News And Events

Dana Ivey

Person Place Thing is an interview show hosted by Randy Cohen based on the idea that people are particularly engaging when they speak, not directly about themselves, but about something they care about.  Cohen's guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing that are important to them. The result: surprising stories from great speakers. This installment of Person Place Thing will be a conversation with Dana Ivey. It will be recorded and, about six weeks later, broadcast across Northeast Public Radio, a 23 station regional network, and made available as a podcast on www.personplacething.org.

Register online here, or download the paper form to mail in your registration. 

 

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Luytens the Great

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, was one of the greatest of British architects known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. A boy genius, he began as an architect of lyrical country houses, before discovering the High Game of Classicism.  His was a dazzling career which produced, among numerous other works, two great symbols of the national spirit: the Cenotaph in Whitehall, the memorial that became the focus of Britain's grief after the First World War, and the Viceroy's House in New Delhi, a palace bigger than Versailles symbolising British rule in India.  This lecture will celebrate Lutyens's achievement on the 150thanniversary of his birth and compare his place in architectural history to that of Wren, Vanbrugh, Adam and Soane.  Was Lutyens the greatest of all?  The architectural historian Gavin Stamp described him as "surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth (or of any other) century." 

 

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Ciphers, Secrets, and Spies in the Elizabethan Age

The Elizabethan era (1558-1603) is often depicted as the "Golden Age" in England's history—an era of great exploration and military victories in which Queen Elizabeth I is represented in sumptuous clothing and jewels.  But the reality, which included religious conflicts that tore families apart, political challenge to Elizabeth's authority, high levels of poverty and crime, and vulnerability to foreign invasion, was far grimmer.  The Queen was considered a Protestant heretic by the rulers of Europe, and numerous plots were hatched to dethrone her in favor of Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth's closest courtiers. notably William Cecil (1st Baron Burghley) and Francis Walsingham—the "Spymaster"—attempted to protect her. Walsingham's network of clandestine agents unearthed a series of threats, including one led by an invasion of priests trained abroad and sent to England and hidden in "priest-holes" by Catholic families in places as Baddesly Clinton and Coughton Court in Warwickshire to prepare for a Catholic rebellion.

 

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The Long Dark Hall

Monday, March 25, 2019
6:30 p.m.
The English-Speaking Union
144 East 39th Street, New York City

In a London still rebuilding after World War II, suburban businessman Arthur Groome (Rex Harrison) carries on an extramarital affair with Rose (Patricia Wayne), a chorus girl. One night, Arthur lets himself into Rose's small apartment and discovers that she has been brutally stabbed to death. Fleeing in a panic, Arthur incriminates himself in her death and is charged with her murder. As the case goes to trial, the real killer becomes friendly with Arthur's steadfast wife, Mary (Lilli Palmer).

 

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Jules Verne Eats a Rhinoceros

Tuesday, February 19 from 6:00 to 10:30 pm

The English-Speaking Union invites you to a pre-theater wine-and-cheese reception followed by a performance of The Amateur Comedy Club production of Don Nigro's "Jules Verne Eats a Rhinoceros".

To register online, please click here. 

 

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