Spencer Weber Waller — Power and Greed: Monopolies, Mergers, and Cartels on the American Stage - with Sara Gay Forden — AT CONN AVE
About This Event
Since the second half of the 19th century, live entertainment in the United States has been governed by monopolies and powerful business cartels who together through power and greed controlled who could produce, book, and present live performance and legitimate theatre, affecting audiences in New York City and across North America.Far from being a historical problem, it took the botched rollout of the 2023 Taylor Swift Eras tour via Live Nation/Ticketmaster for people and Congress to question this established history, and more importantly, ask what could be done to change it via stronger enforcement of the antitrust laws to help prevent high prices and poor service suffered by concert-goers who buy their tickets online.But how did we get to this point? This is the story of the real battle for Broadway, where the men who controlled the business determined not only who produced for the theatrical and vaudeville stage but also what they produced, who would perform, where the show would play, how much the audience would pay, and how those profits would be divided. Discover how it took the law nearly sixty years to catch up to the illegal anticompetitive strategies of the Barons of the Gilded Age and their successors and why this story matters today.Including 18 images, many of which are exclusives from the Shubert Archives, Power and Greed unpacks the shady world of the Syndicate, the Shuberts, the Vaudeville Combine, and their modern-day successors. Combining archival research, lively discussion and historical narrative this is a perfect read for theatre and entertainment fans, history enthusiasts and students of anti-trust law that shows us how market competition and competition law can shape, but never eliminate, the worst impulses of those in power and those who seek power over what we see in live entertainment.Spencer Weber Waller is deeply involved in the Broadway and touring theatre industry, having represented actors, playwrights, marketing professionals, and theatre companies. He was co-producer of the 2024 Broadway revival of The Who's Tommy and has invested in Broadway shows and global touring productions Professor Waller also is an internationally recognized expert in antitrust and consumer protection law. He is widely published in law and related subjects and frequently interviewed in the press.Weber Waller will be in conversation with Sara Gay Forden.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
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Emily Feng — Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria's Civil War - With Abigail Hauslohner — at Conn Ave
What drove a few thousand men from the deserts of western China to the front lines of Syria's war?In Our Hearts Burned for Home, journalist Emily Feng unearths the untold story of Uyghur exiles who fled China's expanding police state--only to become a pivotal force in the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime. At the heart of this narrative is a startling paradox: Beijing's repression, meant to crush dissent, instead scattered and radicalized a generation.Tracing the journey from the crushed student protests of 1990s Xinjiang to the Islamist battlegrounds of Idlib, this book reveals how a campaign of surveillance and cultural erasure helped give rise to a Uyghur militant movement far from home. Through vivid reporting and rare access to fighters and families, Feng explores how these men became both victims and agents of global jihad--and how their stateless revolution now shapes Syria's fragile future.Emily Feng is an international correspondent for NPR covering China, Taiwan and beyond. Her human rights coverage has been shortlisted by the British Journalism Awards in 2018 and won two Human Rights Press awards, and her radio coverage of the coronavirus epidemic in China was recognized by the National Headliners Award. She lives in Washington DC.Feng will be in conversation with Abigail Hauslohner,the Financial Times' US-Middle East Foreign Affairs Correspondent, writing about Washington's evolving policy, relationships and actions in the Middle East and Africa. She previously covered national security for The Washington Post, and was based in the Middle East for many years before that, first as a correspondent for TIME Magazine and then as the Post's Cairo bureau chief.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
Kim Ghattas — The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America's Undoing in the Middle East - with Joby Warrick — at Conn Ave
