Who’s Who
Get to know the Says You! team.
Following Dave Zobel‘s seven-year stint as a writer for public radio’s
The Loh Down on Science, he joined Says You! last year as co-script writer alongside Nat Segaloff. As we say here at Says You!, “Genius don’t cost extra” — Dave is a science humorist and active alum of Caltech. For much of 2016, Dave was on tour for his most recent book, The Science of TV’s The Big Bang Theory. Dave serves on the board of the LA nonprofit T4T.org (Trash for Teaching), which rescues factory discards and turns them teaching kits for science and arts education.
Gregg Porter, the weekend voice of Seattle’s KUOW, steps up to the lectern as the host of Says You! where a dream has become reality. Richard Sher often claimed the first vision for Says You! came to him at Sandy Bradley’s Potluck – a live, national performance show produced by none other than Gregg. A long-time member of the public-radio world, Gregg always believed he’d find an outlet for his knowledge of all things random; at Says You! we think he’s found his calling.
Gregg Porter is not only a longtime fan of Says You!, but also a producer of jazz and Hawaiian albums, a musician, radio-theater actor and director, collector of far too many records and CDs, and still has the dictionary his grandmother gave him when he was seven years old. We welcome him to Says You!…where Potluck brings fate to the table, and dreams come true.
With the personal motto “Genius don’t cost extra,” Richard Sher produced and hosted Says You! What he would charge for is his work as president and founder of Pipit & Finch, a marketing and media development company with clients such as CBS/Westinghouse, Hearst Broadcasting and National Public Radio. In his spare time, he trained Otto, his palindromic pup, and desperately pumped friends and strangers alike for words and definitions. With more than 30 years experience in broadcast production, programming, media development and marketing, Richard almost didn’t work in radio. He started out as an optician. Really. We couldn’t see it either.
Click here to read or listen to a tribute
honoring the memory of Richard.
Stereo Left
Carolyn Faye Fox has the most difficult job on the panel – she sits first seat. Irrefutably the most eager punster of all the panelists and creator of the Says You! slogan “High Definition Radio,” Carolyn has finally found a vehicle through which she can best express herself. As Richard always said, “Carolyn is always a second away from telling us what she really thinks!” She’s a Contributing Editor at The Improper Bostonian, an accomplished food critic, travel writer, and an ad hoc marketing consultant. And to our knowledge, she may be one of the few Sarah Lawrence graduates ever to dance live – on stage – with Chuck Berry.
Our “rank raconteur,” currently Poet Laureate of Martha’s Vineyard, Arnie Reisman spends his days as an award-winning writer, producer, and performer working in commercial and public television, corporate video, journalism and film. His national telecasts include “The Other Side of the Moon” (PBS’s 20th anniversary of the lunar landing) and PBS’s “AIDS Quarterly” with Peter Jennings. He has taught at Boston College and Brandeis University, and served as executive editor of Boston’s leading weekly alternative newspaper. Recently, Arnie co-produced a PBS film on the rivalry of two cosmetic entrepreneurs, Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden, titled The Power and The Glory. Based on Lindy Woodhead’s book, the documentary has been “made over” as a musical headed for Broadway. War Paint opened on Broadway this spring. Arnie’s secret to a happy life? Being married to fellow panelist Paula Lyons.
That scintillating laugh belongs to Paula Lyons, anchor of our stereo left team. In New England, Paula is known for her years as a consumer reporter for WBZ-TV and WCVB-TV in Boston. But she’s also known nationally for her work with Good Morning America and her articles in Ladies’ Home Journal. She worked as a press secretary to Boston Mayor Kevin H. White and taught in the American School of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Handling a classroom, politicians, and even Arnie – she’s definitely qualified to sit on our panel!
Murray Horwitz is a Tony Award-winning playwright, lyricist, and broadcaster, who has been called “my first mentor” by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. His accomplishments include originating the NPR comedy quiz, Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me, co-authoring the hit Broadway musical Ain’t Misbehavin’, writing song lyrics for John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby at The Metropolitan Opera, touring in his one-man show, An Evening Of Sholom Aleichem, and co-creating the Mark Twain Prize In American Humor at the Kennedy Center. In 2016, he became host and producer of The Big Broadcast on WAMU 88.5 in Washington, and in 2017, he was named Artist In Residence at Washington Performing Arts. His other awards include three Peabody Awards, two National Medals of Arts (for NPR and Washington Performing Arts), and the Order of Arts and Letters from the government of France. A graduate of Kenyon College, he began his career as a Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus clown.
Stereo Right
Writer, producer, narrator, commentator, host – he’s done it all. Tony Kahn, the original host of The World (BBC and PRI), has worked with PBS, NPR, A&E, WGBH, WCVB, and all the other letters in the alphabet as well as Nickelodeon and Monitor Radio. His compelling series Blacklisted, which chronicles the Hollywood blacklisting of his screenwriter father Gordon Kahn during the McCarthy era, is one of the great classics of public radio. Tony is a master of the future as well as the past: His weekly series Morning Stories, produced with WGBH, is the very first podcast ever heard on Public Radio, and earned Tony the informal title of “Father of Podcasting.” Visit www.tonykhan.org to see what Tony is most recently up to!
