Rock star marries the love of his life. She’s killed. He goes to hell to get her back — and fails. Kurt Andersen and his guest Mary Zimmerman look at the myth of Orpheus and why it’s never gone out of style.

Playwright and theater director Mary Zimmerman is one of the great modern interpreters of ancient myth. Her plays include The Metamorphoses, for which she received a Tony Award for Best Direction, as well as The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. She teaches at Northwestern University and is resident director at Chicago’s Goodman Theater. In 1988 Zimmerman received a MacArthur Foundation grant.