(upbeat music) - Here's what's coming up next on, "You Oughta Know."

This New Jersey performing arts theatre is enriching its community and launching careers.

Plus, it's not just the care they give that leaves their patients and caregivers smiling.

And this southwest Philadelphia company is keeping an ancient technique alive on a grand scale.

(upbeat music continues) Thanks so much for joining us for "You Oughta Know."

I'm Shirley Min.

We are kicking off the show with textures and textiles, from the clothes we wear to the rugs we put our feet on.

(playful music) - I am Mother Tufter.

- And I'm King Tuft.

- [Both] We are the owners of Tuft the World.

- [Narrator] Welcome to a place where anything is possible if you're willing to tuft it out.

The process of tufting, best known for making pretty rugs, has been around for hundreds of years.

But in 2018, Tim Eads and his wife, Tiernan Alexander, stumbled on something that would change the game.

- So I was teaching a class at Tyler School of Art doing fiber and textiles.

And I had a TA.

she was a carpet designer in Michigan.

So she told me about tufting and I had bought a machine.

Thought it was interesting.

I was making bags.

I was like, "Oh, I can add this tufting to this bag to make carpet bags."

That never worked, but I posted videos of tufting and it just completely exploded.

Hey everyone, I'm Tim with Tuft the World.

Today I'm gonna be showing you- - [Narrator] Eads got thousands of likes on Instagram and the most asked question, "Where can I get that tufting gun?"

- Tufting prior to that, it's been an industrial process for a long time and it's been around.

But there was no way for an individual or an artist to just buy this machine.

So as soon as Tim kind of found a place that would sell them to him, we started reselling them.

- [Narrator] Reselling led Eads and his wife to writing the first tufting gun manual, teaching classes across the country, and eventually selling complete tufting kits so people could watch their videos online and tuft along.

And when COVID shut everything down in 2020, Tuft the World blew up, growing 500%, and making it a multi-million dollar business.

- There's a moment when you realize you have a handle on something really good.

And you wanna decide what you're gonna do with it.

- [Narrator] What Eads and Alexander decided to do was give back.

- A big goal of ours has been to pay a good wage, pay for healthcare.

- [Narrator] At Tuft the World, everyone earns this same amount, including Eads and Alexander who make a few thousand more because they work more hours.

- And then the next circle out from that is, how can we make our business more sustainable?

- [Narrator] To do this, the couple took on a no-plastic policy.

They started making all of their own packing materials 100% recyclable.

By making their own glue, they could sell it in biodegradable boxes instead of plastic jugs.

They even make their own frames and dye their own yarn, which of course is recycled.

- [Tiernan] We even now have one made out of the leaves and stalks of banana trees.

It is so silky and so pretty.

And it's literally made out of garbage.

- A lot of companies have that choice, they just don't make that choice because it's more expensive.

You have to challenge your vendors.

You have to really, like, dig at that.

- [Narrator] So how has this worked out for them?

Their business hasn't stopped growing.

With up and coming fashion designers creating wool graffiti-style clothes, and people from just about every country sharing their soft and fuzzy creations online, this might be a tuft trend to get over.

- We're seeing people really wanting to connect with that handmade experience.

And so yeah, it feels really fantastic to be able to use that to do something good as well.

- This is the weaver's secret handshake.

We love texture and we touch each other's clothes.

(gentle music) - The Harmony Weavers Guild has been around for about 50 years, and we meet monthly.

Weaving has been around for thousands of years.

We don't want it to become a lost art.

It's now done by machines in most cases.

But we wanna go back to the hand weaving and make sure that people understand what really makes that shirt that you're wearing.

Once you understand the way they're made, you have a deeper appreciation for woven fabrics.

(gentle music continues) Once you've wound your warp, you take those threads over to the loom and you thread them through what's called a heddle.

Thread them through the heddles on the loom.

Then you thread them through the reed, which is at the front and tie them onto the front of the loom.

