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    New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts is the premier venue for the presentation of cultural and performing arts events for NYU and lower Manhattan. Since opening in 2003, the 860-seat Skirball Center has been an educational and community building resource, providing NYU's first large-scale, professional performance space on campus. Through university events, presentations, and partnerships, the Skirball Center offers a unique multi-arts performance program in its intimate proscenium theater located on the south of Washington Square in the heart of Greenwich Village.

Michael Harrington is the Executive Director of the Skirball Center and he joins us to talk about the goals of the venue, past presentations, and their annual Visions + Voices Global Performance Series.

    In The Invention of Wings, Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid.

**Audio to come**

miSci is Schenectady NY’s Museum of Innovation and Science. You can escape winter’s seemingly never-ending chill and discover hundreds of brilliantly colored native butterflies at miSci’s new indoor butterfly house which is open through April 19th.

Dr. Mac Sudduth is miSci’s Executive Director and he joins us to talk about the Butterfly House and other goings-on at miSci.

We are also joined by Dr. Radislav Potyrailo a Principal Scientist in Chemistry & Chemical Engineering for GE Global Research. Tonight, he will be giving a lecture at miSci entitled Learning from Nature: Advancing Technologies from Biomimicry to Biomimetics and to Bioinspiration. He’s going to tell us a bit about sensors that were inspired by the iridescent scales of the Morpho butterfly wings.

About half of those charged in connection with a series of pre-St. Patrick's Day parties at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst last weekend were not students at the school.

The Republican newspaper of Springfield cross-referenced the list of those either arrested or issued a court summons against the student directory, and less than half attend UMass. One UMass employee was also charged.

Massachusetts is defending its heavily criticized process for selecting companies to run medical marijuana dispensaries.

    What happens to a Congressperson’s perspective once reelection is off the table?

In today’s Congressional Corner, New York Congressman Bill Owens tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock the answer to that question.

**Audio to come**

 Two-time Tony Award winner Judy Kaye performs a solo cabaret act at Helsinki Hudson next Saturday on March 22nd in an event entitled: An Evening With Lenny & Steve – featuring the music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

Kaye recently performed on Broadway in Nice Work If You Can Get It. Her previous Broadway credits include The Phantom of the Opera, Grease, Ragtime and Souvenir. Her stage experience also includes leading opera roles with companies such as The Santa Fe Opera.

  Scott Meyer joins us from Merritt Bookstore with this week's Book Picks list.

Loud Awake and Lost by Adele Griffin
The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin
The Martian by Andy Weir
Who Discovered America?: The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas by Gavin Menzies
All the Time in the World: A Book of Hours by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

New York State Senate Republicans say they will break a longstanding tradition of boycotting the election of new Regents. They now say they will attend a joint legislative session, and that many will vote no over dissatisfaction with the Common Core.  It’s uncertain whether all four of the incumbent Regents members will be reelected. 

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, WAMC’s Ray Graf and University at Albany Journalism Professor and Investigative Reporter, Rosemary Armao.

Topics include:
Malaysian Jet
Ukraine Update
GM Vehicle Fault
Chuck and Lamar
Lanza'a Father speaks to The New Yorker