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NPR's Bob Mondello reviews the first full-length feature film of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. He says director Michael Radford's adaptation features stunning performances from Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons.

BBC America, available on many U.S. cable TV networks, is offering modern adaptations of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. One of the stories -- "The Miller's Tale" -- has been recast to take place in a karaoke bar. Hear NPR's Scott Simon and Peter Bowker, who adapted the 14th-century literary classic.

In plays such as Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible, Miller offered great entertainment mixed with pungent social criticism. He earned fame far beyond that accorded to most American playwrights. And he kept writing for more than six decades.

What do you get when you combine traditional Jewish music with infectious Afro-Cuban rhythms? The new album by Roberto Juan Rodriguez, Baila! Gitano Baila!, attempts that daring fusion. Tom Moon has a review.

David Sedaris is the author of the best-selling collections Barrel Fever, Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day. His essays appear regularly in print in The New Yorker, Esquire and GQ and can be heard on the radio on This American Life. We rebroadcast a June 15,2004, interview with Sedaris.

Chris Nickson reviews the debut album by Guinean musician Ba Cissoko and the band that bears his name. It's called Sabolan. The band includes two koras -- harp-like instruments with 21 strings.

White House officials announce the designers of the First Family's inaugural gowns. Oscar de la Renta has designed the outfit for First Lady Laura Bush. And a team of designers was called in to make the gowns for the Bush daughters. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with Village Voice style writer Lynn Yaeger.

Filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 arrives in U.S. theaters, after winning the top prize at the Cannes film festival and being shelved by the Disney Co., its original backer. The film, which criticizes President Bush's response to the attacks of Sept. 11, is being released independently. NPR's Bob Mondello has a review.

Latin America is seeing a resurgence of t-shirts and other memorabilia celebrating the legend of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara. The return of Guevara appears to reflect both grassroots anger over U.S. foreign policy and publicity for The Motorcycle Diaries, a new Hollywood movie based on Guevara's writings that portrays the guerrilla as a romantic idealist. NPR's Martin Kaste reports.

Carl Hancock Rux began his career in the arts as a spoken-word poet. He has ambitiously matured into an author, musician and playwright. Rux discusses his new novel, Asphalt, and his CD, Apothecary Rx.