And then the loom puts those threads under tension.

The shafts, in turn, are lifted in whatever sequence your pattern dictates.

And so then you cross the weft threads back and forth through those warp threads, and that's how you weave.

That's the basics of weaving.

It's a very kind of a zen process.

I can just sit there at my loom, put on some great music, knowing that when I'm creating something like a scarf, I'm touching every single piece of yarn or thread of that scarf as I make it.

(twinkling piano music) Traditionally, weaving has been done with things like wool, polyesters, your rayon, silk.

People have incorporated plastic bags.

People are exploring a lot of different materials these days, especially in weaving as an artform rather than weaving wearables or household objects.

Each piece you weave is really a little piece of art.

(piano music continues) - Tapestry is different than weaving in the fact that it is more hand manipulation.

Before I even make the tapestry, I tend to draw the picture as I would like to see it on the loom.

And in fact it's like creating a painting where you use small pieces of yarn so you can paint that particular area.

- [Sue] We really are trying to reach out to the younger generation.

A lot of them are going back to the basics, back to simple ways, simple things, things that are sustainable and handmade.

- I studied sustainable fashion in college, and I was just interested in sort of putting my knowledge to practice.

Weaving sort of forces me to slow down and in a creative way and really develop an appreciation for the textiles I own.

Instead of just saying, "Oh, I need another shirt."

You'll be like, "Okay, a lot of work went into this.

And I need to appreciate it, and get more use out of it, and maybe stop buying so much."

(piano music continues) - [Sue] Each area of the world has their own history and culture of weaving and fabric.

All that stuff that we've clothed ourselves with for centuries.

It's just wonderful.

The people in this group are so willing to share their knowledge, their know-how, their supplies, you know anything.

We want to get out there in the community and really share our love of weaving with people.

(piano music continues) - Wallpaper is having its heyday again, and that's good news for a Queen Village business.

(jazzy music) - My name is Paul Sperling.

I've been here since 1976.

How I got here was a trip.

The business has actually been here since '42.

When Lilian and Max Weinstein, they were like this big, they used to live in the back and they would have lunch here and everything.

It was like really cute.

And the guy that bought this store was a guy named George Nacita, who was the art director at the University of Delaware.

I was born in 1408 South 5th Street.

And my father, he knew that I knew South Street and I knew the area.

And I really liked it.

I was in Trevose at the time.

My dad saw that this store was for sale.

We came down here to take a look at it.

I didn't know anything about wallpaper.

I didn't know anything about retail.

I still don't know anything about retail to tell you the truth.

(interviewer laughing) So George said, "Do you want to buy the store?"

And I said, "Sure."

So he said, "My wife will train you."

And a week later she said, "I'm not training you anymore.

I don't know anything about this business."

When I first started here, I figured I would really outsmart everybody and I would know what everybody else wanted before they wanted it.

It never happened like that.

(interviewer laughing) First of all, I guess the impetus to do this was that I had seven jobs before that and I failed at all of them.

So I said, "Okay, I'll try wallpaper."

(jazzy music continues) There was a lot of stock in the store, and the double rolls were $3.25.

People would come in and they would buy the rolls, and they would take them with them.

Paper hangers would actually come in at seven o'clock in the morning, which wasn't my favorite time, and pick up the wallpaper for the day's work.

And it went from there.

The latter part of the '70s to the '80s and even a little part of the '90s were really boring.

And then all of a sudden wallpaper exploded.

And I don't think anybody still understands the wallpaper process.

There's more wallpaper being produced in England than here.

The Swedes are really into wallpaper, and it's gotten to the point where it's an artform.

(jazzy music continues) Wallpaper has never been a focus for me.

I was more interested in making friends that came in.

When people would put an order in, I would give them the biggest discount 'cause I wanted to be their friend rather than making money.

And right now, just pissin' me off, because I could have had all that money and I don't.

