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Williamstown Theatre Festival in western Massachusetts offers a summer program that has been called "theater boot camp." British-trained actor Roger Rees is the company's new artistic director.

The young singer, part of a wave of British female pop stars finding success in the U.S., has been compared to Dusty Springfield and sparked rumors that her father is fellow Wales native Tom Jones. She talks about the tiny town where she grew up, and recording her first demos on a karaoke machine.

The singer and songwriter's new double album, High Wide and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, is a tribute to the old-time country banjo player who died in 1931.

Last November, for the first time in his career, Morrison revisited his second album, Astral Weeks, in concert. The result, Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl, arrives this week, offering a fresh take on one of the key recordings in late '60s rock.

Washburn almost left the U.S. for China, where she'd planned to spend the rest of her days practicing law. As luck would have it, though, her growing fascination with learning the banjo led her to an unlikely recording career. Washburn's new album is titled City of Refuge.

Hamburg-born Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles in 1960, before they were famous. She took some of the earliest photographs of the group and was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bassist, before he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.

Instead of adding hot water to brown dust with freeze-dried marshmallows, NPR's Steve Inskeep decided to learn how to do hot chocolate right. Pastry chef David Guas walks Inskeep through his recipe for Mexican hot chocolate, which features vanilla beans, almond extract and cinnamon.

Mad cow disease and related illness are thought to be spread by an infectious protein, not a germ. But some prominent scientists don't agree. NPR's Richard Harris travels to a National Institutes of Health lab in Montana, where a group of scientists have been trying for several decades to get to the bottom of brain-wasting diseases.

Spindle, a sculpture that features eight cars impaled on a 50-foot spike, gained worldwide exposure in Wayne's World. It is slated for removal in order to make way for a Walgreens in Berwyn, Ill. Dustin Shuler, the sculptor, talks about his work and the controversy.

When it comes to awards in theater or television or dance or literature, Frank Deford observes, candidates don't worry about losing out because of a personal flaw. Only sports applies that off-the-field standard.