The Quarantine Tapes: A week-day program from Onassis LA and dublab. Hosted by Paul Holdengräber, the series chronicles shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Paul calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic.

Missed the 9:30AM broadcast of The Quarantine Tapes? Listen back at 10AM on Simplecast.

On episode 185 of The Quarantine Tapes, guest host Naomi Shihab Nye returns for a conversation with actress Debra Winger. Speaking from rural New York, Debra tells Naomi about the places she has spent the past year. They talk about her unique experience of traveling to New Zealand for work and undergoing both the harsh quarantine and the freedom of emerging into a place without COVID.

Debra and Naomi have a remarkable and honest conversation about their experiences of the past year. Debra talks about the challenges of starting and not finishing tasks in this time and her desire to go forwards instead of returning back to before. Then, Debra and Naomi speak movingly about loss in the past year and beyond, with Debra sharing her experiences of what it means to gain the whole of a relationship when you lose someone.

Debra Winger is an actress best known for her Academy Award-winning roles in Shadowlands, An Officer and a Gentleman, and Terms of Endearment, but it was her co-starring role with John Travolta in Urban Cowboy that brought her to the world’s attention. She has appeared in several plays at the A.R.T. has toured with Michael Tilson-Thomas and the New World Symphony and received a fellowship at Harvard University with Dr. Robert Coles – teaching The Literature of Social Reflection. She starred in a season of HBO’s series In Treatment and was nominated for an Independent Spirit award for Best Actress in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married. She made her Broadway debut in 2012, starring in David Mamet’s play The Anarchist. She co-produced the documentary Gasland which was nominated for an Academy Award and helped to ban hydro-fracking in the state of New York.

Naomi Shihab Nye is the Young People’s Poet Laureate (Poetry Foundation), the Poetry Editor for the New York Times Magazine, on faculty at Texas State University, and author or editor of more than 30 books. She was selected by the National Book Critics Circle to receive the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, 2020.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This podcast can be subscribed to on apple podcasts, simplecast, spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. For more podcasts produced by dublab, check out dublab.com/podcasts.