So along the way, I got wallpaper books that either nobody else wanted or the people went out of business.

I kept those books and I started a wallpaper museum in the back of all the old books and all the knowledge that I had from everybody that I found in wallpaper that I thought was interesting.

- Paul loves people more than wallpaper.

But wallpaper is how he connects with people.

Someone comes into the shop and five minutes later Paul knows everything about their life.

- Everybody has a wallpaper story, and every story's different, and nobody knows that they have it.

- Bring your old rolls, bring your stories, be prepared to talk for a while 'cause Paul is a talker.

- I want old wallpaper!

Gimme your old wallpaper, please!

(interviewer laughing) - [Aaron] I'm standing in front of the Roundhouse and I've worked across the street from this building for a decade.

And you can hear the cars whizzing by, getting on and off the highway.

But there's usually not a lot of people walking around here.

So most people really aren't interacting with this building at all.

And there really isn't much to look at at this point.

The building is boarded up.

There's sidewalks out front that are crumbling.

There was a statue here that's gone, who knows where.

But even with all that, you can tell that it was at one time a very imposing, striking building.

I think it looks like handcuffs.

Other people might think it looks like a spaceship.

But when it first opened, it made a real splash.

- That was an excerpt from a two-part series on the longtime headquarters of the Philadelphia Police Department reported by WHYY's Aaron Moselle.

And Aaron is with me now to share a little bit of what he learned along the way.

Aaron, thanks so much for being here.

- It's my pleasure.

- I like how you mentioned that the architecture of the building resembles handcuffs.

It was nicknamed the Roundhouse 'cause of it's curvy architecture.

But I never made that connection before.

But a lot of people have likened it to handcuffs.

- Yeah, especially if you look at the building from above from an aerial view, it certainly does resemble in my opinion, handcuffs.

It was never intended to look like handcuffs.

But a lot of folks around the city, if you ask them, believe that it was intentional, and get a bad feeling in from that, actually.

- The city is getting ready to sell the building and the property around it.

And you know, normally you think the choices are to redevelop it or tear it down.

But this decision is proving to be difficult.

Explain what is so hard about this.

- It breaks down along two things.

The building was supposed to mark a new chapter for the Philadelphia Police Department.

It was supposed to be this era of independence, and accountability, and transparency.

But then pretty quickly after this building opened, it gains this reputation as a place where police misconduct happens.

Where people have painful experiences, particularly in the holding cells in the basement of that building, but also more broadly under Frank Rizzo's regime as Police Commissioner.

- And so it's become now this symbol of police brutality and makes things a little complicated here.

The city wrapped up this months-long effort to get feedback from the community.

What came of those sessions?

- Yeah, generally speaking, folks wanted to keep the building up.

There wasn't much talk of demolishing the building, which is still an option technically.

And they wanted the building to be used for some public good, whether that be for homeless services, for other city services.

They wanted to see the building kind of redeem itself.

- Is it telling that the city started in public information session?

'Cause do they have to do that?

- They don't have to.

And actually it's unusual for them to do it, particularly to the extent that they did it this time.

This was four or five months of collecting responses from community members, both online, but also over the course of several events in the community.

So they really made a concerted effort to say, "What do you guys wanna see with this building?"

And they also have said publicly that that input is gonna inform what happens to the building.

- This was a big story.

And so how did you approach it?

Because I know you've broken it up into two parts.

But what was your thinking when you were separating it into two sections?

- So the two parts are related because it speaks to the entire life of this building, which was in use for more than 60 years at 7th and Race.

But it was such a long history that it seemed like cramming it all into one narrative would be difficult.

I wanted to give each narrative the architectural history and the history of police misconduct it's due.

I wanted the characters to have enough room to breathe and not try and cram it all in.

Because both histories are relevant and significant.

And it's why this building is being talked about to this extent.

- One interesting point was the way the building was built was so interesting in that it was built in pieces.

