Events
T Bone Burnett
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
8pm (6:30-7:30pm Reception)
An Evening with
T Bone Burnett
The Invisible Light
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$30 Reserved Section
$20 General Admission Section
$95 Reception + Reserved Section Seats
At the 2019 SXSW conference, T Bone Burnett gave a compelling speech about artists and art in the digital age. This talk is a conversation about the themes he brought up in the speech.
“Music industry veteran T Bone Burnett has no big love for Big Tech. In a scorching keynote speech this week at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician/producer spoke out against the growing power of Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook while affirming the importance of artists’ rights. “Artists create conscience,” the O Brother, Where Art Thou? producer said. “The artists are our only hope.”
— Fast Company.
“Instead of tending toward a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside.”
–Marshall McLuhan from his 1962 book, The Gutenberg Galaxy
“We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places. [The Web] has ended up producing—with no deliberate action of the people who designed the platform — a large-scale emergent phenomenon which is anti-human.”
— Tim Berners-Lee, who drew the original diagram for the world wide web on a napkin, and who now has Dr. Frankenstein’s remorse.
With 50-years’ experience in music and entertainment, T Bone Burnett has earned an unparalleled reputation as a first-rate innovative artist, songwriter, producer, performer, film and concert producer, record company owner and artists’ advocate. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Burnett grew up in Fort Worth, Texas where he first began writing songs and making records. Burnett was traveling the country as a free-lance record producer when he was asked by Bob Dylan to play guitar in his band on the now-legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour leading Burnett to form the Alpha Band with David Mansfield and Steven Soles. Burnett madethree acclaimed albums with the group before making a string of solo records in the 1980’s atthe end of which, he began to work in film, beginning with Roy Orbison’s, A Black and White Night.
Burnett is an Academy Award winner, a Golden Globe winner, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA) winner, and a 13-time Grammy® Award winner. He’s workedand collaborated with musicians across many genres including Elton John, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, The Civil Wars, Taylor Swift, RyanBingham, Steve Earle and Leon Russell. Burnett’s first major foray into film was his collaborationwith the Coen Brothers on The Big Lebowski, and has since held multiple titles for numerous films including The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain, The Hunger Games, Walk The Line, Inside Llewyn Davis and Crazy Heart, for which he served as one of thefilm’s Producers. He also has multiple credits in television including as the Executive Music Producer and Composer for the HBO series True Detective, and the first season of the ABC television series, Nashville.
David Epstein with Eric Barker
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
8pm
David Epstein
in conversation with Eric Barker
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$53 Reserved Section + book
$43 General Admission + Book
$20 General Admission
David Epstein is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. He has master’s degrees in environmental science and journalism, and has worked as an investigative reporter for ProPublica and a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. In his new book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, he turns decades of self-help advice on its head. Self-styled performance gurus (and our parents!) have all told us to specialize early, stay the course, climb the ladder. But Epstein marshals a mountain of scientific research to argue that the most impactful inventors, athletes, artists, musicians and more are the ones who cross domains, rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area.
Eric Barker’s humorous, practical blog, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, presents science-based answers and expert insight on “how to be awesome at life.” Over 320,000 people subscribe to his weekly newsletter and his content is syndicated by Time magazine, The Week, and Business Insider. He has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, and the Financial Times. For more about Eric and his work visit: www.bakadesuyo.com
“For reasons I cannot explain, David Epstein manages to make me thoroughly enjoy the experience of being told that everything I thought about something was wrong. I loved Range.” —Malcolm Gladwell
“In a world that’s increasingly obsessed with specialization, star science writer David Epstein is here to convince you that the future may belong to generalists. It’s a captivating read that will leave you questioning the next steps in your career—and the way you raise your children.” —Adam Grant
Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.
David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.
Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.
Ed Levine with Nancy Silverton and Kenji López-Alt
Monday, June 17, 2019
8pm (6:30-7:30pm Reception)
Ed Levine
in conversation with Nancy Silverton & Kenji López-Alt
Serious Eater:
A Food Lover’s Perilous Quest for Pizza and Redemption
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$53 Reserved Section + book
$43 General Admission + Book
$20 General Admission
$95 Reception* (6:30-7:30p) + Reserved Section + Book
*Reception includes selections from the book
Ed Levine is the founder (his employees affectionately call him the overlord) of Serious Eats, as well as creator and host of the Serious Eats podcast, Special Sauce. In 2016, Ed was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America.
