Arts & Letters Live 2013 Brochure

22nd season

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january–june 2013

A celebration of the literary and performing arts featuring acclaimed authors, actors, illustrators, musicians, and more

for your information Purchase Tickets, Subscriptions, and Books • • • •

Online: DMA.org/tickets unless otherwise noted By phone: 214-922-1818 By mail: For a printable order form, visit DMA.org/ALL. When ordering your tickets, support the Museum Store and pre-order your books online or by phone for pick up at Will Call.

Subscriber Benefits (people buying four or more events) •

Advance booking privileges for the upcoming season

Annual Series Supporter Benefits (see page 23 for details) • • •

Discount in the Museum Store Reserved seating Invitations to private receptions and dinners with authors

All programs and participants are subject to change.

make a night of it!

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Show your Arts & Letters Live ticket and receive a 10% discount at Cafe des Artistes, a Lombardi Family Concepts restaurant in One Arts Plaza. Valid only on the date of the event and does not cover alcohol, tax, or gratuity.

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Enjoy a glass of wine or casual dinner of sandwiches, salads, and soups in the DMA Cafe prior to Arts & Letters Live events. Proceeds benefit DMA programs.

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Take advantage of special packages that include event tickets and an overnight stay at The Adolphus. For more information, visit hoteladolphus.com or call 800-221-9083.

For information on venues, parking, where to eat, services for the hearing impaired, and the Museum Store, visit DMA.org.

Staff: Director of Programming and Arts & Letters Live: Carolyn Bess; Program Manager, Arts & Letters Live, and Producer, Texas Bound: Katie Hutton; Audience Relations Coordinator: Hayley Dyer; Administrative Coordinator: Carolyn Hartley; McDermott Intern: Emily Brown

artful musings

red an inside look at the art and life of mark rothko thursday, january 17, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium “There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend. . . .

One day the black will swallow the red.” Iconic artist Mark Rothko utters those words of foreshadowing to his assistant Ken in John Logan’s play Red, which won six Tony Awards in 2010. In the play, set in New York in 1958, Rothko undertakes a new commission for the Four Seasons restaurant, and his newly hired assistant challenges the master’s theories.

Dallas Theater Center is mounting a production of Red from February 7 to March 24, turning the ninth floor of the Wyly Theatre into Rothko’s Bowery studio for a thrilling bio-drama as vivid as any primary color.

DTC is collaborating with the Dallas Museum of Art by fostering dialogue about Rothko’s process, paintings, and persona among staff of both organizations and audiences as well.

At this event, audiences will get a glimpse into Rothko’s art and life as well as a sneak peek into the production of Red, featuring actor Kieran Connolly as Rothko and Jordan Brodess as Ken. Maxwell L. Anderson, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, will moderate an onstage conversation with: Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Director of Conservation at the Whitney Museum and the founding director of the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art at Harvard University Museums. She directed the restoration of the Rothko Chapel in Houston and has written on the techniques of Rothko, Cy Twombly, Jackson Pollock, and Barnett Newman.

Ticket Price $5 Reserve your seats online at DMA.org/tickets.

Mark Rothko, Orange, Red and Red, 1962, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Algur H. Meadows and the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated, 1968.9, © 2012 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Joel Ferrell, Associate Artistic Director at the Dallas Theater Center and director of Red. 1

fresh ink

michael ennis friday, january 18, 7:00 p.m. horchow auditorium

stewart cohen

Michael Ennis is the author of the New York Times bestselling historical thriller The Malice of Fortune. The book is inspired by the real-life assassination of Juan Borgia, an illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, and a series of serial-killer murders. The story follows Niccolò Machiavelli, future author of The Prince, and Leonardo da Vinci as they come together to solve a string of murders, while complex and deadly Borgia politics play out in the background.

Fresh Ink events are FREE. Order tickets in advance to guarantee your seat.

Register online at DMA.org/tickets.

In this meticulously researched book written over a period of twelve years, Ennis superimposes his story seamlessly onto the actual historical timeline. Author Glenn Cooper praised the book, saying, “Michael Ennis brings a scholar’s mind and a writer’s heart to this beautifully crafted work of Renaissance intrigue that has a rare quality of feeling ancient and modern at the same time. A powerful, thinking man’s thriller.”