- Right, and I had one source tell me it was like a giant Lego set because all of the pieces were fabricated offsite, 60 miles away in New Jersey, and then shipped to 7th and Race to be constructed.

A total of 1,000 pieces, maybe more- - Wow.

- to get this thing done.

- Public inputs done.

What's next on the timeline here?

- So we have a report that's forthcoming from the city detailing all those responses over the course of those months that they were soliciting input from the community.

And then at some point this year they will put out what's called an RFP, a request for proposal, which will be basically, "Hey, potential developers, are you interested in developing this property?

What are your ideas for it?"

- Okay, well you will be there every step of the way.

I know that.

Great storytelling, Aaron.

Thank you so much for being here.

And you can listen to Aaron Moselle's story and read it online at whyy.org.

- [Patricia] I've been in healthcare an awfully long time, and I worked in pediatrics for years.

And I thought I would never love anything more that that until I came here.

The special needs community is just so wonderful.

- Smiling providers, smiling patients, and smiling parents.

That's the aim of the staff at a Port Richmond special care dental facility.

(uplifting music) - My name is Dr. Jordan Strott, and I'm one of the dentists here at Special Smiles.

I've been a dentist for over 11 years.

And I've had the pleasure of caring for the special needs population for all of those 11 years.

- [Patricia] We know our patients, they're here every year.

Special Smiles, it's important for us that patient knows what we're doing.

- From the time we walked in the door to the people that work here.

The comfort level was just the greatest thing.

And for her, everybody was pleasant.

It was a sort of like family atmosphere.

So it was a great experience coming in and it was like better than anywhere we had been.

(orchestral music) - Pennsylvania Department of Human Services at that time were recognizing that there was a lack of access and quality care for the most severely compromised special needs patients.

They requested if I could build a facility that would treat these patients and provide the highest quality of care but on a much larger scale.

The only patients that we see are patients who require general anesthesia.

They must be put to sleep in order to accomplish their dentistry safely.

We basically see patients in two visits.

The first visit is an evaluation.

The patient will come in.

We'll examine them if the patient is cooperative enough.

We'll go through their medical history 'cause most of these patients have fairly complex ones.

Then we'll set them up for an appointment after they're medically cleared, and we'll be putting them to sleep.

And then we do all their dentistry in one visit.

That includes cleaning, examination, x-rays, scaling, fillings, extraction, root canal work if necessary.

- The most challenging part of working with special needs individuals is catering to each individual's particularities.

Some individuals don't like bright lights, some individuals don't like certain sounds, some don't like certain words or phrases.

But as we get to know these individuals, we do make notes to their certain particularities so we can make it a better experience for them.

(gentle music) My personal hope would be for the special needs community is that more dental professionals have more exposure to caring for the population so we have an increase in access to care.

- When I hear that a mother has called our office and said, "Can you take care of my adult child?"

And they've been looking for years, if not a decade, to find a home where they can actually get all their dentistry done.

And when we tell them that we're gonna do everything and in one visit, and then you, you hear that the parent starts crying, they're tears of joy because they actually have found a dental home for their child.

What can I say?

You know, nothing gives us greater joy and pleasure.

- Here's how you can find out more information on the dental services provided at Special Smiles.

From a film house to a training theatre, Oaklyn New Jersey's Ritz Theatre Company remains a gem in its community.

(choir singing) - The building was built in 1927.

It was the smallest of three theaters in the area.

They were basically film houses that also did vaudeville.

I fell in love with it.

I walked in here and I knew I needed to do theater in this space.

I'm the Producing Artistic Director of the Ritz Theatre Company.

- [Choreographer] Eight, we go up.

- [Bruce] We are a training theater.

We give them a production that they can be very proud of.

We're diverse in the stories we tell and the people who tell them.

We make it part of the whole community.

- Smile!

- It was our endeavor to really start a full-time youth theater initiative that would have programming offered all year round.

