusted lady’s maid of Sophia Western (Sophie Wilde) in a 4-part reimagining of Henry Fielding’s comic novel, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, published in 1749.

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Ep. 19 - When Couture Goes Global - inspired by MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS

Episode 19 is devoted to fashion – past and present – inspired by the film MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS. Guest Shazia Saleem, fashion designer, sustainable fashion expert and founder of Pop London talks about luxury fashion and couture as a global phenomenon influenced by contemporary concerns about sustainability of people and planet; also how clothes help us recall special memories and can represent life changing adventures.

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Ep. 18 - ENDEAVOUR’s Hidden Grief

In season 8, of the PBS MASTERPIECE Mystery! series ENDEAVOUR, the year is 1971. We see the impact of events from season 7 where Endeavour Morse suffered a major loss that sets off a grieving process triggering self-doubt, alcohol abuse, and a cynic’s perspective that puts him at odds with his mentor, Fred Thursday. Preacher, teacher, counselor and activist Rev. Dr. Rob Hardies joins us for a conversation about the challenges of becoming an adult through Endeavour Morse's experiences. ENDEAVOUR is the prequel to the INSPECTOR MORSE television series inspired by characters in Colin Dexter’s detective novels.

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Ep. 16 - Mystery’s Moral Compass in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

It’s been said that murder mysteries satisfy our need to feel that there is justice in the world and a moral order, which is expressed in the character of Agatha Christie’s genius detective Hercule Poirot. But does solving the murder really close the case especially for Poirot’s conscience? In episode 16 The Boston Sisters talk about three film/tv movie adaptations of Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.

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Ep. 15 - BRIDGERTON Season 2: Marriage, Money, and the Sharma Family (Part 2)

Shondaland's Bridgerton (Netflix) presents a Regency Britain where people of diverse colors, races, and cultural backgrounds meet and mate through choreographed matchmaking in grand ballrooms and frollicking country estates of "the ton." Part 2 of our 2-part podcast about season 2 of Bridgerton and the entrance of the Sharma family from Bombay continues with special guest Durba Ghosh, professor of history at Cornell University and author of Sex and Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire.

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Ep. 14 - BRIDGERTON Season 2: Marriage, Sex, and the Sharma Family (Part 1)

Shondaland's Bridgerton (Netflix) presents a Regency Britain where people of diverse colors, races, and cultural backgrounds meet and mate through choreographed matchmaking in grand ballrooms and frollicking country estates of "the ton." Part 1 of our 2-part podcast about season 2 of Bridgerton and the entrance of the Sharma family from Bombay with special guest Durba Ghosh, professor of history at Cornell University and author of Sex and Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire.

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Ep. 13- SANDITON Regency Fiction and Racial History

Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters (ep. 3) Susanne Simpson, Executive Producer of the PBS drama series, MASTERPIECE, shares how this 50-year phenom is changing to bring more diversity to the stories, casts, and creative production of historical dramas, fiction adaptations, and mystery series set in the past with UK partners.

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Ep. 12 - What We Love About JULIA

HBO Max's JULIA is inspired by Julia Child's extraordinary life and her long running public television series, The French Chef, which pioneered the modern cooking show. In this podcast, The Boston Sisters riff on impressions of the HBO Max series and Julia Child's impact on American cooks, public television, and our own palates with restaurant consultant and wine expert, Janet Cam, who was the co-owner of America’s first nouvelle cuisine restaurant, Le Pavillon.

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Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters is brought to you by the Michon Boston Group Ltd. The views and opinions expressed on Historical Drama with the Boston Sisters are those of the speakers and do not represent the positions or views of the Michon Boston Group, its clients, or affiliates.