Storybeat with Steve Cuden

Wayne Byrne is an acclaimed author and film historian from Ireland. He started his career working for local County Kildare newspapers before being invited to write for the iconic Irish pop culture bible Hot Press Magazine as a music, book, and restaurant critic. 

            His debut book, The Cinema of Tom DiCillo: Include Me Out, was released in 2018.  Wayne followed it with well-received works on subjects like Burt Reynolds, cin...

Jeff Harnar is an award-winning cabaret, concert and recording artist. His Carnegie Hall appearances include both the Cole Porter and Noël Coward Centennial Galas. 

Jeff’s televised PBS concerts include: The 1959 Broadway Songbook with music director Alex Rybeck, as well as American Songbook: Stephen Sondheim co-starring KT Sullivan, and Michael Feinstein’s Live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. 

Jeff also toured with Broadwa...

Producer-Director Casey Childs founded Primary Stages, a leading New York City Off-Broadway theater, in 1984. Primary Stages has produced over 175 new plays, giving playwrights the opportunities to see their new works staged, including: Christopher Durang, Tina Howe, John Patrick Shanley, Lee Blessing, David Ives, Donald Margulies, Theresa Rebeck, and A.R. Gurney among many others. Casey directed many of those productions for the c...

The novelist Monte Schulz released his first novel, Down by the River, in 1990. He then spent more than twelve years writing the Jazz Age-based novel, Crossing Eden, for his father, the late, extraordinarily influential cartoonist, the creator of Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz. The book was initially released in three smaller volumes called This Side of Jordan, The Last Rose of Summer, and The Big Town.

            Monte’s latest novel,...

Donna Loughlin is the Founder of LMGPR and known for her work with futurists and innovators. Since forming her agency in 2002, she’s launched more than 500 companies, taking them from stealth to market leaders.

            Donna excels in the realm of storytelling and uses those skills to propel new companies into the mainstream. 

            She is also the host of BeforeItHappened, a leading narrative podcast featuring visionaries ...

Callum Woodhouse is a brilliant stage and screen actor originally from Durham, England. You may recognize Callum from playing Leslie Durrell in ITV’s much-loved series The Durrells. He’s also starred as Tristan Farnon in the Masterpiece TV adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small, and as James Marsden in series 6 and 8 of ITV’s beloved British comedy-drama Cold Feet, starring alongside James Nesbitt, Fay Ripley, Robert Bathurst,...

The actor, director, teacher, and author, John Shepard, began his professional career at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he was a company member for 4 seasons. Subsequently moving to New York, he worked in regional theatres like The Long Wharf, Yale Rep, Barter Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and many others. Off Broadway, he performed at The Manhattan Theatre Club, Soho Rep, The Public Theatre, Lamb’s Theatre, and oth...

Melanie Zanetti, is an award-winning Australian actress of both stage and screen, who divides her time between Australia and the United States.         Melanie voices the role of Chilli, in the popular, internationally renowned, Emmy Award winning animation series, Bluey. 

Her most recent feature films include Raven’s Hollow, which was written and directed by Christopher Hatton, who has been a guest on StoryBeat, Gabriel’s Rapture, ...

Robert Crane is the co-author of eleven books including Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder, My Life as a Mankiewicz, Bruce Dern: A Memoir, and Jack Nicholson: The Early Years. 

He contributed a short story called Wingding to the recently published story collection, Beyond Where the Buses Run: Stories. Robert is also the co-writer of Hostage for a Day, a Fox Television film directed by John Candy. A...

Michael Elias is an award-winning writer, actor and director who’s written film, television, theatre and fiction.

            His new novel, You Can Go Home Now, is a timely and thoroughly entertaining psychological thriller featuring a female cop on the hunt for a killer while battling violent secrets of her own.  I’ve read You Can Go Home Now and can tell you it’s a deeply engaging mystery with a lot of heart. Michael is also the ...

          George Stevens, Jr. has crafted an extraordinary creative legacy over a career spanning more than 60 years as a screenwriter, director, producer, playwright and author. He’s enriched the film and television arts as a filmmaker and is widely credited with bringing style and taste to the high-profile, national television events that he has conceived. In doing so he’s lived one of the most profoundly influential American liv...

            Ken Fallin began his career creating witty pen and ink caricatures for the long-running satirical revue, “Forbidden Broadway”.  Intended as an homage to the legendary theatrical caricaturist, Al Hirschfeld, this concept was so successful that Ken continued to design artwork for the show’s phenomenal thirty-year run.

            Ken’s instantly recognizable, intricately detailed pen and ink celebrity portraits have been p...

            Director-producer-author, Sheldon Epps has directed major productions on and off Broadway, in London and at many theatres across America. He’s also had an active television career helming numerous classic shows of recent years.            

            Sheldon was first drawn to the stage while at Teaneck High School, and later graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Drama. 

            He began his care...

Andrew Conte serves as the founding director of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University.  He writes the Pittsburgh Public Editor column at NEXTpittsburgh. And he was an investigative reporter at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, where he won numerous national, state and local awards. 

Andrew has published several books, including Death of the Daily News, released in September, 2022, Breakaway, and The Color of Sundays,...

Robert Kosberg is best known in Hollywood as, “The King of the Pitch,” for his ability to sell movie and TV stories to producers. 

After graduating from UCLA’s film program, Bob took a succession of minor entertainment industry jobs, while also writing scripts. He then moved to New York to work for a producer, where he found the time to look for his own material. He found a true story and was able to option it. 

Upon later returning ...

Jimmy Ryan has been Carly Simon’s guitarist since the 1970s. He’s an American artist, composer, producer, and author with a career that has spanned six decades. Beginning at seventeen, he and his college band, The Critters, had their first top forty hit, “Younger Girl,” which was followed by three charting albums and two more top forty hits, “Mr. Dieingly Sad” and “Don’t Let The Rain Fall Down on Me.”

In 1970, Jimmy’s friend, Carly ...

Peter Smith and Laura Smith are co-authors of the book, “My Travels Through the Maelstrom of Punk Rock.”

Peter is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Sunderland, in the United Kingdom. Though paralyzed from the neck down, Peter continues teaching students online, while researching and writing about a number of subjects. He recently published articles and books on topics related to disability, postgraduate education, and rock ...

Leigh Marz is a co-author with Justin Zorn of the brilliant book called Golden, The Power of Silence in a World of Noise. Golden is a deeply researched, eye-opening revelation about just how important silence is, how much our world is currently lacking it, and ways to achieve silence that will enrich all of our lives. 

Leigh is a leadership and collaboration consultant with organizations including Harvard, Google, and IKEA, and she’...

David McGiffert was First Assistant Director on close to 50 feature films including: all three of the Back to the Future films, Rain Man, Batman Returns, Tootsie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Fisher King, Absence of Malice, Witness, The Firm, Vanilla Sky, King Kong, An Officer and a Gentleman and dozens of others. 

David began working in film in 1969 when a friend offered him a job as the second assistant director on a movie he was...