We have a director, and choreographer, music director.

We emulate the process that goes into a main stage production.

We will have classes in character construction, or scene study, audition prep.

Really concentrate and focus on their own interests that way to further flesh out their goals as a performer.

For this, "Frozen Jr.," they will audition the show, have eight weeks of rehearsal.

Then Tech Week is where we start throwing new elements at them.

Sound, costume, lights.

- [Director] Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold.

Snow forest, come back out.

Piper, it's too early.

- [Robert] Then the excitement might turn into a bit of anxiety and nervousness.

Once the house lights go down and the stage lights go up, they're ready to perform.

- It's so nice.

But shouldn't you all be inside instead of out in the storm?

- [Performer] Yeah, what's with all the chairs?

- And why are we not scared of the notion of eternal winter?

- They're not all famous actors.

Although we have people that have performed on Broadway.

It's probably the greatest experience of my life, having the opportunity to have worked here and to have shared this work with thousands of people.

(show music) - The theater is a good way to get into entertainment.

It was for Tom Hanks who spoke with our Patrick Stoner about his appreciation for creativity.

- [Speaker] You think you have to do everything on your own, but who one can?

(gentle music) - I can't stand watching one idiot try to teach another how to drive.

It's lesson time.

- Thank you.

- Clutch in and brake, brake, brake.

The car is stopped!

(driver screaming) - I almost hit the car.

- It's all right.

It's a hybrid.

- Tom Hanks plays the title character in "A Man Called Otto."

In an earlier interview, I talked to him about how he developed that character.

But to learn how he feels about acting in general, and what he is as an actor, the best way to do that is to find out the kind of actor that he respects.

So that's just what I did.

I never asked you this question.

I'll tell you mine before I ask you yours.

Favorite actors of all time, if you had to pick one, which is not fair.

Mine would be Spencer Tracy, maybe.

You?

- Robert Duvall.

- [Patrick] Yes.

- Robert Duvall.

I saw him in a small part.

He was already Robert Duvall in an early Francis Ford Coppola movie called "The Rain People," in which you- - I never saw that.

- You can almost see all the cast that showed up in "The Godfather" later on, including Robert Duvall.

But I have seen him in big, big roles and in small roles.

And it's, without a doubt, it's Robert Duvall.

And yet there is something about, let me just say, his countenance and his presence in it.

So much so that when I ended up rewatching "To Kill a Mockingbird," who shows up as Boo Radley, the Mysterious Boo Radley.

When he came out, I said, I jumped outta my chair and said, "My God, Robert Duvall was Boo Radley."

And I got to meet him at some point because I was friends with, you know, one of his families.

And he was one of those actors that came out to LA in the early '60s, you know.

And they all lived close to each other in modest houses out in Burbank, you know.

All these guys that were in these early films, you know, among them James Caan, and what have you.

All these guys that were really great.

And I just thought, to be a quiet presence in motion pictures large and small, as Larry Hagan, you know, in "The Godfather."

And also as the man in "Tender Mercies."

It's like, that man is never anything other than reflecting true human behavior in a moment where an awful lot of people like you to be bigger than life.

He wasn't, he was only bigger in life because he was in a motion picture.

Other than that, he was real life up on the screen.

And that to me, that to me is the high country.

- Him and Spencer, I agree.

Tom, thank you so much as always for giving me your time.

That is always so kind of you.

By the way, if you are doing anything through Philadelphia on your book tour, please let me know cause I'd like to- - I will.

Count on it, sir.

I'll let you know, I'll be right there.

- Thank you, bye-bye.

- Peace and love!

- Well, there you have it.

A peek inside the creative mind of Tom Hanks.

That is it for tonight's show.

Be sure to join us next week.

We're gonna head to Delaware to check out the Wilmington Wings.

We'll have that story and much more.

We'll see you then.

Bye.

(upbeat music)