Nancy Silverton is the co-owner of Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles, Newport Beach, and Singapore, as well as Mozza2Go and chi SPACCA in Los Angeles. Silverton also founded the world-renowned La Brea Bakery as well as Campanile Restaurant. Silverton has worked with some of the nation’s most notable and influential chefs including Jonathan Waxman at Michael’s Restaurant and Wolfgang Puck at Spago. She has served as a mentor to numerous others who have gone on to become award-winning chefs and restaurant owners themselves. Early in her career, Nancy was named Food and Wine Magazine’s “Best New Chef.” In 2014, she received the highest honor given by the James Beard Foundation for “Outstanding Chef.” That year, she was listed as one of the Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink by both Fortune and Food and Wine Magazines. Silverton is the author of eight cookbooks including Desserts (1986), Breads from the La Brea Bakery (1996), Pastries from the La Brea Bakery (2000), Nancy Silverton’s Sandwich Book (2005), Twist of the Wrist (2007) and the Mozza Cookbook (2011).
Kenji López-Alt is the chief culinary consultant of Serious Eats and author of the James Beard Award–nominated column The Food Lab, in which he unravels the science of home cooking. A restaurant-trained chef and former editor at Cook’s Illustrated magazine, Kenji released his first book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, in 2015, which went on to become a New York Times best-seller and the recipient of a James Beard Award, and was named Cookbook of the Year in 2015 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.
“A hilarious and moving story of unconventional entrepreneurialism, passion, and guts.” –Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group; Founder of Shake Shack; Author of Setting the Table
In 2005, Ed Levine was a freelance food writer with an unlikely dream: to control his own fate and create a different kind of food publication. He wanted to unearth the world’s best bagels, the best burgers, the best hot dogs–the best of everything edible. To build something for people like him who took everything edible seriously, from the tasting menu at Per Se and omakase feasts at Nobu down to mass-market candy, fast food burgers, and instant ramen.
Against all sane advice, he created a blog for $100 and called it…Serious Eats. The site quickly became a home for obsessives who didn’t take themselves too seriously. Intrepid staffers feasted on every dumpling in Chinatown and sampled every item on In-N-Out’s secret menu. Talented recipe developers like The Food Lab’s J. Kenji López-Alt and Stella Parks, aka BraveTart, attracted cult followings.
Even as Serious Eats became better-known–even beloved and respected–every day felt like it could be its last. Ed secured handshake deals from investors and would-be acquirers over lunch only to have them renege after dessert. He put his marriage, career, and relationships with friends and family at risk through his stubborn refusal to let his dream die. He prayed that the ride would never end. But if it did, that he would make it out alive.
This is the moving story of making a glorious, weird, and wonderful dream come true. It’s the story of one food obsessive who followed a passion to terrifying, thrilling, and mouthwatering places–and all the serious eats along the way.
Diane C. McPhail with Jane Smiley
Diane C. McPhail
in conversation with Jane Smiley
discussing the writing life and her novel,
The Abolitionist’s Daughter
William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
This event is part of our Newer Voices Series.
General Admission tickets are complimentary, but we encourage you to support these newer authors and purchase their books.
RSVP HERE for free tickets to this event
$28 Reserved Seat + Book PURCHASE BOOK HERE
Diane C. McPhail is an artist, writer, and minister. A graduate of Ole Miss, Duke Writers, University of Iowa Distance, and the Yale Writers’ Conference, she is a member of NC Writers Network and the Historical Novel Society. The Abolitionist’s Daughter is McPhail’s major debut novel. She lives in Highlands, North Carolina with her husband and dog.
Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres,which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Golden Age, Some Luckand Early Warning, the volumes of The Last Hundred Years trilogy. She is also the author of five works of nonfiction and a series of books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She has appeared several time at Live Talks Los Angeles, most recently to interview Charmaine Craig for her novel, Miss Burma and Sean Penn for his debut novel, Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff.