The Malice of Fortune was named to Publishers Weekly’s list of “Best Books of Fall 2012.”

After initially being rejected by multiple publishers, Ennis and his agent printed their own galleys and sent them to independent booksellers across the country.

The praise they received from these booksellers was astonishing and, armed with their passionate support, Ennis’s agent again submitted the book. This time, the book was snapped up by Doubleday and eleven foreign publishers.

Michael Ennis taught art history at the University of Texas, developed museum programs as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the Dallas Museum of Art, and worked as an independent curator and consultant. His nonfiction writing on subjects ranging from politics to art and architecture has won several national awards and has been featured in Esquire, Texas Monthly, Art News, and Architectural Digest. He lives in Dallas.

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artful musings

making pictures and other stories friday, february 8, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium Photographer and filmmaker Nic Nicosia has been making directorial photographs for over thirty years.

He uses his camera to mimic reality, creating serial scenes that are deliberately artificial yet curiously enigmatic. Through the use of elaborate sets, costumes, and backdrops, he creates a sort of playful tromp l’oeil that makes the viewer do a double take and wonder, “How did he do that?”

His new publication, Nic Nicosia, is the definitive catalogue on his entire body of work. It showcases images from all of his major series, and includes essays by Sue Graze, the Director Emeritus of Arthouse at the Jones Center, who will moderate this event, and Michelle White, Curator of the Menil Collection, who will discuss Nicosia’s work in a broader context.

At this event, Nicosia will share insight into his working habits and creative process while discussing selected images from Nic Nicosia. Philipp Meyer, author of American Rust (on Newsweek’s “Best. Books. Ever.” list), will then reveal the inspiration behind his new short story that powerfully resonates with the sense of wonder and menace in Nicosia’s art. The story debuts in the Nic Nicosia catalogue. This impressive duo of Nicosia and Meyer reminds us of the importance of imagination in the worlds of art and literature, and how one can influence and stimulate the other.

Nicosia’s work has been exhibited at multiple biennials, and his photographs are owned by many premier museums, including the Dallas Museum of Art. He received the coveted Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010.

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Ticket and book combo $75 (Buy the book and attend the event for free!)

Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

Meyer is on Granta’s list of “Best Young American Novelists” and has been named one of the best 20 writers under 40 by the New Yorker.

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texas bound

texas bound i monday, february 11, 7:00 p.m. horchow auditorium

Earlier time!

Reis McCormick reads her essay The Shape of Things to Come Matt Bomer reads Ron Carlson’s Milk Allison Pistorius reads Siobhan Fallon’s Gold Star Stephen Tobolowsky reads his essay F.A.Q., answers questions, and signs books

About the actors: Reis McCormick joins Texas Bound this season as a writer and performer. Recent television and film credits include AMC’s Emmy-winning hit Breaking Bad, and two feature films.

McCormick teaches Creative Process to actors and filmmakers at K.D. College Conservatory in Dallas, and she recently finished writing her first documentary narrative, “Cowboys of Color.”

Allison Pistorius has recently been seen in Twelfth Night (Olivia) at Shakespeare Dallas and Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice), as part of the Complete Works reading series, presented by the AT&T Performing Arts Center and produced

by Shakespeare Dallas. Other highlights include Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), RosaLaBella/Blanca (The House of the Spirits), Rosalind (As You Like It), and Belle/Norah (Ah,

jim britt

Wilderness!). She holds an MFA from the National Theatre Conservatory.

Stephen Tobolowsky is a Dallas native and one of the leading character actors in film today. USA Today listed him as the Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15

ninth most frequently seen actor in movies: he has appeared in over one hundred movies and two hundred television shows.

Tobolowsky is best known for his work in Glee, Groundhog Day,

Don’t miss other Texas Bound programs on April 1 and May 6.

Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

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Memento, Seinfeld, and Heroes. He wrote and performed the comic documentary film Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party and wrote True Stories with David Byrne and Beth Henley. His first book, The Dangerous Animals Club, was released in September.

booksmART

jon scieszka saturday, february 23, 7:00 p.m. horchow auditorium

Scieszka is also the founder of Guys Read, a web-based literacy program to encourage a passion for reading among boys, with the philosophy that boys love to read most when they are reading things they love.

