Callie Crossley and Eric Jackson to Speak at Huntington Theatre Co's 'WGBH Day,' 3/24

In conjunction with the Huntington Theatre Company's production of Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson's first Broadway hit, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, WGBH 89.7 FM's "Jazz with Eric in the Evening" host Eric Jackson and "The Callie Crossley Show" host Callie Crossley will discuss the social and musical history depicted in the play in a post-show conversation on Saturday, March 24 immediately following the 2pm performance. 

Eric Jackson's signature program, Jazz on WGBH with Eric Jackson, is celebrating its 31^st year as a popular staple in the 89.7 WGBH roster. He has been recognized by the Massachusetts College of Art as one of the "100 most culturally influential Bostonians of the 20^th century" and by The Berklee College of Music for "advancing careers in music." Jackson has conducted approximately 3,000 interviews with music greats ranging from Wynton Marsalis to Ornette Coleman to Dizzy Gillespie. Countless music writers and event producers routinely call upon him for inspiration and direction on their projects. He has lectured at Simmons and Wheelock Colleges and is currently a member of the Northeastern University faculty. In 2010, Jackson contributed a chapter in the Leonard Brown book John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom. 

Callie Crossley is host of "The Callie Crossley Show" on 89.7 WGBH. She has been an award winning broadcast journalist, a documentary filmmaker, and a television and radio commentator. In addition to her radio program, Crossley offers regular commentary on media for "Beat the Press," which airs on Boston based WGBH-TV, and for FOX25 TV's "Morning News Show." She appears occasionally on national news and information programs including CNN's "Reliable Sources," "The PBS News Hour," and "The Takeaway," and is a regular contributor to "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin. She is a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, guest lecturing at colleges and universities about the collision of old and new media, media and politics, media literacy, and the intersection of race, gender and media. She produced the Oscar-nominated hour of the acclaimed documentary series, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954-1965. Crossley has won major film and television awards, including a national Emmy, a Peabody, a Christopher, an Edward R. Murrow award, and the top Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia award (Gold Baton), considered the Pulitzer Prize of broadcast journalism. 

In Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, a quartet of blues musicians gather in a run-down 1920s Chicago studio waiting for legendary blues singer Ma Rainey to arrive to record new sides of her old favorites. Young, hotheaded trumpeter Levee aspires to a better life for himself and sees the emerging form of the blues as his ticket to fame and fortune. When he clashes with veteran musicians Toledo and Cutler and Ma Rainey spars with her white music producers, generational and racial tensions explode.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom plays now through April 8 at the BU Theatre / Avenue of the Arts. Tickets and information at huntingtontheatre.org or617 266 0800.

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