Undeterred by the Snowpocalypse-that-in-any-case-wasn’t, crowds flocked to City Winery on January 28 to celebrate the House of SpeakEasy‘s first birthday and bless its second year of existence. It was a star-studded affair: Uma Thurman was there; Dan Stevens; the amazing staff of Barnes & Noble Union Square… and that was just in the audience. SpeakEasy founders Amanda Foreman and Lucas Wittmann emceed the evening’s proceedings and introduced SpeakEasy novices to the organization’s mission and programs. These include SpeakFreely, an already active program which enables teachers and their students to attend our Seriously Entertaining shows at City Winery; SpeakTogether, which aims to place writers in educational settings where they can share ideas with students, particularly those with little or no usual access to such experiences; and SpeakUp, currently in development, which is hoping to introduce good books and their writers into neighborhoods with few or no bookstores. Simon Doonan was our first speaker of the evening. Barneys New York’s Creative Ambassador and a writer and speaker of significant distinction, Simon has published several books including Gay Men Don’t Get Fat (2012), and his most recent, The Asylum: True Tales of Madness From a Life in Fashion (2014). He shared with us […]

The Unspeakable and Other Subjects of Discussion by Meghan Daum Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014; 256pp In “Matricide” Meghan Daum describes, in black-glass prose, an extraordinary cycle of horror. It begins with the death of her grandmother, continues with the passing — within a year — of her mother, almost culminates in her own demise through freak infection, and ends with a miscarriage. But this is by no means a misery diary. Rather, as she will throughout this excellent collection, Daum eschews propriety in pursuit of honesty, integrity… and black humor. This quite brilliant essay is really about a species of matrilineal distaste that many readers will surely recognize, even if few would admit it. Daum writes of the day her mother began “to self-define as a theater person” and her reaction (“allergic… on every level”) to the phoniness that followed. She tells of her mother’s spiteful outbursts at her father on hearing she has gallbladder cancer (“‘He’s happy,’ she hissed.”) And from the first sentences, she sets about destroying the clichés that surround death literature: People who weren’t there like to say that my mother died at home surrounded by her loving family. This is technically true, though it […]

The House of SpeakEasy will set the cat amongst the pigeons tonight at its second annual gala, Runnin’ Wild. Below, a video collage of our splenderific guests by way of introduction. Jim Dale is a Tony Award-winning actor, playwright, voice artist, and much more. He is the voice of the Harry Potter audiobooks in the States, the star of eleven films in Britain’s classic Carry On series, and a highly acclaimed Broadway star of both musicals and dramas. His one-man show Just Jim Dale is set to transfer to London’s West End in May. Read our interview with Jim about his seven decades in showbiz, and check out his 1966 hit song “Georgy Girl,” as performed by The Seekers, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Simon Doonan is the Creative Ambassador for Barneys New York, and the writer of several hilarious fashion books and memoirs. Read our review of his latest, The Asylum: True Tales of Madness From a Life in Fashion, which comes out in paperback from Blue Rider Press next month. In this video, Simon talks about the time he was invited to design the holiday decorations for the White House during the first Obama […]

Jim Dale is a showman of the old school; a true renaissance performer. He’s won a Tony, two Grammys, and four Drama Desk Awards. He’s received countless other nominations, including an Academy Award nod for the song “Georgy Girl,” later a huge hit for The Seekers, back in 1966. He’s been a pop star, a radio DJ, an actor of stage and screen, a voice artist, a playwright, a producer, a stand-up comedian, and many other things besides. Your smaller relatives will recognise him instantly as the voice of the American Harry Potter audiobooks. New Yorkers will remember his performances in Barnum (for which he won the Tony), The Threepenny Opera, Me and My Girl, Candide, and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. The Brits among you will be familiar with his eleven-film run in the Carry On series of comedies. When I spoke to Jim last week, it had just been announced that his one-man show, Just Jim Dale, which played to excellent reviews for the Roundabout Theatre Company on Broadway last year, will transfer to London’s West End in May. Charles Arrowsmith: Many congratulations on the forthcoming West End transfer! What are you looking forward to […]