Francine Achbar has been an award-winning television writer, producer, and executive but don’t let that fool you. Behind the well-groomed appearance—she loves to dress for radio—resides a demon bluffer. For most of her career she breathed media at WBZ-TV Boston and American Public Television, and she inhaled the arts as the Director of The New Center for Arts and Culture. Francine’s impeccable resume may cause one to wonder what she’s doing on Says You! — the show that applauds foolishness and celebrates deceit. We have yet to find out, but we think it’s because she simply has, as we all do, a gas of a time!
Barry Nolan, our diabolically clever television personality has traveled the world covering all manner of stories for TV shows such as Hard Copy, Extra, and ABC’s Over the Edge. He co-hosted Boston’s Evening Magazine on WBZ-TV for nearly a decade and launched Backstage with Barry Nolan for the Comcast Network. A devout Thespian – Barry Nolan has appeared in numerous films, including The Birdcage, and thrived on stage under the direction of Sir Anthony Quayle. Barry co-produced an award-winning independent documentary, No Way Out But One and taught at Boston University. Recently Barry attempted to bring sanity to politics as Communications Director of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and now finds himself back in the fray of DC. All that pales next to playing the hardest seat in the house, the toughest game on radio or television – the sixth seat at our table on Says You!
Frequent Guest Appearances
Flash Wiley is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, a Fulbright Scholar and a former Air Force captain. He also received a master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and his law degree from Harvard Law School. But all this pales in comparison to his status as Boston’s self-proclaimed ‘best over-60 power forward.’ Flash and Richard first met – actually collided – on the basketball court where a significant respect was found for each other’s love of gamesmanship. Currently a prominent figure in the legal community, Flash is extensively involved in Boston civic and charitable activities, including tenure as Chairman of the Board of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Still, it’s his appearances on Says You! that earn him the most recognition among game-players and word-a-philes nationwide.
An award-winning producer of both independent documentaries and syndicated programs, Garland Waller is the Director of the TV Graduate Program at Boston University’s College of Communication. More to the point, she is fiendishly literate, with an all-out infectious laugh and a sharp wit that never cuts anyone because she’s a Quaker. Richard always said that the elegant repartee between Garland and her husband, Barry Nolan, reminded him of the graceful partnership of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.
Lenore Shannon‘s life-long love of words and games hit its stride when she dropped to one knee and proposed to her now-husband after he was able to beat her at Scrabble. Lenore, a native Bostonian, is a fine-tuned fashionista who loves to design and re-design expensive houses. A study in contradictions, she’s a high-level physician recruiter with a passion for The Three Stooges. “Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!”
tribulationsofpaulette.com
Although actor Tom Kemp is a Long Island native, you may think of him as a Bostonian, given his roles in films such as Shutter Island, The Departed, Mystic River, and Gone Baby Gone…as well as a turn as Whitey Bulger in “Unsolved Mysteries.” Yet versatility is his stock in trade. Proficient in bodysurfing, squash, and accents such as BBC and Cockney, he is also lead singer with an R & B group – The Basics. Clearly, this Tom Kemp is not to be confused with the political theorist and Marxist economic historian of the same name…despite the fact that our Tom played Che Guevara early in his career.
Behind the Scenes
Antonio Oliart
Co-Producer & Secretary of Sound
How does the principal flautist of the Mexico City Symphony find his way to a barn in Lincoln, Massachusetts? Such was Antonio’s journey from musical virtuoso to Says You! Major Domo. Faced with engineering a show often interrupted by passing locomotives and bovine bellowing, he managed to give the show its clear and distinct sound and never miss a muttered musing or whispered witticism. A graduate of McGill University and producer of CD’s for labels worldwide – Antonio is a master engineer, editor, and recording genius. And some day we hope he’ll be proud enough of his contribution to our show… to put it on his resume.
Nat Segaloff
Script Savant
Nat Segaloff is the author of numerous books and monographs including biographies of Arthur Penn, William Friedkin, Paul Mazursky, John Milius, and Stirling Silliphant. His latest book is the memoir, Screen Saver: Private Stories of Public Hollywood, available from the usual sources. His biography of speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison will be published in 2017.
Philip Salkind
Thesaurus Wrecks
Philip Salkind has finally parlayed his unbelievable mastery of the arcane into a paying gig. He first met Richard across the bar at a health club restaurant where Phil, an underemployed musician, was slinging chardonnay and the occasional carrot juice while dazzling patrons with his television game show prowess. Quick to notice talent in the raw and on the the cheap, Richard hired Phil and thus began a collaboration that defines creative tension to this day. At present, during extended periods of hiatus from the Says You! juggernaut, he labors in the grove of telecommunications technology, building devices that are designed to locate his stock options.