His Internet savvy is also displayed in his Spaceheadz series, which combines reading with media technology. The series follows Michael K., whose best friends in the fifth grade are aliens who are on a mission to convince 3.14 million (and 1!) kids to be Spaceheads.

Booklist says of his third and latest Spaceheadz book, “With plenty of twists, lots of well-timed comic noises, and even a hilarious section narrated by Major Fluffy, this is sure to delight fans, while recruiting new ones.

Another laugh factory between covers.”

In 2008 Scieszka was named the first-ever National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress. As ambassador, Scieszka toured the country to raise awareness about the importance of children’s literature in fostering a lifelong joy of reading and learning. Some perks of the job: being ambassador got him out of parking tickets, and he was given a pretty fancy medallion.

marty umans

There was never a dull moment in the Scieszka household. One of six brothers growing up in Michigan, Jon Scieszka says he had to fight in order to survive the dinner table ruckus. “I would make everyone laugh and then make a grab for another piece of chicken,” he says. But the laughter didn’t stop there. His books The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales are his insideout versions of the popular fairy tales.

BooksmART events are FREE. Order tickets in advance to guarantee your seat.

Reserve online at DMA.org/tickets.

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artful musings

art spiegelman wednesday, february 27, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium

nadjia spiegelman

Art Spiegelman has almost single-handedly brought comic books out of the toy closet and onto the literature shelves. In 1992 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his masterful Holocaust narrative MAUS—a comicbook chronicle of his parents’ experience during the Holocaust. The book was hailed by Jules Feiffer as “a remarkable work, awesome in its conception and execution . . . at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir and a comic book. Brilliant.

Just brilliant.”

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

Become an Annual Series Supporter at the $500 level or above and enjoy an intimate pre-event reception with Art Spiegelman.

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MAUS II continued the incredible story of his parents’ survival of the Nazi regime and their lives later in America. His comics are best known for their shifting graphic styles, formal complexity, and controversial content.

In 2004 he completed a two-year cycle of broadsheetsized color comics pages, In the Shadow of No Towers.

Published in book form by Pantheon, it appeared on many national bestseller lists and was selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2004.

He also worked as a staff artist and writer for the New Yorker from 1993 to 2003, and in 2005 he was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.”

A major exhibition of his work was arranged by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the 15 Masters of 20th Century Comics exhibition.

At this event, his topic will be What the %@&*! Happened to Comics? Spiegelman will take us on a chronological tour of the history and evolution of comics, all the while explaining the value of this medium and why it should not be ignored.

booksmART

peter reynolds friday, march 15, 7:00 p.m. horchow auditorium Beloved children’s author Peter Reynolds’ goal is to turn cannots into can-dos. The New York Times bestselling author and illustrator is a stalwart supporter of creativity, encouraging even the most unimaginative readers to take a chance and believe in their unique abilities. “Nothing irks me more than seeing a person’s creativity get shut down,” Reynolds says. “Through my books, I want to help give kids—and grown-up kids—the vocabulary to protect their exploration in art, writing, and thinking.”

Author and illustrator of over thirty-five books for children, Reynolds continues to inspire readers with award-winning books such as Plant a Kiss and Someday, both of which deal with the power of love. His popular, bestselling “Creatrilogy,” which includes The Dot, Ish, and Sky Color, offers insight into self-expression, the importance of trying, and thinking outside the box.

In his latest book, The Museum, Reynolds teams up with author Susan Verde to celebrate the inspiration that comes from visiting a museum. Their young female protagonist tours galleries, connecting different styles of art to unique emotions and ideas. Arriving at an empty canvas, she is motivated to create her own individual work of art. The Museum will show children of all ages that museums can be fun and stimulating.

“I am hoping that children and . . . grown-up children will be moved as they read my work. . . . I want them to put their dreams into action.” —Peter Reynolds Tickets to BooksmART events are FREE. Order tickets in advance to guarantee your seat.

Register online at DMA.org/tickets.

