Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Susan Orlean

Wednesday, March 21, 2018
8pm (Reception: 6:30-7:30pm)
 
(Please note this event has been rescheduled to May 29.  Patrons who have tickets for March 21 will have their tickets honored for the new date and have received an email about the change.)
 
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
in conversation with Susan Orlean
 
discussing his book,
Becoming Kareem:
Growing Up On and Off the Court


Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404

TICKETS 
Date of this event has changed to May 29.

Tickets to the new date can be purchased here.
 
$95 Reserved Section Seat + Reception (6:30-7:30pm)
        + a copy of Becoming Kareem
$40 General Admission Seat + a copy of Becoming Kareem
$50 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Becoming Kareem
$25 General Admission Seat


Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ​is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, a six-time NBA champion and the league’s only six-time MVP. He is has a national platform as a regular contributing columnist for newspapers and magazines around the world, such as The Guardian and The Hollywood Reporter where he shares his thoughts on some of the most socially relevant and politically controversial topics facing our nation today. After 50 years as an athlete and activist, he offers his perspectives as a nationally recognized speaker who regularly appears on the lecture circuit.

Currently, Abdul-Jabbar serves as the chairman of his Skyhook Foundation whose mission is to “Give Kids a Shot That Can’t be Blocked” by bringing educational STEM opportunities to underserved communities through innovative outdoor environmental learning. A New York Times best-selling author, he has written 14 books, including two recent memoirs: Becoming Kareem for young readers, and Coach Wooden and Me about his lifelong friendship with famed UCLA coach John Wooden.

His Emmy Award-winning HBO Sports documentary, Kareem: Minority of One, debuted as HBO’s most watched and highest rated sports documentary of all time. In 2017 Abdul-Jabbar, an avid numismatic coin collector, was appointed as the first African-American to the CCAC (Citizens Coin Advisory Council) in its 100-year history, where he helps decide on all coins that are to be minted in The United States.

Before leaving office President Barack Obama awarded Abdul-Jabbar The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Susan Orlean is the author of eight books, including The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup; My Kind of Place; Saturday Night; and Lazy Little Loafers. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film, Adaptation starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Her book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, a New York Times Notable book, won the Ohioana Book Award and the Richard Wall Memorial Award.  She is currently writing a book about the Los Angeles Public Library, The Library Book, which will be published in the Fall, 2018

Orlean has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1992, covering such subjects as taxidermy, fashion, umbrellas, origami, dogs, and chickens. She previously interviewed T.C. Boyle at Live Talks Los Angeles. (Video)

 

Matthew Weiner with Susan Orlean

Thursday, November 16, 2017
8pm

Matthew Weiner
in conversation with Susan Orlean

discussing his novel, 
Heather, The Totality

Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404

*This event is cancelled. All attendees will receive refunds.

Matthew Weiner has been entertaining audiences for two decades, most recently as writer, creator, executive producer, and director of Mad Men, one of television’s most honored series. He also worked as a writer and executive producer on The Sopranos, along with several comedy series, and made his feature film debut in 2014. Weiner studied at Wesleyan University and earned his MFA from USC School of Cinema and Television.

Heather, The Totality is a tour de force of control, tone and razor-slash insight. In its clear-eyed anatomist’s gaze and its remarkable combination of empathy and pitilessness. I hear echoes of Flaubert and Richard Yates, with a deeply twisted twist of Muriel Spark at her darkest.  I could not put it down.” —Author Michael Chabon

“This short novel of upper-crust anomie and class-divide obsession is a scorcher! It’s the classic noir construction: the short walk off the long ledge and the plummet to an indifferent Hell. Matthew Weiner demonically delivers the goods! Read this book in one gasping breath.” —Author James Ellroy

Video: Matthew Weiner’s creative solution for eliminating doubt

Critics have described Matthew Weiner’s writing as compelling, seductive, smart, insightful, and original. For many years we’ve been fortunate to watch his captivating, complex, and chilling American stories unfold on the screen. Now comes this master storyteller’s brilliant, unnerving debut novel, Heather, The Totality.

Susan Orlean is the author of eight books, including The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup; My Kind of Place; Saturday Night; and Lazy Little Loafers. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film, Adaptation starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Her book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, a New York Times Notable book, won the Ohioana Book Award and the Richard Wall Memorial Award.  She is currently writing a book about the Los Angeles Public Library, to be published in 2018.

Orlean has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1992, covering such subjects as taxidermy, fashion, umbrellas, origami, dogs, and chickens. She previously interviewed T.C. Boyle at Live Talks Los Angeles. (Video)