SevenVenues Culture Club: June 2021
Welcome to the June 2021 SevenVenues Culture Club!
Warmer weather is upon us and this month’s SVCC categories are as hopeful and inspiring as the summer days that lie ahead.
- National Cancer Survivor’s Day: June 6 – Unbeknownst to many of our patrons, several of the artists we have featured over the years are also cancer survivors. Despite their trials, they prevailed, and our selections feature some of their works including memoirs, biographies and music albums.
- D-Day: June 6 – The D-Day invasion was the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. The Allied soldiers’ death toll was high, estimated to be about 10,000 dead, but their sacrifice led to the defeat of Nazi Germany. This category features a book and a video from two former SevenVenues speakers who share their stories about the historic event.
- National Best Friends Day: June 8 – Many of the plays and musicals that have graced our stages have not only regaled our audiences, but have placed an important emphasis on the value of friendship. For National Best Friends Day, we have rounded up a collection of past SevenVenues performances that highlight some of theatre’s most renowned friendships.
- Father’s Day: June 20 – This month’s Father Day category highlights the works of some of the famous comedian fathers who have played our stages over the years. It also includes a memoir from Tina Sinatra, the daughter of the incomparable Frank Sinatra who played Scope Arena in 1976.
Remember, all our book, music and video selections are related to artists and performances that have taken place at a SevenVenues property. If you have a request, please let us know on our SevenVenues Culture Club Facebook group.
Happy reading, listening and watching!
JUNE RECOMMENDATIONS
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Yeah, I Said It Wanda Sykes Imbued with her razor-sharp voice, sidesplitting candor, and her trademark brand of comedy, the essays in Yeah, I Said It showcase Wanda at her uproarious, uncensored best.    |
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The Truth Is…: My Life in Love and Music Melissa Etheridge The Truth Is… is a highly charged autobiography—a bold and unflinching account of an extraordinary life that Melissa describes as only she can: from her Kansas roots, through her early love of music, to her brilliant rise to superstardom in a male-dominated rock world. Melissa openly discusses the massive impact of her publicly coming out, a revelation that only increased her popularity, making her a highly visible spokesperson for the gay and lesbian community. The Truth Is… shares Melissa Etheridge’s fascinating story with unprecedented candor and insight.  |
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Don’t Stop Believin’ Olivia Newton-John In addition to her music and screen successes, Olivia Newton-John is perhaps best known for her strength, courage and grace. After her own personal journeys with cancer, she has thrived and become an inspiration for millions around the world. Olivia has always radiated joy, hope and compassion – determined to be a force for good in the world. Now she is sharing her journey, from Melbourne schoolgirl to international superstar, in this deeply personal book. Warm, candid and moving, Don’t Stop Believin' is Olivia Newton-John's story in her own words for the very first time.  |
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It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership Colin Powell Powell combines the insights he has gained serving in the top ranks of the military and in four presidential administrations with the lessons he's learned from his immigrant-family upbringing in the Bronx, his training in the ROTC, and his growth as an Army officer. The result is a powerful portrait of a leader who is reflective, self-effacing, and grateful for the contributions of everyone he works with. Colin Powell's It Worked for Me is bound to inspire, move, and surprise readers. Thoughtful and revealing, it is a brilliant and original blueprint for leadership. |
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Rod: The Autobiography Rod Stewart With his soulful and singular voice, narrative songwriting, and passionate live performances Rod Stewart has paved one of the most iconic and successful music careers of all time. Now after more than five decades in the spotlight, he is finally ready to take a candid and romping look back at his life both on and off the stage. From his humble British roots to his hell-raising years on tour with his bandmates, not forgetting his great loves (including three marriages and eight children) and decades touring the world, Rod delivers a riveting ride through one of rock's most remarkable lives.
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We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters Cokie Roberts Renowned news correspondent, Cokie Roberts, explores significant issues confronting women on the cusp of the new millennium, such as the balance of work and family, the diverse roles of women, and the connection and distinction between different generations of women. Sensitive, straightforward, and perceptive, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters celebrates the diversity of choices and perspectives available to the women of today, but ultimately affirms a bond of female solidarity—a vital, powerful interconnection among all women, whatever their background.
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Talking Back: …to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels Andrea Mitchell Andrea Mitchell started her pathbreaking career as the quintessential girl reporter and quickly became one of the first women in broadcast news. She's been labeled a pushy broad, yet her intelligence, tenacity, and ability to always be where the action is have catapulted her to the top of her profession. Smart and candidly written, Mitchell’s memoir will be a must read for anyone interested in politics and current affairs and will also fascinate anyone who wonders what it’s like to be a powerful woman in a man’s world.