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texas bound

selected shorts: april foolery monday, april 1, 7:00 p.m. horchow auditorium

Earlier time!

Linda Lavin reads David Schickler’s Wes Amerigo¹s Giant Fear Denis O’Hare reads Dave Eggers’ Your Mother and I Christina Pickles reads Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter Join us this April Fool’s Day for an evening of wacky tales.

About the actors: Linda Lavin is a Tony and Emmy Award–winning actor, singer, producer, and director. She recently performed on Broadway in The Lyons, for which she received her sixth Tony Award nomination. She is perhaps best known for her title role in the hit TV series Alice (1976–85), for which she won two Golden Globe awards and received an Emmy nomination. Other credits include The Sopranos, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and The O. C. Lavin lives in New York and teaches master classes in the Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Don’t miss other Texas Bound programs on February 11 and May 6.

performing arts at NYU. Denis O’Hare, perhaps best known as Russell in the HBO hit series True Blood, has also appeared in Law & Order, Brothers and Sisters, The Good Wife, Charlie Wilson’s War, Changeling, Milk, and Omer Fast’s video 5000 Feet Is the Best, a work recently acquired

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by the Dallas Museum of Art. O’Hare won a Tony for Best Actor

DMA.org/tickets.

in the play Take Me Out in 2003 and has also been nominated for an Emmy. He lives in New York.

Christina Pickles is an Emmy-nominated British actor who is perhaps best known for her roles as Nurse Helen Rosenthal on St. Elsewhere and Judy Geller on Friends. Her films include Legends of the Fall and Romeo and Juliet.

Selected Shorts on KERA 90.1 On Saturdays at 7:00 p.m., tune in to the awardwinning public radio series featuring classic and bold new stories read by acclaimed actors.

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artful musings

michael potiker

visual verse in celebration of national poetry month wednesday, april 3, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium Paul Muldoon was born in Northern Ireland and studied at Queen’s University in Belfast under poet Seamus Heaney, who has since deemed him “one of the best.” Recurring themes of political and social relevance inform his poems, as do family anecdotes.

His book Moy Sand and Gravel won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize and the International Griffin Poetry Prize. He is best known for his dry wit as well as his “visual clarity and verbal panache.” The New York Observer said, “Paul Muldoon is one of the great readers alive today. His voice alters with every change in tone and he’ll often pace around a room, his whole body responding to his intricate rhythms.”

Muldoon has written libretti, rock lyrics for his own band, and many books for children. His forthcoming poetry collection, The Word on the Street (February 2013), is a book of rock lyrics, some performed by Wayside Shrines, the music collective of which he is a member.

Their themes range from lost love and lost wars to icons as varied as Oedipus and Charlton Heston.

Muldoon serves as poetry editor of the New Yorker and as a professor at Princeton University.

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

At this event, both poets will premiere new poems inspired by works of art in the DMA’s collection.

Nikky Finney was born in South Carolina and came of age during the civil rights and Black Arts movements. At Talladega College, Finney began to understand the powerful synergy between art and history.

She has authored four books of poetry: Head Off & Split (2011, winner of the National Book Award), The World Is Round (2003), Rice (1995), and On Wings Made of Gauze (1985). After her National Book Award acceptance speech, host John Lithgow remarked, “That was the best acceptance speech for anything I’ve ever heard in my life.” Finney is the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky.

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wit and wisdom

cheryl strayed tuesday, april 9, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium

joni kabana

Cheryl Strayed catapulted into the literary spotlight with the publication of her critically acclaimed memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild became a #1 New York Times bestseller, inspired Oprah Winfrey to revive her Book Club, and was optioned

by Reese Witherspoon’s production company. The book was also named as a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, and Amazon named it a “Best of March” pick.

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Register online at DMA.org/tickets.

After the sudden death of her mother, a divorce, and a string of reckless decisions, Cheryl Strayed set out alone for a harrowing journey to hike 1,100 miles across the Pacific Crest Trail. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker—indeed, she’d never even gone backpacking before her first night on the trail—but this was her attempt to piece back together a life that had come undone. Told with great suspense, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

Strayed is also the voice behind The Rumpus.net’s beloved advice column, “Dear Sugar,” and has been hailed by the New Republic as the “ultimate advice columnist for the Internet age.” She has gained a tremendously loyal following for the wit, candor, and wisdom that she dispenses in each column. A collection of her columns has been compiled in the book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar.