In her sweeping debut, Diane C. McPhail offers a powerful, profoundly emotional novel that explores a little-known aspect of Civil War history—Southern Abolitionists—and the timeless struggle to do right even amidst bitter conflict.
On a Mississippi morning in 1859, Emily Matthews begs her father to save a slave, Nathan, about to be auctioned away from his family. Judge Matthews is an abolitionist who runs an illegal school for his slaves, hoping to eventually set them free. One, a woman named Ginny, has become Emily’s companion and often her conscience—and understands all too well the hazards an educated slave must face. Yet even Ginny could not predict the tangled, tragic string of events set in motion as Nathan’s family arrives at the Matthews farm.
A young doctor, Charles Slate, tends to injured Nathan and begins to court Emily, finally persuading her to become his wife. But their union is disrupted by a fatal clash and a lie that will tear two families apart. As Civil War erupts, Emily, Ginny, and Emily’s stoic mother-in-law, Adeline, each face devastating losses. Emily—sheltered all her life—is especially unprepared for the hardships to come. Struggling to survive in this raw, shifting new world, Emily will discover untapped inner strength, an unlikely love, and the courage to confront deep, painful truths.
In the tradition of Cold Mountain, The Abolitionist’s Daughter eschews stereotypes of the Civil War South, instead weaving an intricate and unforgettable story of survival, loyalty, hope, and redemption.
Eve Ensler with Idina Menzel
Monday, June 10, 2019
8pm
Eve Ensler
in conversation with Idina Menzel
The Apology
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$27 General Admission Seat + Book
From Eve Ensler, author of one of the most influential works of the twentieth century–The Vagina Monologues–and one of Newsweek‘s “150 Women Who Changed the World,” comes a powerful, life-changing examination of abuse and atonement.
Eve Ensler is a Tony Award-winning playwright, author, performer, and activist. Her international phenomenon The Vagina Monologues has been published in 48 languages and performed in more than 140 countries. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller I Am an Emotional Creature, the highly-praised In the Body of the World, and many more. She is the founder of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, and One Billion Rising, the largest global mass action to end gender-based violence in over 200 countries. She is a co-founder of the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with Christine Schuler Deschryver and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Denis Mukwege. She is one of Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Changed the World” and the Guardian’s “100 Most Influential Women.”
Like millions of women, Eve Ensler has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father, Eve has struggled her whole life from this betrayal, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an anti-violence activist, she decided she would wait no longer; an apology could be imagined, by her, for her, to her. The Apology, written by Eve from her father’s point of view in the words she longed to hear, attempts to transform the abuse she suffered with unflinching truthfulness, compassion, and an expansive vision for the future.
Through The Apology Eve has set out to provide a new way for herself and a possible road for others, so that survivors of abuse may finally envision how to be free. She grapples with questions she has sought answers to since she first realized the impact of her father’s abuse on her life: How do we offer a doorway rather than a locked cell? How do we move from humiliation to revelation, from curtailing behavior to changing it, from condemning perpetrators to calling them to reckoning? What will it take for abusers to genuinely apologize?
Remarkable and original, The Apology is an acutely transformational look at how, from the wounds of sexual abuse, we can begin to re-emerge and heal. It is revolutionary, asking everything of each of us: courage, honesty, and forgiveness.
Tony Award–winner Idina Menzel has a career that traverses stage, film, television, and music. Menzel’s voice can be heard as Elsa in Disney’s Oscar–winning Frozen. The film’s song Let It Go, voiced by Menzel, won the Oscar for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media. Frozen 2 is slated for a November 2019 release. Soon Menzel can be seen opposite Adam Sandler in the upcoming Safdie Brothers’ film, Uncut Gems. A skillful songwriter, Menzel’s prolific recording career includes multiple cast recordings and solo albums. She was honored as Billboard’s Women in Music “Breakthrough Artist” in 2014. Garnering huge critical acclaim in her Tony– nominated role as Maureen in the Pulitzer Prize winning Rent, Menzel reached superstardom on Broadway with her Tony Award–winning performance as Elphaba, the misunderstood green girl in the blockbuster Wicked. Menzel was most recently seen on Broadway in the original production If/Then, for which she earned her third Tony nomination. Last season, she starred in Roundabout Theatre Company’s Off-Broadway production of the Joshua Harmon hit comedy, Skintight, and was the recipient of the Drama League Special Recognition Award for Achievement in Musical Theatre. Philanthropy is also important to Menzel, who co-founded the A BroaderWay Foundation in 2010. This organization is dedicated to offering girls from underserved communities an outlet for self-expression and creativity through arts-centered programs.
