Events

A deliciously witty and inspiring memoir by One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz about her decade in a cult and her quest to break free. 
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Bethany Joy Lenz starred in the hit TV series One Tree Hill. Her other acting credits include Guiding Light, Grey’s Anatomy, Charmed, Felicity, Suits, Dexter, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  She is also a recording artist who has released several albums. Lenz currently cohosts the podcast Drama Queens and is the founder/editor-in-chief of the broadsheet newspaper Modern Vintage News.
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In the early 2000s, after years of hard work and determination to breakthrough as an actor, Bethany Joy Lenz was finally cast as one of the leads on the hit drama One Tree Hill. Her career was about to take off, but her personal life was slowly beginning to unravel. What none of the show’s millions of fans knew, hidden even from her costars, was her secret double life in a cult.
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An only child who often had to fend for herself and always wanted a place to belong, Lenz found the safe haven she’d been searching for in a Bible study group with other Hollywood creatives. However, the group soon morphed into something more sinister—a slowly woven web of manipulation, abuse, and fear under the guise of a church covenant called The Big House Family. Piece by piece, Lenz began to give away her autonomy, ultimately relocating to the Family’s Pacific Northwest compound, overseen by a domineering minister who would convince Lenz to marry one of his sons and steadily drained millions of her TV income without her knowledge. Family “minders” assigned to her on set, “Maoist struggle session”–inspired meetings in the basement of a filthy house, and regular counseling with “Leadership” were just part of the tactics used to keep her loyal.
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Only when she became a mother did Lenz find the courage to leave and spare her child from a similar fate. After nearly a decade (and with the unlikely help of a One Tree Hill superfan), she finally managed to escape the family’s grip and begin to heal from the deep trauma that forever altered her relationship with God and her understanding of faith.
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Written with powerful honesty and dark humor, Dinner for Vampires is an inspiring story about the importance of identity and understanding what you believe.

Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D. (Dr. Ramani) is a licensed clinical psychologist in California and the New York Times Bestselling Author of It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People. Her other books include Don’t You Know Who I Am?: How to Stay Sane in the Era of Narcissism, Entitlement and Incivility and Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist. She has lectured and trained therapists around the world on best practices on working with clients experiencing narcissistic abuse and hosts a popular YouTube channel.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer and Between the World and Me, for which he won the National Book Award in 2015. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, he is currently the Sterling Brown endowed chair in English at Howard University.”
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“[Coates] is intellectually fearless . . . unshackled by political or racial ideology, humane in his judgments, respectful of facts, acutely aware of the difference between what is knowable and what is not.”—The New Yorker.

Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love.
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Alex Van Halen is the co-founder of the rock band Van Halen and its original drummer. Born in Amsterdam and trained as a classical pianist, he graduated from Pasadena High School.
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Ariel Levy was Alex Van Halen’s collaborator on Brothers, and is the author of her own New York Times bestselling memoir The Rules Do Not Apply.  Levy has received a National Magazine Award for her work at The New Yorker, where she has been a staff writer since 2008. She is the host and co-creator of the podcast The Just Enough Family.
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Alex Van Halen wrote Brothers, a love letter to his younger brother, while still mourning Eddie‘s untimely death.
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He recounts their childhood in an 800-square foot house in Pasadena, with an itinerant musician father and proper Indonesian-born mother—how they arrived in the US from the Netherlands and struggled to fit in. He also shares stories of musical politics, infighting and bad-boy behavior. The book includes never-before-seen photos from the author’s private archives, as he sets the record straight on his brother’s life and death in the first-ever accurate account of his family and the band. 