Raised in Minnesota, Strayed now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, and their two children.

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distinguished writers

elizabeth strout monday, april 15, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium A Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction and a New York Times bestselling mainstay, Elizabeth Strout is the author of Olive Kitteridge, a story collection that showcases her distinctively New England voice and powerful narrative ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Composed of thirteen stories linked through the title character, Olive Kitteridge is a perceptive and wise portrait that speaks to the power of human connection. It was named to more than a dozen “Best Books of the Year” lists, and USA Today raved, “Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive Kitteridge. You’ll never forget her.”

At this event, she will discuss her new novel, The Burgess Boys (March 26, 2013), her first book since Olive Kitteridge. Jim Burgess is a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, and Bob Burgess is a divorced Legal Aid attorney. These brothers’ lives are irrevocably altered when their sister calls with news of a thoughtless prank committed by her teenage son, which is fast-evolving into a scandal. Responding to her plea for help, the brothers arrive in their hometown of Shirley Falls, Maine, where long-buried tensions begin to surface and layers of family history are peeled away to reveal heartbreaking secrets that will forever change them.

Tender, tough-minded, and deeply illuminating, The Burgess Boys explores the ties that bind us to family and home.

leonardo cendamo

Strout’s other books include Abide with Me, a national bestseller and Book Sense pick, and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/ Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize.

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Register online at DMA.org/tickets.

Ticket holders receive a 10% discount on their purchase of The Burgess Boys in the Museum Store.

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fresh ink

george saunders friday, april 19, 7:00 p.m. horchow auditorium

basso cannarsa

One of the most blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant in 2006 for “bring[ing] to contemporary American fiction a sense of humor, pathos, and literary style all his own.” Nylon magazine praised Saunders, saying, “[T]o discover George Saunders is to stumble into a world you never knew existed, like Alice’s Wonderland. [Saunders’] arresting originality, deadpan delivery, and satiric vision of contemporary America secure his place as the bold successor to Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut.”

Fresh Ink events are FREE. Order tickets in advance to guarantee your seat.

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Saunders’ eclectic past—his jobs range from roofer in Chicago, to guitarist in a country-western band, to knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse—has fostered a wild and wry creative streak that can be seen throughout his work. He is the author of several short story collections, including CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Pastoralia, and In Persuasion Nation, as well as a collection of essays, The Braindead Megaphone.

In 2001 Saunders was selected by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 100 top most creative people in entertainment, and by the New Yorker in 2002 as one of the best writers under 40. In 2009 he received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

DMA.org/tickets.

His forthcoming collection of short stories, Tenth of December (January 2013), is filled with Saunders’ manic energy and generosity of spirit. The stories are vividly and lovingly infused with his signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.

“Humor is what happens when we’re told the truth quicker and more directly than we’re used to.”

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fresh ink

ray bradbury and fahrenheit 451 friday, april 19, 9:00 p.m. center for creative connections theater In partnership with The Big Read Dallas through the Friends of the Dallas Public Library and D Magazine The Big Read Dallas is the ultimate book club, uniting the city of Dallas by reading Ray Bradbury’s sixty-yearold Fahrenheit 451 during the month of April.

Ray Bradbury, the poetic and visionary author of such timeless classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, is one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

From Mikhail Gorbachev to Alfred Hitchcock to David Bowie, Bradbury’s sway on contemporary culture is towering.

Accomplished journalist Sam Weller met Bradbury while writing a cover story for the Chicago Tribune magazine and spent hundreds of hours interviewing him, his editors, family members, and friends. During the past twelve years, Bradbury gave Weller unprecedented access to private archives and never-beforepublished letters, documents, and photographs. His 2005 biography, The Bradbury Chronicles, tells the story of this literary genius and his remarkable creative journey. Library Journal praised Weller’s 2010 book Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews, saying, “Weller is the quintessential interviewer who asks probing questions, then gets out of the way so that readers will have the feeling that Bradbury is talking to them.”

