Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen on KUER 1 high band

This week in Studio 360, sleight of hand and other complicated tricks. Alan Cumming plays nearly every role in Macbeth. Magician David Kwong explains how he schooled Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson in magic for a new film, and plays a trick that leaves Kurt dumbfounded. Artist Sarah Sze takes over a building with her weird sci-fi structures. And we ask Alex Ross (The Rest Is Noise) if it will ever be safe to love Richard Wagner.

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.