NARRATOR (WARM, LOW):Welcome to Celebrate Creativity…and Conversations with Toys.  This episode is VIEW-MASTER: CLICK INTO WONDER.This podcast is a dramatization that blends historical research with fiction, satire, and ...

NIGHT WATCHMAN (reading):“Betsy Wetsy. Vintage baby doll.A ‘practice baby’—a caretaking toy reflecting changing ideas about childhood play and domestic life…”NARRATOR:He pauses, as if the next line might argue back.

The alphabet blocks are gathered around the bobble head figure of Edgar Allan Poe - complete with Raven.  The alphabet blocks seem to be fascinated by Mr.Poe’s use of language and are clearly intrigued by his words until the night watch...

Tonight we leave the playhouse wing and walk—quietly—into a different kind of stage: a mirrored room, a window, and a tube of glass and brass pointed at the sky. Because when Edgar Allan Poe looks up, he doesn’t just want ...

NARRATOR / NIGHT WATCHMAN (gentle, amused):It’s amazing what feels different in a museum at midnight.In the daytime, the lights are bright, the brochures are tidy, the gift shop is cheerful……but when the doors are locked and the ...

NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING)Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys,our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museumof Toys and Childhood Artifacts—where the lights are low,the alarms are set,and word...

Shakespeare  Hello Mr. Smith. This is William Shakespeare the action figure, and I would be most remiss if I did not continue my narrative regarding my education in Stratford. You see, like many boys of my station, I probably attend...

Night watchmanI must admit that my first impression of the William Shakespeare action figure was - what is all the big deal.  I even have a background in Shakespeare acting - though I don't have a job with that training. But if you ...

NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING)Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys,our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museumof Toys and Childhood Artifacts—where the lights are low let's get the disclaimer out of the...

NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING)Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys,our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museumof Toys and Childhood Artifacts—where the lights are low let's get the disclaimer out of the...

NARRATOR (GEORGE):The Toy Museum isn’t all hard plastic and sharp corners.Some shelves are quieter.Softer.Places where the edges give wayand the labels blur a little.Tonight, the Night Watchman has wandered away

NARRATOR (GEORGE):The Toy Museum remembers everything.It remembers the first teddy bear sewn by an immigrant.It remembers Barbie striking a pose at a 1959 toy fair.It remembers dragon trucks that eat carsand tiny supermar...

The Toy Museum has its own kind of gravity.Once you’ve visited a shelf, it tugs at you.Tonight, the Night Watchman finds himselfback in the Barbie gallery.Same pink glow.Same tiny shoes.But the spotlight is di...

NARRATOR (GEORGE):The Toy Museum never really sleeps.It sighs. It settles. It adjusts its labels.But somewhere, between the glass cases and the security cameras, the night gets… strange.Previously, the Night Watchman met ...

NARRATOR (GEORGE):The Toy Museum KNOWS how to roar.It has dragons that eat cars,tiny metal racers that dare gravity,and shelves of toys that glow and beep and shout.But sometimes,the museum does something much qui...

NARRATOR (GEORGE):The Toy Museum has currents, like an ocean.Soft shelves, hard shelves, loud shelves, quiet ones.Last night, the Night Watchman nearly fell asleepleaning against a Squishmallow—no-questions-asked soft...

NARRATOR (GEORGE):The Toy Museum has its quiet corners—where Squishmallows wait to be hugged,and where a teddy bear smells like home.Tonight is not one of those corners.Tonight, the Night Watchmanhas wandered ...

Ebenezer is back.This is the second night for Ebeneezer Smith as the new night watchmen at the Metropolitan Museum of toys and childhood artifacts KEY in lock. DOOR opening.]EBENEZER (muttering to himself):Well, I’m here....

Hello my name is Ebeneezer SmithThank you for staying with me.(mutters to himself)All right. Let’s see what kind of neighbors I’ve got.There is a set of plastic building bricks.There is a board game whose box I remember argui...

Our story tonight doesn’t start in a toy store.No bright aisles.No sales.No blinking “Buy One, Get One Free” signs.Instead, we begin on a quiet city street, just after closing time, in front of an old stone building most peop...

Now today’s episode is a little different.Usually, we spend our time tracking the lives of composers, musicians, and artists—people whose names end up in history books, or on album covers, or carved into theater walls. We talk about ...

In this series, we’ve been spending time with artists who didn’t just make hits — they rewired popular music itself.Some of them crashed.Some of them burned out.Some of them never got old enough to figure out who they might h...

Today, we’re going to spend some time with a figure who shaped pop music, dance, music videos, and the idea of celebrity itself—only to become a tragic warning about what happens when that level of fame collides with a fragile human body and...

Today, I want to put two lives—and two mythologies—side by side. Not as gossip. Not as tabloid spectacle. As a question:What happens when two Black artists rise from a Houston salon and a Brooklyn housing project to a place where the...

In this current series, we’ve been living in the neighborhood of giants—artists who didn’t just have hits, but re-wired what popular music could be.Today… someone different again.A man who refused categories, ignored rules, b...