Weller has written for the Paris Review and NPR’s All Things Considered, and is a professor at Columbia College in Chicago.

Fresh Ink events are FREE. Order tickets in advance to guarantee your seat.

Register online at

Chime in to this focused discussion of Fahrenheit 451 and its themes of courage, preserving knowledge, and the importance of the written word.

DMA.org/tickets.

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wit and wisdom

david sedaris tuesday, april 23, 7:30 p.m. winspear opera house 2403 flora street In partnership with KERA and the AT&T Performing Arts Center

anne fishbein

Bestselling author and satirist David Sedaris will return to Dallas to read new and unpublished material for a fifth consecutive year. Hailed as the “rock star of writers” and for his sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, Sedaris has become one of America’s preeminent humor writers.

Ticket prices are based on seat location and range from $25 to $65.

Purchase tickets by calling 214-880-0202 or ordering online at attpac.org.

David Sedaris’s new book of essays, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls (released the same day as this event), takes his readers on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler’s experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist’s shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.

Sedaris has been making America laugh for the past twenty years with books such as Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, including Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Sedaris’s pieces appear regularly in the New Yorker. His collection of fables entitled Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Wicked Bestiary (with illustrations by Ian Falconer) was published in 2010.

“Sedaris’s droll assessment of the mundane and the eccentrics who inhabit the world’s crevices make him one of the greatest humorists writing today.”—Chicago Tribune

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wit and wisdom

madeleine k. albright wednesday, may 1, 7:30 p.m. city performance hall 2520 flora street

Since leaving office, Dr. Albright has authored five New York Times bestsellers, including Madam Secretary: A Memoir. At this event, she will discuss her latest book, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War: 1937–1948. Before Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, where she was born. Drawing on her memory, her parents’ written reflections, interviews with contemporaries, and newly available documents, Albright recounts a tale that is by turns harrowing and inspiring. It combines the intimacy of an autobiography with the drama of an exciting and well-told story—all underpinned by the gravity and intelligence of a serious work of history. Prague Winter serves as a guide to the future through the lessons of the past, as seen through the eyes of one of the international community’s most respected and fascinating figures.

timothy greenfield-sanders

Madeleine K. Albright served as the 64th Secretary of State of the United States and was the first female to hold that position. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Albright served as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations. She played a lead role in forging America’s successful response to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and was a forceful advocate of bringing war criminals to justice.

Ticket Prices Adults $37, Students $17 * *$2 of the ticket price supports the preservation of City Performance Hall Register online at DMA.org/tickets.

She currently serves as Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. In 2012 she was chosen

by President Obama to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in recognition of her contributions to international peace and democracy.

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texas bound

texas bound ii monday, may 6, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium Judith Ivey reads Betty Wiesepape’s A Soft Spot Cindy Beall reads Alix Ohlin’s Three Little Maids John Benjamin Hickey reads Patricia Highsmith’s A Curious Suicide Raphael Parry reads Jack Handey’s Alexander the Great

About the actors: Judith Ivey is a two-time Tony Award winner for her performances in the Broadway productions of Steaming and Hurlyburly.

Her other Broadway credits include The Heiress, Piaf, Bedroom Farce, Blithe Spirit, Precious Sons, and Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, which earned her a third Tony nomination. She is perhaps best remembered for her role as B. J. Poteet on Designing Women and as the fundamentalist mother in The Devil’s Advocate. Other film and television work includes White Collar, Will and Grace, Buddies, Flags of Our Fathers, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and The Critic.

Cindy Beall was recently seen locally as Susan Slater in Kitchen Dog Theater’s Becky Shaw and as Volumnia in Coriolanus for Shakespeare Dallas. Favorite roles include Flora in Humble Boy (WaterTower Theatre), Mrs. Wire in Vieux Carré (Theatre Three), and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Kitchen Dog Theater).

John Benjamin Hickey won a 2011 Tony Award for his performance as Felix Turner in The Normal Heart. Other Broadway credits include Mary Stuart, Cabaret, and Love! Valour! Compassion!, a role he would reprise for the 1997 film version. He currently plays Sean Tolkey in Showtime¹s The Big C, starring Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15

opposite Laura Linney. Other film and television credits include Pitch Perfect, The Good Wife, Flags of Our Fathers, Finding North, and Infamous. He grew up in Plano.