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An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America Andrew Young Andrew Young is one of the most important figures of the U.S. civil rights movement and one of America's best-known African American leaders. Working closely with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he endured beatings and arrests while participating in seminal civil rights campaigns. In 1964, he became Executive Director of the SCLC, serving with King during a time of great accomplishment and turmoil. In describing his life through his election to Congress in 1972, this memoir provides revelatory, riveting reading. Young's analysis of the connection between racism, poverty, and a militarized economy will resonate with relevance for readers today. |
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Rudy Giuliani Selections Rudy Giuliani is an American attorney and politician who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994-2001, as US Associate Attorney General from 1981-1983, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983-1989 and, most recently, as Donald Trump's attorney. He was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2001 and was given an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 2002. In April 2000, Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer and, after undergoing radioactive seed implantation, remains cancer-free to this day. He is the honorary chairman of the National Prostate Cancer Coalition. |
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BOOKS
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 Melissa Etheridge: The Awakening   |
 Olivia Newton-John: Gaia: One Woman’s Journey |
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 Rod Stewart: Human |
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MUSIC
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I’ma Be Me by Wanda Sykes Smart, outspoken, opinionated and one of a kind. Taped before a live audience at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., this riotous performance features Wanda's hilarious takes on such topics as the first black president, healthcare reform, pirates, coming out, her reflections on a gay cruise she just took, being a new mom, getting older, a painful recollection of her recent trip to the bikini waxing studio, and much more.
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Breast Cancer: The Path of Wellness & Healing featuring Melissa Etheridge and Olivia Newton-John This program explores the entire breast cancer experience, from diagnosis to treatment to recovery. Blending cutting-edge science with key integrative healing therapies, It provides women – and their loved ones – with the best information to survive and thrive on the path to breast cancer recovery. |
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The Story of Rod Stewart Stewart ranks among the best selling artists of all time and with good reason. From rock to pop and heartfelt soul, Stewart is a rare genre-spanning artist, appealing to a massive global audience, this is his story. |
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VIDEO
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A Reporter’s Life Walter Cronkite A Reporter’s Life chronicles Walter Cronkite’s decades of reporting, focuses on his experiences with D-Day, the Civil Rights Movement, NASA’s first moon walk, the John Kennedy assassination, freedom movements in South Africa, and much more. It includes personal accounts of his interactions with presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. |
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The War: Pride of Our Nation with Ken Burns On June 6, 1944, D-Day, 1.5 million Allied troops take part in the greatest invasion in history, but then bog down in Norman hedgerows for weeks. Saipan proves the costliest Pacific battle to date, while back home dreaded telegrams for the War Department begin arriving at an inconceivable rate.
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The Odd Couple Neil Simon This classic comedy opens as a group of the guys assembled for cards in the apartment of divorced Oscar Madison. And if the mess is any indication, it's no wonder that his wife left him. Late to arrive is Felix Unger who has just been separated from his wife. Fastidious, depressed and none too tense, Felix seems suicidal, but as the action unfolds Oscar becomes the one with murder on his mind when the clean-freak and the slob ultimately decide to room together with hilarious results as The Odd Couple is born. |
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Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett The story revolves around two seemingly homeless men simply waiting for someone—or something—named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree, inhabiting a drama spun of their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as mankind’s inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett’s language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existential post-World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time. |
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Hamlet William Shakespeare Hamlet is Shakespeare's most popular, and most puzzling, play. It follows the form of a "revenge tragedy," in which the hero, Hamlet, seeks vengeance against his father's murderer, his uncle Claudius, now the king of Denmark. Much of its fascination, however, lies in its uncertainties. Among them: What is the Ghost—Hamlet's father demanding justice, a tempting demon, an angelic messenger? Does Hamlet go mad, or merely pretend to? |
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The Tempest William Shakespeare The Tempest gives us a magician, Prospero, a former duke of Milan who was displaced by his treacherous brother, Antonio. Prospero is exiled on an island, where his only companions are his daughter, Miranda, the spirit Ariel, and the monster Caliban. When his enemies are among those caught in a storm near the island, Prospero turns his power upon them through Ariel and other spirits. The characters exceed the roles of villains and heroes. Prospero seems heroic yet has an appetite for revenge. Caliban seems to be a monster but appears heroic in resisting Prospero. Miranda’s engagement to Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples and a member of the shipwrecked party, helps resolve the drama. |
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 Wicked: A New Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording): "For Good" by Glinda and Elphaba   |
 Kinky Boots (Original Broadway Cast Recording): "Raise You Up/ Just Be" by Lola and Charlie |
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 Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording): "The Story of Tonight" by Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, and Marquis de Lafayette |
 Something Rotten! (Original Broadway Cast Recording): "Right Hand Man" by Bea, Nick, and Nigel |
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 The Book of Mormon (Original Broadway Cast Recording): "I Am Here for You” by Elder Price & Elder Cunningham |
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The Odd Couple (film) Jack Lemmon plays fussy Felix, fastidious to a fault. He proves that cleanliness is next to insanity. Walter Matthau is Oscar, who wreaks havoc on a tidy room with the speed and thoroughness of a tornado.