A work of true crime following one American family’s search for answers after a 1984 murder in war-torn Beirut, where the Iranian revolution collided with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, setting off the geopolitical conflagration that burns to this dayOn January 18, 1984, Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated by a pair of gunmen outside his office. His murder, in the wake of the bombing of the US Marines’ barracks, Palestinian guerrilla warfare, and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, was just one more shocking headline in a city ravaged by the chaos of nine years of war. There was no investigation. Four decades later, the question of who killed Malcolm, and why, is still not fully resolved.In The Best Kind of American, Kim Ghattas embarks on a quest to shed new light on Kerr’s forgotten assassination, weaving together the family’s story with that of Lebanon’s warlords and peacemakers, Hezbollah hostage takers and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and American presidents from Reagan to Trump. She also tells the definitive story of how Beirut came to be the point of origin for the policies and people who went on to shape the Middle East for decades, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was then assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike in the opening salvo of their 2026 war against the Islamic Republic. With the nuance, clarity, and storytelling that made Black Wave an era-defining work on the Middle East, Ghattas delivers a riveting, deeply human saga—a must-read for understanding why this conflict continues to shape today’s world.Kim Ghattas is a Middle East expert, author, and Emmy-award-winning journalist. She’s a contributing writer for The Atlantic magazine, a contributing editor for The Financial Times, and a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. She was a Distinguished Inaugural Fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Global Politics. She previously reported for the BBC from the Middle East and Washington, DC. She is the author of Black Wave, a New York Times notable book on the Saudi-Iran rivalry, and of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, a New York Times bestseller. She splits her time between her hometown in Beirut and writing desks around the world.Ghattas will be joined in conversation with Joby Warrick, a bestselling author, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and national security correspondent for The Washington Post, where he has served for almost three decades. He has written extensively on topics ranging from Middle East conflicts and terrorism to nuclear proliferation. Warrick is the author of three previous works of narrative nonfiction, including the 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS. A native of North Carolina, he has two adult children and lives in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
Joe Rohde — Floating Mountains: The Art of Imagining the Impossible - With Bethanee Bemis — at Conn Ave
Disney Legend and Imagineer Joe Rohde unlocks the secrets of creativity in this powerful exploration of imagination, innovation, and life lessons for turning vision into reality.In this inspiring narrative, Imagineer, explorer, and Disney Legend Joe Rohde offers a master class in creativity on a world-spanning journey to discover the origins of personal creativity, the power and potential of enterprising groups, and the remarkable parallels between collaboration and exploring the real world.With lessons drawn from his celebrated career and life experiences—leading projects such as Disney’s Animal Kingdom, ventures into space tourism, field expeditions to far-flung corners of the world, managing design teams, and working with corporate executives—Rohde dives deep into the nature, nurture, and practice of collaboration. He explains how to keep ideas to true to their origins while allowing for improvisation and accident to enhance, not derail, creative endeavors.These are stories of inspiration and invention, challenge and transgression, success and failure, laced with humor, contemplation, poignancy, and even life-threatening danger. Whether your interest in creativity is personal, professional, or you just want to peek behind the curtain of a renowned creative mind, Rohde’s lessons provide a guide for connecting your creative pursuits with others and the larger world.Joe Rohde is a Disney Legend, creative consultant, former Disney Imagineer, artist, traveler, storyteller, and conservationist. An Experience Architect for Virgin Atlantic, he was previously the Executive Designer and Vice President, Creative, of the Walt Disney Imagineering division, where he was the lead designer of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park and Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa, among other projects. A graduate of Occidental College, he is well known for his trademark earring, made up of souvenirs from decades traveling to remote corners of the world. He lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife.Rohde will be in conversation with Bethanee Bemis, a museum specialist with the Division of Political and Military History at the National Museum of American History, where she works to ensure the intellectual and physical care of the division's 150,000+ political history objects. She has been part of the exhibit team for several exhibits at NMAH, including most recently the forthcoming Mirror, Mirror for Us All: Disney Theme Parks and the American Experience. Her fields of interest include the development of national symbols and the evolution of the national narrative. Her current research focuses on the Disney them parks as locations of the formation and negotiation of the American identity.This event is free with first come, first serve seating. To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.