Don’t miss other Texas Bound programs on February 11 and April 1.

Raphael Parry is the Director and host of Texas Bound. He also serves as Executive and Artistic Director of Shakespeare Dallas

Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

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and Founder of Project X, a host company for the development of new work by artists throughout North Texas.

wit and wisdom

temple grandin friday, may 10, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium Dr. Temple Grandin is perhaps the world’s best-known adult with autism and has inspired millions of people around the world as a champion for individuals with autism and their families. Her accomplishments as a speaker, scientist, author, and advocate earned her a place among Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2010.

Grandin didn’t talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950 she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. Even though she was considered “weird” in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor who recognized her interests and abilities and helped her thrive.

She is the author of six books, including the bestsellers Thinking in Pictures, Animals in Translation, and Animals Make Us Human. Her forthcoming book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum, offers a transformative new understanding of autism itself. The Autistic Brain is a cutting-edge account of the latest science of autism and Grandin’s groundbreaking new theory of how the autistic brain works. Weaving her own history and experience into the narrative, she will take us to the frontiers of neurological research.

joel benjamin

Her life story was the subject of the acclaimed HBO biopic Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes, which won seven Emmy awards and a Golden Globe. Grandin’s insights into animal behavior and innovations in livestock handling have revolutionized food-animal welfare and led to dramatic improvements in the livestock industry.

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

The DMA is a leader among museums nationally in offering programs for families who have children with autism.

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artful musings

characters in color a serenade to chagall wednesday, may 15, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium Inspired by the exhibition Chagall: Beyond Color

Clockwise: Ashleigh Semkiw, soprano (Chicago Opera Theater, Castleton Festival); Jamie Van Eyck, mezzo-soprano (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Boston Lyric Opera); Seth Carico, bass-baritone (Fort Worth Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin); Amy Dillard and Emily Boyd of Elledanceworks; Joseph Li, pianist (Houston Grand Opera, Wolf Trap Opera); David Portillo, tenor (Lyric Opera of Chicago, Minnesota Opera)

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Purchase tickets online at

Nationally and internationally acclaimed musicians and members of Elledanceworks will bring Marc Chagall’s vivid and whimsical paintings, sculptures, and costumes to life in a one-of-a-kind, one-nightonly performance, weaving together music, dance, poetry, and Chagall’s own words. In this multidisciplinary program inspired by Chagall’s travels, dreams, and imagination, experience the master of mood and mise-en-scène reflected in eclectic music ranging from Fauré to Fiona Apple and Rachmaninoff to R.E.M. A tour of the exhibition Chagall: Beyond Color prior to the performance will generate thought-provoking connections between the visual and performing arts. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a showcase of Chagall’s sets and costumes for the ballet Aleko, commissioned for the New York Ballet Theatre in 1942.

When the ballet premiered, there was tumultuous applause and nineteen calls. Art critics exclaimed that it “surpassed anything Chagall has done on the easel scale, and it is a breathtaking experience, of a kind one hardly expects in theater.”

Elledanceworks Dance Company has enjoyed a creative partnership with the DMA in recent years, designing performances and creating new work inspired by the exhibitions All the World’s a Stage (2009), Silence and Time (2011), and Youth and Beauty (2012). Elledanceworks is the professional dance company-in-residence at Collin College.

DMA.org/tickets.

This is the eighth collaboration between Arts & Letters Live and artistic programmer Ryan Taylor.

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Image: Marc Chagall, Between Darkness and Night (Entre chien et loup), 1938–43, oil on paper mounted on canvas, Private collection, Paris, © Archives Marc et Ida Chagall. © 2012 Artists Rights Society. (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

distinguished writers

margaret atwood friday, may 31, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium In conjunction with the exhibition The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece Margaret Atwood is a giant of modern literature who refuses to rest on her laurels. She has anticipated, satirized, and even changed the popular pre-conceptions of our time, and is the rare writer whose work is adored by the public, acclaimed by the critics, and read on university campuses.

george whiteside

She is an internationally celebrated novelist, poet, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. Her tenth novel, The Blind Assassin, won the 2000 Booker Prize, a prize for which she has received five nominations. Newsday called The Blind Assassin “the first great novel of the new millennium.” Her work, crossing many subject lines and portraying strong female characters, has been published in forty languages and also includes The Handmaid’s Tale, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, Oryx and Crake, Cat’s Eye, and The Year of the Flood.