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VIRTUAL EVENT TICKETS (click here)
Monday, October 28, 2024, 6pm PT/9pm ET
TICKETS:
$46 Virtual Admission + book with signed book plate (includes shipping to US addresses only). Includes access to watch the event on October 28 at 6pm PT/9pm ET and on video-on-demand for five days.
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One-of-a-kind filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld tells stories only he can tell, from his blockbuster career with iconic actors, studio execs, and producers. His humor and insight provide an inside glimpse into how Hollywood really works, or how it doesn’t.
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Barry Sonnenfeld is a filmmaker and writer who broke into the film industry as the cinematographer on the Coen Brothers’ first three films: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and Miller’s Crossing. He also was the director of photography on Throw Mamma from the Train, Big, When Harry Met Sally, and Misery. Sonnenfeld made his directorial debut with The Addams Family in 1991, and has gone on to direct a number of films including Addams Family Values, Get Shorty, and the first three Men in Blacks. His television credits include Pushing Daisies, for which he won an Emmy, Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and most recently Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon! He is the author of Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother.
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Rob Reiner first came to fame as a two-time Emmy Award-winning actor in the landmark television series All In The Family. He went on to become an acclaimed director whose credits include the satire This is Spinal Tap to dramas Stand By Me, Misery, A Few Good Men, and Ghosts of Mississippi, to romantic comedies When Harry Met Sally and The American President, to the enduring classic, The Princess Pride. His now 20 films also include The Bucket List, Flipped, LBJ, Shock and Awe, and most recently, the documentary Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, and a sequel to This is Spinal Tap.  Reiner is also a dedicated political activist.
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Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time delivers a cavalcade of sometimes baffling, often enlightening, and always funny stories about Sonnenfeld’s many films and television shows. From battling with studio executives and producers to bad-script-solving on set to coaxing actors into finding the right light and talking faster, Sonnenfeld provides an entertaining master class in how to make commercial art in the face of constant human foible. Over four decades in Hollywood, the mega-franchises include The Addams Family and Men in Black movies; the critical favorites, Get Shorty and Pushing Daisies; and working with Will Smith, John Travolta, and Michael Jackson; and the projects that got away, Forrest Gump, Ali, and anything starring Jim Carrey.

The true stories escalate from surreal to outrageous to unbelievable. And then there’s magic hour. But you’ll never see Hollywood the same way again.

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VIRTUAL EVENT TICKETS (click here)
Friday, October 18, 2024, 6pm PT/9pm ET
TICKETS:
$50 Virtual Admission + signed book (includes shipping to US addresses only). Includes access to watch the event on October 18 at 6pm PT/9pm ET and on video-on-demand for five days.
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You devour his delicious parody videos as soon as they drop. Now, see Randy Rainbow in person.
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Randy Rainbow is a comedian, producer, actor, singer, writer, satirist, host and best-selling author known for his web series, The Randy Rainbow Show.  His musical parodies and political spoofs have garnered him worldwide acclaim and four consecutive Emmy nominations for Outstanding Short-Form Variety Series. His debut solo album, A Little Brains, A Little Talent, earned him a 2022 Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album. He lives in New York City.
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Pamela Adlon is an Emmy Award-winning creator, actor, writer, producer, and director. Her groundbreaking, Peabody Award-winning & Critic’s Choice Award nominated comedy series, FX’s Better Things, showcases her raw, insightful point of view and an unapologetic, elevated commentary on motherhood, feminism and the complexity of modern life. Better Things marks Adlon’s  shift into directing, showrunning, writing, producing and more, all at the highest level of her craft. In addition to her screen work—both in front of and behind the camera—Adlon also leads her own all-female production company, Slam Book Inc., where she currently oversees more than a dozen projects in development, each focused on unique characters sharing their own personal stories. She has been vocal in her support of women and many other under-represented groups, putting her activism into practice at Slam Book by elevating these stories and empowering others to use their own voices as well.
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“Discovering Randy is one of my happiest memories. I don’t toss around the word ‘genius’ often, but there’s no other word to describe him. After being in touch with each other, I’m thrilled to call him my friend. He’s as nice as he is talented. Wow.” ―Carol Burnett
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“Randy Rainbow is a wicked wit, an unparalleled musical master of parody and a national treasure, full stop. Every time I think he can’t top himself, he does it AGAIN.” ― Mark Hamill
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As a savvy social commentator tuned into the public discourse, comedian Randy Rainbow has a few things on his mind. .

Low-Hanging Fruit, his new book of essays, is a bold manifesto for a nation desperately in need of a makeover—filled with sparkling whines, a few flutes of Champagne problems and a Birkin bag of the most pressing issues facing the United States, from dancing TikTok grandmas to Elon Musk to the GOP, and, of course, Donald Jessica Trump. 
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Randy knows that what the country needs to get back on its high heels is a hard-hitting gay agenda. Come laugh out loud as he shares his thoughts on the Live Talks stage.