July 11, 2007

Conversations with David Mamet and Nathan Englander:

DAVID MAMET

As part of the Nextbook Festival of ideas, held at UCLA on April 22nd, I interviewed Pulitzer prize winning playwright, screenwriter, novelist and essayist David Mamet. Nextbook had chosen the title of “Make Believe Jews” for our conversation and I took that to mean a conversation about Jews in Hollywood, on screen and off, as the topic related to Mamet’s own formation and experiences as a writer, a movie lover, and a screenwriter for film and television.

You can watch video or listen to a podcast of the event, by following this link:

http://www.nextbook.org/festivals/la.html#

Make Believe Jews
David Mamet in conversation with Tom Teicholz

The conversation took place on the stage of the Freud Playhouse at UCLA at 11AM on April 22nd, 2007 and lasts about an hour. The Nextbook festival of ideas link above will also lead you to video and podcasts of all the other panels from the Nextbook festival of ideas, including panels featuring Adam Gopnik, Bruce Wagner and Bruce Jay Friedman, David Margolick, and many others.

NATHAN ENGLANDER

About a month later, on May 21, 2007, I found myself on the stage of the Mark Taper auditorium at the Los Angeles Central Public Library, as part of the ALOUD series, in conversation with Nathan Englander whose new novel, “The Ministry of Special Cases” (Knopf) had recently been published. Englander is also the author of a collection of short stories “For The Relief of Unbearable Urges” published in 1999 to great acclaim.

To watch, click on the following link:
http://www.la36.org/aloud/aloud.html