BY KAREN BOSSICK
Enjoy “Shakespeare as You’ve Never Seen Him” and learn about the roots of the Populist Rebellion during free lawn talks offered to the community by the 2018 Sun Valley Writers Conference.
There are also a few single tickets left to four talks.
The conference, which starts on Saturday, July 21, will offer four free lawn talks on the Sun Valley Pavilion lawn:
- 4 p.m., Sunday, July 22—Jeanne Gang and Shaun Donovan will talk about “Creating Beauty, Revitalizing Cities.” Award-winning architect Gang created the wavy white Aqua Tower, which boasts terraces and the largest green roof in the city of Chicago. And she’s helping islands in the Caribbean rebuild following devastating storms. Donovan, former Secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, chaired the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force under President Obama.
- 5:30 p.m. Sunday, July 22—British-American journalist Simon Winchester will discuss “The Curious Travails of the Writing Life,” which for him include being imprisoned on Tierra del Fuego.
- 4 p.m. Monday, July 23—The Improvised Shakespeare Company will stage a fully improvised Shakespearean play based on an audience suggestion for a title of a show that’s never been written.
- 5:30 p.m. Monday, July 23—Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” will discuss the roots of the Populist Rebellion.
No tickets are needed for the lawn talks. Entry will be permitted at Pavilion East Entrance or back of the upper lawn beginning at 3:30 p.m. both days. No high-backed chairs will be allowed.
Those wishing to purchase tickets to sit inside the Pavilion can still do so for the talk on “Creating Beauty, Revitalizing Cities” and Simon Winchester’s talk. The two-talk package is $60, available at www.svwc.com.
A two-talk package is also available for Adam Johnson’s talk on “Portraying North Korea” at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 24, in the Sun Valley Pavilion, and Terrance Hayes’ “A Poetry Reading” at noon Tuesday, July 24, in the Pavilion.
Johnson spent seven years researching and writing the novel “The Orphan Master’s Son,” which won a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He also journeyed to North Korea to see the country with his own eyes.
Hayes, a National Book Award winner, is author of the collections “How to Be Drawn” and “Lighthead.”