Two poets collide when Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields and Rives visit Twenty Summers for a conversation about poetry, language, music, and Scrabble.
Geraldine Brooks and Amy Bloom in Conversation
Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks will share the Barn’s stage with fellow New York Times bestseller Amy Bloom, in a conversation moderated by poet Gail Mazur. Geraldine Brooks is the author of five historical novels (including March and People of the Book), a memoir, and Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women. Last year, Booklist praised The Secret Chord, Brooks’s fictional portrait of King David, as “a gorgeously written novel of ambition, courage, retribution, and triumph.” Amy Bloom’s catalogue of fiction and nonfiction ranges from Away and Where the God of Love Hangs Out to Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites With Attitude. According to the Washington Post, her latest, Lucky Us, is proof that “if America has a Victor Hugo, it is Amy Bloom, whose picaresque novels roam the world, plumb the human heart and send characters into wild roulettes of kismet and calamity.” Both women have lived rich and variegated lives beyond the page: Brooks as an environmentalist and foreign correspondent, Bloom as a psychotherapist and teacher. Gail Mazur, a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emerson College and author of seven poetry collections, serves on the Writing Committee at Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center.
A Century Onstage Performed by James True-Frost
On May 28, 2016, Twenty Summers hosted a theatrical reading of 100 YEARS, a new book of sage literary quotations on every age from birth to one hundred. Compiled by Twenty Summers cofounder Joshua Prager and visualized by Milton Glaser, the legendary graphic designer who created the I ♥ NY logo, the book moves year by year through the words of our most beloved authors. A Century Onstage is performed by the actor Jim True-Frost, best known for his work on the HBO series “The Wire.”
Bill James in Conversation with Rob Neyer
Bill James, whose quantitative analysis of baseball revolutionized the sport, talks with baseball writer Rob Neyer about his life, his career, and the national pastime. James, who now serves as a senior advisor to the Boston Red Sox, began writing his annual Bill James Baseball Abstract in the 1970s. These books focused on what James later termed “sabermetrics”—the objective analysis of the game. His ideas reached a larger audience when Michael Lewis wrote about him in Moneyball, a book later made into a movie starring Brad Pitt. Neyer, a writer for FOX Sports and the author or coauthor of six books on baseball, spent fifteen years as a columnist for ESPN and has served as the baseball editor for SB Nation.
Nicole Atkins in Concert
On May 21, 2016, we welcomed Nicole Atkins to the Barn. Her debut album, Neptune City, paid homage to her New Jersey hometown and won her a place on Rolling Stone’s list of “Top 10 Artists to Watch.” Since then, she has produced two more (Mondo Amore and Slow Phaser) and toured widely through the U.S. and Europe, both as a headliner and alongside bands such as Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Primal Scream, and the Avett Brothers. She has also performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Conan,” and “Later . . . with Jools Holland” and is a host on Sirius XM’s Spectrum channel.
Edith Windsor in Conversation
Edith Windsor is one of the two plaintiffs whose joint victory before the Supreme Court led to last year’s landmark decision in favor of marriage equality. In 2009, after the death of her spouse and longtime partner, Thea Speyer, Windsor learned that because her marriage was not recognized by the federal government, she was required to pay more than $300,000 in estate taxes. Windsor fought back, in United States v. Windsor, all the way to the Supreme Court, striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and winning a national following as a beloved and charismatic leader for human rights. Together with Speyer, Windsor is the focus of the documentary film Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement. Her many honors and awards include the Women’s Rights Award from the American Federation of Teachers and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Out magazine.
Onstage with Windsor, we welcome back actor, writer, and activist James Lecesne, whose hit Off Broadway one-man show The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey we are proud to have premiered in the Barn during Twenty Summers’ inaugural season. Lecesne is a cofounder of the Trevor Project, which was inspired by the Oscar-winning film for which he wrote the screenplay. He has appeared on Broadway, published YA novels, and is a frequent speaker at events focused on issues facing LGBT youth.
Marshall Crenshaw in Concert
Musician, actor, author, publisher, and jack-of-all-trades Marshall Crenshaw launches Twenty Summers’ third season with an intimate acoustic solo performance. In a career now spanning four decades, Crenshaw has reached the Billboard Top 40 and been nominated for a Golden Globe Award. As a stage and film actor, he has portrayed other musicians, ranging from Buddy Holly to John Lennon. Since 2011, Crenshaw has served as the host of WFUV’s radio show “Bottomless Pit,” and he is a contributor to Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger’s HBO series “Vinyl.”
Artist and Teacher: A Hans Hofmann Symposium June 14, 2015
Twenty Summers hosted a two-part symposium sponsored by The Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust, in celebration of the recently published Hans Hofmann Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings. The first part is devoted to the catalogue raisonné itself, with a focus on his career-changing Chimbote series. Panelists include gallerist James Yohe, professor Ken Silver, and Stacey Gershon, collections manager at The Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust. The second part features a discussion of Hofmann as teacher with Paul Resika and Penelope Jencks, who studied with Hofmann at two different periods of his career.
Barney Frank and Joanna Weiss in Conversation
How did a disheveled, intellectually combative gay Jew with a thick accent become one of the most effective (and funniest) politicians of our time? Barney Frank grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey, where, at age fourteen, he made two vital discoveries about himself: he was attracted to government…and to men. He resolved to make a career out of the first attraction and to keep the second a secret. Now, fifty years later, his sexual orientation is widely accepted, while his belief in government is embattled. Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage is one man’s account of the country’s transformation—and the tale of a truly momentous career.
