Friday Mornings Become Eclectic on KUSC-FM

Today, with a trio of celebrity and author interviews, a report on a West Valley gallery exhibition on the Holocaust, news from Broadway and a smidgen of poetry, KUSC-FM (91.5) inaugurates “Live on Hope Street With Bonnie Grice,” an eclectic weekly arts and entertainment magazine program.

Oh, and it’ll have some music too.

The show, being billed by the station as the “first of its kind on public radio,” airs Fridays from 8:30 to 9 a.m.

Grice is deejay of KUSC’s weekday 7-10 a.m. music and interview program “Wake Up, L.A.!” On Fridays, Alan Chapman, chairman of the music department at Occidental, will host the hours surrounding Grice’s new show.

“Hope Street” is an outgrowth of Grice’s “Arts Live,” a one-hour program that began in October 1993 and lasted several months. The new version sports a faster pace, a catchier title, director-producer Karen Shearer, whose background is in rock and popular music--and a $275,000 underwriting grant from the James Irvine Foundation.

Asked to define “Hope Street,” Grice suggests with a laugh that “it’s actually going to define itself.” As an “arts and entertainment radio magazine,” it’s “going to include various reports from parts of the country and the world. We’ll also focus on L.A. initially, because it will be a local show to start out with.”

Grice, who came to KUSC in November 1989 from WKSU, the public station at Kent State University in Ohio, makes no bones about the fact that she would like to see her show go national on public radio. “That’s the dream,” she says.

“We want to focus on various aspects of the arts and music,” she adds. “I like to think of it as a show about popular culture throughout the centuries. From Beethoven to Boyz II Men.”

The show fits KUSC’s new format as “Classic 91.5.” The station shed its “new sound of classical music” moniker in January; for years it had been a traditional classical music station.

According to Stephen C. Lama, KUSC’s vice president of broadcasting, “Hope Street” has “the same approach as [Public Radio International’s] ‘Marketplace,’ which views the world through the perspective of business. ‘Hope Street does [it] by viewing the world through the perspective of the arts--all the arts--instead of speaking to a select group of arts devotees.”

Lama differentiates “Hope Street” from “Fresh Air With Terry Gross,” originating in Philadelphia and syndicated by National Public Radio, which airs at 7 p.m. weeknights on KPCC-FM ((89.3). “Fresh Air,” a Peabody Award-winning magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is “essentially a talk show,” he says.

“Hope Street” will report each week on the lead Billboard albums, from classical to new age, and on the New York Times bestsellers list. There will be “Bonnie Bullets,” Grice’s own picks of creative works. Another commentator will be California winemaker Gary Conway, who also plays the violin.

Today Grice interviews Dudley Moore about his upcoming performances at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center; Joan Baez, who, Grice notes, talks about “experiencing a renaissance in her life and music”; and Bette Bao Lord, author of the new novel “The Middle Heart.”

All of these have been taped already. But somewhere down the line, Grice says there will be live in-studio interviews. “That’s the plan.”