The Thread

Season One Trailer: From Lennon to Lenin

Coming September 25. The Thread's first season will connect the dots between John Lennon's murder and Vladimir Lenin's revolution 63 years earlier.

The Murder of John Lennon

After shooting the rock star John Lennon in front of the Dakota Building in Manhattan on December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman remained at the crime scene reading his favorite book, The Catcher in the Rye, until police arrived. Chapman identified powerfully with Holden Caulfield, the novel’s alienated protagonist, and in this episode we explore Chapman’s motivations, their grounding in Catcher, and ask the question: What makes someone kill their own hero in cold blood?

Holden Caulfield Goes to War

If The Catcher in the Rye resonates with people in dark places like Mark David Chapman, then it may be because the novel, and its author, passed through hell itself on the way to publication.

Caught Between Two Postage Stamps

Wooed by perhaps the greatest American writer of the 20th century, born from the loins of its greatest playwright and ultimately wed to the most famous performer on the planet, Oona O'Neill Chaplin lived in the shadow of three of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and her story is interwoven with them all. 

America’s Troubled Shakespeare

Considered by many to be “America’s Shakespeare,” Eugene O’Neill revolutionized American drama. But O’Neill suffered greatly for his art, battling alcoholism and depression for decades, and many, including his daughter, suffered for it as well.