Terry Gross

3) The late choreographer Michael Bennett, creator of "A Chorus Line." (rebroadcast from 1/7/86)
4) Broadway Producer Cy Feuer. He co-produced the original "Guys & Dolls" on Broadway, which is currently being revived on Broadway. Feuer produced 11 Broadway musicals with producer Ernest Martin, including "Can-Can," "The Boyfriend," and "Silk Stockings." They also produced the film versions of "Cabaret," and "A Chorus Line." (REBROADCAST FROM 8/5/92).

Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. He was the first African to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature (in 1986), and he's been called Africa's "finest writers." He is a dramatist, poet, novelist, critic, and political writer. Some of his works have been banned by Nigerian regimes. He's gone into exile several times and has been imprisoned for political protests. He's written 21 books, including "Myth, Literature, and the African World," and his autobiography, "Ake': The Years of Childhood." (Ventura books).

Today's first half is about children who are orphaned after losing their parents to AIDS. Studies estimate that by the year 2000, up to 125,000 U.S. children will be left parentless because of the fatal illness. AIDS workers are now beginning to realize their next step is to help these secondary victims by providing homes, food and counseling. We interview two people on the subject; a single mother with AIDS, and the head of a project designed to address the needs of orphaned kids:

Creator and CEO of the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN), Brian Lamb. He launched the network in 1979 because he felt society was being treated unfairly by television news. He wanted to broadcast information from beginning to end, so that audiences could get a full picture of what transpired, and not just pieces of it. The channel provides hours of footage of the U.S. Congress and its committees, party conventions, and provided sprawling coverage of the Presidential campaign -- all without commentary or editing.

Anthropologist Elliot Liebow. He is the author of the classic 1967 study "Tally's Corner," a look at African-American street corner life. The bestseller was Liebow's doctoral dissertation, and it's still used by many college students. His new work, the first he's published in over twenty years, is called "Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women."(Free Press/Macmillan). He investigates the patterns and routines of homeless women around Washington, D.C.

Novelist Joyce Carol Oates. The prolific writer has penned 23 novels, in addition to plays, poems, short stories and criticism. Her new novel is called "Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang,"(Dutton) about a group of high school girls who form a violent gang in upstate New York during the Fifties. Their mission is violence against men. Oates is a professor of humanities at Princeton University. Her previous book is the critically acclaimed "Black Water," nominated for the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Performer, comic and writer Sandra Bernhard. Some know her from her role in the ABC sitcom "Roseanne;" she also had a successful one-woman off-Broadway show called "Without You I'm Nothing," which was turned into a film and album of the same name. Her HBO special last year, "Sandra After Dark," satirized the old "Playboy After Dark" variety show. She appeared in Martin Scorsese's "King of Comedy," among other feature films. She was also linked as a possible love interest to Madonna.

Dr. Kevin Cahill. He specializes in tropical medicine, and he looks at the role of health in promoting world peace. He is President and Director of the Center for International Health and Cooperation in New york. His work looking at health amid natural disasters and wars has taken him all over the world, from Nicaragua in the 70s to Somalia today. He is the author or editor of 22 books.

Founder of the anti-abortion group, "Operation Rescue," Randall Terry. Recently, his group tried to stop abortions by blocking access to clinics in seven cities across the United States, including Philadelphia. Terry also has a new book, "Why does a nice guy like me keep getting thrown in jail?" (Huntington House Pub., Lafayette, LA; Resistance Press, Windsor, N.Y.) (REBROADCAST. Originally aired 7/20/93.)

Poet, writer, and teacher Nancy Mairs. She's a Catholic feminist, who started out Protestant, and who late in life became a feminist. She calls herself, "the connoisseur of catastrophe." She's known for writing honestly about her struggles with multiple sclerosis, depression, and the life-threatening illness of her husband, also about being a woman, a mother, and a wife. Her newest book of personal essays is "Ordinary Time," (Beacon). One reviewer calls it, "a small miracle of honesty mediated by dignity and humor." (REBROADCAST.