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.”

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Ep. 21 - Searching for Healing in THE WOMAN KING

We take a deep dive into The Woman King with depth psychologist, media scholar, and writer Sharon D. Johnson, Ph.D. The Women King, is the remarkable story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen.

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Ep. 20 - Chosen Family in A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

A League of Their Own, co-created by Abbi Jacobson (who plays Carson Shaw in the Amazon Prime series), and Will Graham, is inspired by the 1992 film directed by Penny Marshall, and the untold stories of Black women baseball players, and Latina and queer women who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) in the 1940s. We talk with author and poet Toni Asante Lightfoot about the character Max Chapman (Chanté Adams), an African American player from Rockford (home of the Rockford Peaches), who is turned away from the AAGPBL tryouts because of her race. With the support of her family including her trans uncle Bertie, best friend Clance, and the African American community, Max must forge her own way to play the game she loves in a segregated world.

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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. 17 - MR. SUNSHINE: K-Drama’s Binge-Worthy Epic

The award-winning K-drama MR. SUNSHINE was released in 2018 and became the 6th highest ranking drama in South Korean cable history, and is still trending on Netflix in the US and around the globe. What makes MR. SUNSHINE a binge-worthy epic? Why are audiences outside South Korea connecting with this historical drama of love, revenge, and revolution. K-Drama blogger Kat Turner shares some insights on the MR. SUNSHINE and recent K-Drama phenomenon.

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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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Ep. 11 - SANDITON’s Crystal Clarke: Becoming Georgiana Lambe

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. 10 - The Godfather at 50

It was 50 years ago in March 1972 whenThe Godfather had its world premiere in New York City. We talk with Dan Moldea, an investigative journalist who specializes in organized crime about his work and the cultural impact of The Godfather film on real life and crime movies. And, inspired by one of the film’s most quoted lines, we’ve added a Special Edition: a conversation with Eater DC’s senior associate editor Tierney Plumb on where to find the best cannolis.

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Ep. 8 - JULIE DASH: Women of the Movement and Other Untold Stories

Filmmaker and award-winning director, JULIE DASH directed two episodes in the recent ABC limited series Women of the Movement about Mamie Till Mobley’s attempts to get justice for the brutal murder of her 14-year old son Emmett Till in the Jim Crow South of 1955.

We will talk with Julie Dash about Her film and television work in historical drama, including Women of the Movement; the influence of Black women writers and cultural workers in her creative work; and the impact of bringing untold stories from history to the screen, particularly how we believe and remember history.

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Ep. 7 - CHADWICK BOSEMAN: History x Purpose = Destiny

The artistic journey of Chadwick Boseman, best known for the iconic role T’Challah/Black Panther in the Marvel Universe films. The Boston Sisters talk with professor Vera J. Katz and classmate, director/playwright Psalmayene 24 about Boseman’s formation as a directing student at Howard University, his work creating hip hop theater with Howard classmates, and finally how his performance as Levee Green in the film adaptation of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom brings Chadwick Boseman’s artistic journey full circle.

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Ep. 6 - Mary Poppins, the Disruptor

Mary Poppins, who flew from the London skies into the lives of the Banks family, was the kind of disruption this family needed. We revisit the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins with coach and speaker Pete Cohen for a conversation on how disruptors like Mary Poppins can be motivational and help us grow.

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Ep. 5 - Moving Beyond WEST SIDE STORY

The release of a new film production of West Side Story (directed by Steven Spielberg) sparked this conversation with Felix Sanchez, founder and co-chair of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, about representation of Latinos in film and dramatic series.

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Ep. 4 - A Charles Dickens CHRISTMAS CAROL Reinvented

In this episode co-hosts Michon and Taquiena talk about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, based on the 2019 FX reinterpretation of Dickens’ iconic story. And The Man Who Invented Christmas, which was adapted from Les Standiford’s biographical book of the same title.

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Ep. 3 - PBS MASTERPIECE: Conversation with Executive Producer Susanne Simpson

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. 2 - “Passing”

Emily Bernard (American literature scholar and author) dives into Passing, the Rebecca Hall (Netflix) film based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, and talks about how the characters Clare Kendra’s and Irene Redfield’s struggles for identity and belonging mirror tensions about race, class, and sex that continue today. “Passing”features Ruth Negga (as Clare Kendra), Tessa Thompson (Irene Redfield). Available on Netflix.

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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.