Her 2008 nonfiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, was made into a documentary in 2012.

At this event, Margaret Atwood will discuss her accomplished body of work and her creative process.

In conjunction with the DMA’s exhibition The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece, she will also speak on the influence of Greek myth on her own work. This includes her 2006 book The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus, a wry retelling of the familiar story of Homer’s Odyssey from the perspective of his wife, Penelope. In approaching Penelope, Atwood draws on multiple ancient sources to weave a new interpretation of the long-suffering, dutiful wife as a shrewd and practical woman, every bit the equal of her husband in guile and cleverness.

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

Become an Annual Series Supporter at the $1,000 level or above and enjoy an intimate pre-event reception with Margaret Atwood.

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distinguished writers

erik jacobs

revolution! joseph j. ellis and tom reiss tuesday, june 4, 7:30 p.m. horchow auditorium

aventurina king

Author and historian Joseph J. Ellis is one of the nation’s foremost scholars of American history. Library Journal praised him, saying, “He writes history as it should be: as a page turner.” In 2001 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. His book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson won the 1997 National Book Award.

Ticket Prices Adults $35, Students $15 Purchase tickets online at DMA.org/tickets.

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At this-event he will discuss his newest book, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence, which focuses on the summer of 1776, the most dramatic few months in our country’s founding. The thirteen colonies came together and agreed to secede from the British Empire. At the same time, the British dispatched the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic. Revolutionary Summer enlivens these historical events with a compelling freshness.

Tom Reiss is an acclaimed journalist and author of the celebrated international bestseller The Orientalist, a biography of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim while living in Germany during the years leading up to the Holocaust. The Dallas Morning News hailed it as a “spellbinding history . . . part detective yarn, part author biography, part travel saga . . .

The Orientalist is completely fascinating.”

He will discuss his latest book, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, a stunning feat of historical sleuthing that brings to life the forgotten hero who inspired such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. General Alex Dumas, father of novelist Alexandre Dumas, was born to a Haitian slave and sold into bondage. He made his way to Paris, where he was educated by French aristocracy. After enlisting as a private, he rose through the ranks to command armies at the height of the French Revolution.

become a supporter!

We rely on contributions from enthusiasts like you. Any donation, no matter the size, goes a long way in helping us bring outstanding authors and artists to our community. Become a Supporter now by calling 214-922-1280!

Benefits are cumulative. $100–$249

$1,000–$2,499

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Special invitations to Book Talk, a members-only literary group High-quality travel experiences with the DMA

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$250–$499 • •

Advance ordering and ticket exchange privileges 20% off Arts & Letters Live–related purchases in the Museum Store

$500–$999 • •

Two “Fast Track” passes for booksigning lines An invitation for two to a reception with author Art Spiegelman on February 27

Name recognition in event programs Reserved seating for two people An invitation for two to a preevent reception with author Margaret Atwood on May 31

$2,500–$4,999 • • •

Benefits in conjunction with DMA Contributor level partnership Two additional “Fast Track” passes for book-signing lines A private pre-event book signing with David Sedaris on April 23

$5,000 and above • •

Benefits in conjunction with DMA Associate level partnership Dinner for two with an author of your choice (subject to author’s availability)

Additional support provided by the Kay Cattarulla Endowment for the Literary and Performing Arts at the Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene McDermott Foundation, Annual Series Supporters, and Friends of the Dallas Public Library.

Air transportation provided in part by American Airlines. Hotel accommodations provided in part by The Adolphus. In-kind partners include Einstein Printing and Lombardi Family Concepts restaurants.

Promotional support provided by and The Dallas Museum of Art is supported in part by the generosity of Museum members and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

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Enjoy our gourmet menu and drinks before the show, after the show or anytime you crave some culture.

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