Patty Larkin in Concert
Patty Larkin redefines the boundaries of folk-urban pop music with her inventive guitar wizardry and uncompromising vocals and lyrics. Acoustic Guitar hails her “soundscape experiments” while Rolling Stone praises her “evocative and sonic shading.” She has been described as “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “hypnotic” (Entertainment Weekly) and a “drop-dead brilliant” performer (Performing Songwriter).
David Hilliard in Conversation
Hunter O’Hanian, director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York City, speaks with David Hilliard about the photographer’s work, especially as showcased in David’s new book, What Could Be (Minor Matter Books), a semi-autobiographical progression of the artist’s explorations of family, societal norms, relationships, and moments of personal discovery in understanding concepts of masculinity.
The Parkington Sisters in Concert
When Ariel, Sarah, and Rose Parkington of the Parkington Sisters pick up their instruments to strike up a song, the air begins to buzz. The chemistry between the three sisters is so present you feel like you can touch it. Hailing from Wellfleet, Massachusetts, the Parkington Sisters cut their teeth on music from the very beginning. Daughters of a prog rock musician and a classically trained guitarist and songwriter, they were raised playing music on picturesque Cape Cod.
Michael Cunningham and Adam Gopnik in Conversation
Pulitzer prize–winning novelist Michael Cunningham (a Ptown regular) and the Canadian-American New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik (who’s partial to Wellfleet) united onstage for the first time ever, to talk of matters newsworthy and intimate, factual and imaginary, lofty and lowbrow. Learning to drive, channeling Virginia Woolf, parenting in a foreign country, trespassing in the forbidden forest of the fairy tale.
Goodbye, Sailor: An Evening of Words and Music
An evening of classical music and readings about nautical wanderlust. The musical performance by L’Académie chamber orchestra featured dramatic pieces by Henry Purcell, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Marin Marais, and others. Literary excerpts, ranging from Homer to Robert Browning, were read by National Book Award–winning authors M. T. Anderson and Julia Glass.
Twenty Summers Introduction
Storytellers: Steven Petrow
Steven Petrow, also known as Mr. Manners, is a respected journalist and the go-to source for questions about modern manners. He is often cited in the New York Times, People, and Time, as well as on NPR. His usually gentle, often humorous, but always insightful advice has made him a nationally recognized expert. The author of five etiquette books, Petrow writes the “Civilities” column for the Washington Post; “Manners Hero” for Parade; and “Medical Manners” for Everyday Health. Previously, he penned the New York Times’s “Civil Behavior” column. He is also the former president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.
Storytellers: Melanie Braverman
Melanie Braverman is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of the novel East Justice and the poetry collection Red, for which she received the Publishers Triangle Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Her artwork is in the permanent collection of New York’s Leslie-Lohman Museum, and she is working on a forthcoming exhibition at AMP Gallery in Provincetown.
Storytellers: Christine Horovitz
Christine Horovitz is the owner of Kiss and Makeup, a skin care, hair care, and cosmetics store and spa for men and women in Provincetown. She is is writing her first book about her journey to becoming transgender. In the early 1990s, she moved to Provincetown, where she met her husband. Together for fourteen years, they built a life in Rhode Island until Horovitz was widowed by his accidental death. She relocated to Provincetown five years ago.
Storytellers: Corey Johnson
Corey Johnson was elected a New York City Councilmember in November 2013; he represents the communities of Manhattan’s West Side. Raised in a union household where his mother, a homeless services provider, and his father, a Teamster, instilled in him the values of community service and political engagement, Corey first came to national attention in 2000, on the front page of the New York Times, as a trailblazer for LGBT youth. As the captain of his high school football team, when he took the courageous step of coming out publicly, he kept not only his position of leadership but also the support of his school and teammates. In 2005 Corey joined Community Board 4, eventually rising to chair the board. He negotiated for thousands of new units of permanent affordable family housing, educational scholarships for underserved children, and pressured New York State to protect our watershed from hydrofracking. He has advocated for protection of parkland and public recreational facilities, reducing class sizes in public school, and restoring the mayor’s proposed cuts to senior centers and meal programs. He was also influential in the approval of two new public schools to be built on New York City’s West Side.
Storytellers: Jane Isay
Jane Isay is the author of Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Between Grown Children and Parents, Mom Still Likes You Best: The Unfinished Business Between Siblings, and Secrets and Lies: Surviving the Truths That Change Our Lives. She has lectured on these subjects across the country and appeared on network TV and NPR. She is also the author/editor of You Are My Witness: The Living Words of Rabbi Marshall T. Meyers.Before becoming a writer, Isay was an editor for more than 40 years, publishing a broad range of nonfiction, with a special focus on psychology, at Yale University Press, Basic Books, Addison-Wesley, Grosset Books, and ultimately as editor in chief of Harcourt. Over the years, she worked on books by such esteemed authors as Robert J. Lifton, Howard Gardner, Alice Miller, and Mary Pipher. For over a decade, Isay chaired the Association of American Publishers’ Freedom to Read Committee. She has served on boards of directors of a number of nonprofit publishers and chaired the board of The New Press while sharing her expertise at publishing courses and panels in New York and around the country. She lives in Manhattan.