Celeste Barber with Jameela Jamil
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
8pm
Celeste Barber
in conversation with Jameela Jamil
Challenge Accepted!:
253 Steps to Becoming an Anti-It Girl
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$50 Reserved Section + book
$40 General Admission + Book
$20 General Admission
Celeste Barber is an actor, writer, comedian, wife, mom and stepmom to four children. Celeste has been working in the entertainment industry in Australia for over a decade, and her fan base in the US is growing with the launch of her new podcast, Celeste & Her Best, which debuted May 2019, and the release of her book, Challenge Accepted. Celeste went viral with #celestechallengeaccepted, an IG photo series in which she candidly recreates celebrity photos. Both her podcast and her book are extensions of this kind of authenticity; they add to and amplify the meaningful (and often hilarious) conversations that grew out of her insanely popular Instagram feed. In June, Celeste begins her second US comedy tour and will film her first stand up special for Showtime.
“Prepare to laugh when reading this memoir. Just when Celeste has you in stitches, she hits you right in the heart.” —Reese Witherspoon
“Celeste Barber makes me laugh and is a daily reminder to not take it all too seriously!” —Cindy Crawford
“My daily dose of happiness.” —Gwyneth Paltrow
From funny woman, Instagram star, and international comedy sensation, Celeste Barber’s Challenge Accepted! is a raucous, hilarious, and outspoken guide to life, unwanted gas, and how to rock a sexy scar.
Part memoir, part comedy routine, part advice manual, Challenge Accepted! is Celeste at her best, revealing her secrets to love, friendship, family, and marriage (oh hai, #hothusband), and how to deal with life’s many challenges—why she checks the bath for sharks, how Nutella quite literally shaped who she is as a woman, and why being famous on Instagram is like being rich in Monopoly. It’s real, like totally, really real.
Jameela Jamil can currently be seen starring in Mike Schur’s Golden Globe-nominated series for NBC, The Good Place, where she stars opposite Ted Danson and Kristen Bell. She also can be seen hosting the TBS game show, The Misery Index which will premiere in 2019, making her the only female woman of color hosting late night Television.
In 2009, Jameela Jamil, an English Teacher at the time, was picked from obscurity to host the British breakfast TV program Freshly Squeezed where she went on to become a favorite weekend and weekday morning face for the station T4. In 2010, Jameela got her first solo presenting role on Koko Pop, a music show filmed in Camden’s iconic club, Koko which proved to be a big hit on Channel 4. The following year Jameela fronted E4’s cult series, Playing It Straight and BBC Radio 1 announced her as the new host for their Request Show on Sunday evenings. By 2013 she landed the role of first female presenter to host BBC Radio 1’s The Official Chart Show.
In 2016 Jameela made her move to United States television where she was cast to portray the role of Tahani on NBC’s The Good Place. The show has won both an AFI Award and a Critics Choice Award and is currently in its third season. She is a frequent contributor and guest host for the NBC talk show Last Call with Carson Daly. She has also been cast in the Disney series Mira, Royal Detective with an all-Indian cast that includes Freida Pinto and Kal Penn, set to air in 2020.
Jameela has also fronted a TV ad campaign for Maybelline and has been featured in many publications including the covers of The Guardian, The Times, Stylist, Red and US Nylon as well as featured in Allure, Elle, Glamour,UK Vogue, Cosmo, InStyle, PAPER, Marie Claire UK, Grazia and Esquire. She is an advocate for many causes and in 2018 launched a movement and social media platform @i_Weigh which encourages women to feel valuable and look beyond the flesh on their bones. The movement has been recognized by both media outlets and the movement’s hundreds of thousands of followers over the world.