Studio 360

This week, two unique theater events. Kurt Andersen talks with Alex Timbers, director of a new musical about Imelda Marcos — part history lesson, part disco dance party, but no shoe jokes. A Deaf actor performing in a signed version of a Harold Pinter play explains why on stage, actors’ voices are just a distraction from actual performance. Brazilian cellist Dom La Nena performs live. And Kurt makes small talk at the deathbed of network TV.

This week in Studio 360, two takes on motherhood. In Isabella Rossellini’s new series of web videos, she acts out unusual childrearing strategies — abandonment, cannibalism — in the animal kingdom. And a listener explains how Mary Karr taught her what she needed to know about having a teenage boy. Plus, a physicist finds beauty in the race to find dark matter, and musician Marques Toliver finds the common ground between Quincy Jones and J.S. Bach.