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Thursday, July 11, 2019
6:30 p.m.
The English-Speaking Union
144 East 39th Street, New York City
This classic suspense film finds New York City ad executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) pursued by ruthless spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) after Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent. Hunted relentlessly by Vandamm's associates, the harried Thornhill ends up on a cross-country journey, meeting the beautiful and mysterious Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) along the way. Soon Vandamm's henchmen close in on Thornhill, resulting in a number of iconic action sequences.
During the twentieth century many theatrical adventures from Great Britain made their mark on Broadway. In this fascinating talk about her new book, The British Invasion of Broadway Continues, Elizabeth Sharland follows on from her best-selling book on historic theatrical London with a similar approach to the theatrical heritage of New York. Her new book features chapters written by Richard Eyre, former Head of the National Theatre of Great Britain, and John Miller, biographer of Dame Judi Dench, as well as chapters on Glenda Jackson, Mark Rylance and some of the earliest British actors to come here. She discusses the places where the British legends, such as the Oliviers, Sir Noel Coward and the great impresarios were wined and dined when staying in New York, including the famous Algonquin Hotel, which British actors still call home. Elizabeth Sharland endeavors to keep those great memories alive, recording the early days when the first British actors went to New York, and when a transfer of a play to Broadway was something special.
Join The English-Speaking Union and ADSNY for an engaging illustrated talk that will highlight Chicago's role in bringing revolutionary modern design to the American marketplace. Focusing on the critical period from the 1930s to the 1950s, Bruegmann explores issues of design and aesthetics within the larger social, economic, and cultural context of the period. His talk discusses the ways in which the city's industries, advertising firms, and mail order companies advanced modern design on the local, regional, and national levels. In addition to seeing how stunning Art Deco towers set trends for skyscrapers throughout the country, highlights of this presentation include iconic decorative arts and industrial designs for products such as Schwinn bicycles, beautiful Deco radios by Motorola, streamlined coffee makers from Sunbeam, an entire universe of products from Sears and Montgomery Ward…and more!
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." 
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.
