Leital has been with Studio 360 since it was hatching as a pilot in early 2000, and helped bring it to the airwaves with the launch team in 2001. In her decade at the show, Leital has worked as a producer, editor, reporter, and engineer, traveling as far as Tokyo and Cody, Wyoming for special editions of the program.
She was the sound designer of the Peabody Award-winning episode of American Icons on Moby-Dick and won an AP award for producing Kurt Andersen's interview with musician-poet Patti Smith.
She holds a master's degree in journalism from NYU and teaches a podcasting course at the School of Visual Arts’ Design Criticism program. She occasionally moonlights for other WNYC projects, like the Battle of the Boroughs talent competition, where she does her best Simon Cowell on the judges’ panel. Leital is a native Texan and got her start in radio at KVRX, the student station at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Mad Women of Madison Avenue
Jane Maas lived the “Mad Men” life, working in a big ad agency in the 1960s and ‘70s. She says the casual misogyny in the show is spot-on.
Kehinde Wiley’s Modern-Day Royalty
The artist Kehinde Wiley wondered why he never saw people who looked like him in museums. His ground-breaking paintings, which borrow from art history, are changing that.
Kate Pierson, 40-year member of The B-52s, steps out on her own
Kate Pierson was one of the founding members of the 1970's New Wave band, the B-52s. Now, after nearly 40 years of co-writing songs and singing backup to lead singer Fred Schneider, Pierson is out with her very first solo album.
Live in the Studio: Bahamas
Singer-songwriter Afie Jurvanen, who records as Bahamas, romanticizes faraway people and places in his music — including the Bahamas, where he’s never set foot.
And the Oscar for Worst Award Show Goes To...
We ended up again with awards that were all expected, except Best Picture -- we were betting on Gravity, as it seemed to have all the perfect elements for the top Academy Award: actio...
Bell Orchestre
A couple of years ago, a group of Canadian indie rockers decided to write and play their own chamber music. Their album As Seen Through Windows is a lush, surprising mix of instruments and melodies, many of them born out of improvisation.
Girl in a Coma
The San Antonio band Girl in a Coma formed over a junior high obsession over the tortured music of Morrissey.
Shalom Auslander and Anne Frank
What if Anne Frank had lived? That's the premise of the new novel by Shalom Auslander, who made his name with the dark comic memoir Foreskin's Lament.
Angelina Jolie
Jolie's latest project found her behind the camera. In the Land of Blood and Honey is her directing and screenwriting debut.