Rico Gagliano


Rico Gagliano is an American journalist, podcaster and radio host. He is best known as the co-host, with Brendan Francis Newnam, of American Public Media’s arts-and-culture radio show and podcast “The Dinner Party Download,” and as a reporter for the public radio business show “Marketplace". He has also written for television and print media.

Biography

Rico is the son of Frank Gagliano, a playwright and theater educator, and Sandra Gagliano, an opera singer and voice instructor.  
He received his B.A. in Film Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, where he was a DJ at college station WPTS-FM.  He earned an MFA in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

Early career

Gagliano contributed arts features and criticism to In Pittsburgh newsweekly.  He briefly served as the paper’s music editor.  His arts profiles, reviews and previews also appeared regularly in the daily Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Upon moving to Los Angeles in 1995, Gagliano freelanced for LA Weekly before turning to public radio — filing features for Marketplace, All Things Considered, Weekend America, and the Savvy Traveler.
Gagliano was a full-time reporter for Marketplace from 2006 to 2010.  In addition to domestic and foreign business & economy reporting, he wrote and produced the show’s “Marketplace Players” satirical sketches.

Dinner Party Download

In 2008, Gagliano co-created the podcast “The Dinner Party Download” with Brendan Francis Newnam. The two also co-hosted and co-produced, with Gagliano as primary editor.  Begun as an independent bi-weekly, 15-minute show, it was eventually produced and distributed by American Public Media, and expanded to an hour-long weekly radio show in 2011. It ran for 400 episodes and aired on 183 public radio stations.
The show was nominated for multiple podcasting honors, including “Best Arts And Culture Show” at the 2018 Webby Awards.  It was named “Best Food and Drink Podcast” by the Academy of Podcasters at the 2016 Podcast Movement conference. Gagliano’s interviews garnered two National Arts & Entertainment Journalism awards and a Southern California Journalism Award from the Los Angeles Press Club.
A companion book written by Gagliano and Newnam, “Brunch Is Hell: How To Save The World By Throwing A Dinner Party” was published by Little Brown Inc. in December 2017.  The show aired its final all-new episode the same week.

Television

Gagliano was a writer’s assistant on the sixth season of the TV sitcom Mad About You.  He spent several years thereafter writing for comedy, animation and reality TV, including Disney’s Teamo Supremo and Cartoon Network’s 8.  He was on the writing staff of MTV’s Undressed along with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and director Steven S. DeKnight.

Current Work

Gagliano co-hosts two shows for the podcasting network Wondery: Safe For Work and One Plus One. He is also a recurring guest host at the NPR affiliates KCRW-FM and KPCC-FM in Southern California, and contributes music, food, and travel print features to the Wall Street Journal.