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.
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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.”
Ep. 63 - DARK WINDS: Inside the Writers Room with Billy Luther
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.
Ep. 62 - August Wilson’s Enduring Legacy in THE PIANO LESSON
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.
Ep. 61 - Finding Home in FRYBREAD FACE AND ME: A Conversation with Filmmaker Billy Luther
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.
Ep. 58 - THE SYMPATHIZER Thriller Confronts and Subverts Power - A Conversation with author Viet Thanh Nguyen
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.
Ep. 57 - In Conversation with Rishi Nair, the New Vicar of GRANTCHESTER
Episode 57 features a conversation with actor Rishi Nair who portrays Alphy Kottaram the new vicar in the PBS MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! GRANTCHESTER.
Ep. 56 - A Conversation with BRIDGERTON’s Lady Violet Bridgerton - Ruth Gemmell
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.
Ep. 55 - BRIDGERTON: What’s Jane [Austen] Got to Do With It?
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”?
Ep. 54 - PAGE TO SCREEN: Our 2024 Summer Reads from the Podcast
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ep. 49 - Unpacking PACHINKO: A Mother-Daughter Conversation
Episode 49 we talk about PACHINKO, the 2022 Apple TV+ series based on Min Jin Lee’s epic novel about 4 generations of Koreans from the early 1900s to the 1980s. Korean-adoptee and everything Korean blogger Kat Turner, and writer, artist, entrepreneur Taylor Turner for a mother-daughter conversation about PACHINKO
Ep. 48 - Charles H. Red Corn’s Novel Elevates Osage Culture in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Episode 48 features a conversation about the Martin Scorsese film KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON with Dr. Moira RedCorn and brother Yancey Red Corn, members of the Osage Nation. Yancey Red Corn appears in the Martin Scorsese film as Osage Chief Arthur Bonnicastle and Moira Red Corn was an extra in the film. Yancy and Moira’s father, the late Charles H. Red Corn authored the novel, A Pipe for February, released by the University of Oklahoma Press over 10 years before David Grann’s book Killers of the Flower Moon. Both books were optioned for the film which has received 10 Academy Award™ nominations.
Ep. 47 - RUSTIN: Unveiling Untold Stories, Reclaiming Hidden History
In Episode 47 we talkabout the biopic RUSTIN with Robert Raben, founder of the March On Washington Film Festival and The Raben Group, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm in Washington, DC. Featuring Academy Award™ nominated actor Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin, the film RUSTIN shines a long overdue spotlight on the extraordinary man who, alongside giants like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Ella Baker, dared to imagine a different world, and inspired a movement for freedom.
LIVE Podcast January 24th - Historical Drama Oscar® Nominees for 2023 + Our Reactions and Predictions
Join us! We're doing something a little different. Instead of dropping a new podcast on Tuesday, January 23rd, Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters’s will drop its first LIVE podcast on Wednesday January 24th! Register. Go to the page for more info.Register
Ep. 46 - Costumes That Bring History to Life: A Conversation with Costume Maker Eric Winterling
In Episode 46, we talk with Eric Winterling who realizes the costume designers’s vision for 2 historical dramas set in New York City: THE GILDED AGE and THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL. Eric’s New York City costume studio, Eric Winterling Inc., brings costume designers’s visions and history to life for stage and screen.
Ep. 45 - THE STING at 50: Reel to Real Cons and Scams
Episode 46 commemorates the 50th anniversary of THE STING, winner of 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay. Paul Newman and Robert Redford play two con men who team up to pull off the ultimate big con to swindle a ruthless crime boss. Our guest is veteran casino operator and author Geno Munari who shares behind-the-scenes stories of cons and scams in THE STING and real life.
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.
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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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.