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Hamlet by William Shakespeare The classic version of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the towering tragedy of the Danish prince who feigns madness to trap his father's murderer. |
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The Tempest by William Shakespeare A dramatization of William Shakespeare's play about Alonso, King of Naples, who is shipwrecked on an enchanted island by the magician Prospero. |
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Kinky Boots A drag queen comes to the rescue of a man who, after inheriting his father’s shoe factory, needs to diversify his product if he wants to keep the business afloat. |
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Dad is Fat Jim Gaffigan Though he grew up in a large Irish-Catholic family, Jim was satisfied with the nomadic, nocturnal life of a standup comedian, and was content to be "that weird uncle who lives in an apartment by himself in New York that everyone in the family speculates about." But all that changed when he married and found out his wife, Jeannie "is someone who gets pregnant looking at babies." Five kids later, the comedian whose riffs on everything from Hot Pockets to Jesus have scored millions of hits on YouTube, started to tweet about the mistakes and victories of his life as a dad. Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home. |
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My Father’s Daughter: A Memoir Tina Sinatra A startling and affectionate portrait of an American entertainment legend by his youngest daughter, who writes about the man and his life, and about the many people who surrounded him - wives, friends, lovers, users and sycophants. |
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Is This Anything? Jerry Seinfeld Jerry Seinfeld has selected his favorite material, organized decade by decade. In page after hilarious page, one brilliantly crafted observation after another, readers will witness the evolution of one of the great comedians of our time and gain new insights into the thrilling but unforgiving art of writing stand-up comedy. |
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I Had the Right to Remain Silent… But I Didn’t Have the Ability Ron White Fans of Ron White’s “perfectly-phrased everyman gripes and raunchy, grinning asides” will find much to appreciate here. He riffs on everything from obnoxious designer sunglass salesmen to his wife’s wealthy but stingy family, and he revisits some of his most famous characters, such as his troublesome dog Sluggo (“He ran away all day. He was gone for ten hours. So, to punish him, when he came home I took him for a walk.”). |
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I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend Martin Short In this engaging memoir, Martin Short brings us into the circle of his family life, from raising his children to the legendary parties he and his wife hosted in their Los Angeles home. He recounts the pain of losing a brother and both parents by the time he was twenty and of the devastating death of Nancy, his wife of thirty years, in 2010. Despite the hardships, Short’s life has been full of laughter, and he remains perennially upbeat.
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Just A Guy: Notes from a Blue Collar Life Bill Engvall In this hilarious and heartfelt memoir, Bill Engvall takes you on the rollicking ride of his life, beginning with his childhood in Texas and adolescence in Arizona, to following his dream as a standup comic and, gulp, singer; to his brief stint in children's theater while sharing the stage and the back of a van with the director's dog, and as a movie extra with forked tongue and cloth claws; to his bumbling and riotous courtship, then marriage to Gail, the love of his life; and, finally, fatherhood, where he remains, to this day, a well-meaning, but flawed parent.
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The Jim Gaffigan Show – Season One Inspired by Jim Gaffigan’s real life, The Jim Gaffigan Show explores one man’s struggle to find a balance between fatherhood, stand-up comedy and an insatiable appetite.
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Standing Up with Brian Regan Brian Regan uses wry observations and physical humor to tackle all the important topics like butterflies, show horses and greeting cards. |
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What Now? with Kevin Hart Frenetic comic Kevin Hart hits Philadelphia and dishes on suburban wildlife, jean shorts and the fine art of getting even with a 7-year-old. |
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You Can’t Fix Stupid with Ron White In this brand-new stand-up performance, Ron White explores the pitfalls of marriage, offers some hysterically funny advice on picking a spouse and introduces the unforgettable "Squirrel Man," plus much more. A well-loved Comedy Central favorite, star of the popular DVD They Call Me "Tater Salad" and the bestselling CD Drunk in Public, this extraordinary comedian will keep you laughing till your sides ache! |
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