A town in love with big talkers

THE Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has been host to some unusual midweek performances lately. Not opera, not ballet, not drama. Not a lick of scenery and no fancy lighting either.

Still, the audiences of nearly 3,000 seemed delighted to spend upward of $150 per seat to hear a single speaker reminisce and parse major political and social trends. Especially because two of the speakers were former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

The men were star attractions for two nights each last month at the Music Center Speaker Series, a subscription-based program in its second year at the Chandler and Walt Disney Concert Hall. It has included other big names such as newsman Dan Rather, author-essayist Salman Rushdie and, just last week, man of letters Carlos Fuentes.

Though the Music Center is a prominent and relatively new player on the lecture landscape, it is hardly the only one. Speaking engagements at performance halls, campuses, museums and libraries are becoming more numerous and popular in Southern California -- even as heightened competition for audiences and some speakers’ stratospheric fees make it riskier for organizers.

The range of venues is huge, from an amphitheater with more than 6,000 seats to college classrooms that hold fewer than 100 movable plastic chairs. And the topics reflect a vibrant and varied intellectual life, as speakers delve into arts, literature, local politics, national controversies, international relations, science, the environment, journalism and, of course, the travails of life in Hollywood.

As such lectures are becoming more common in the Los Angeles region, they are forming an ad hoc version of the Chautauqua circuit that brought culture to the nation in the form of outdoor and tent-covered assemblies more than a century ago.

“It is encouraging to see this happening in Los Angeles, which may not be historically as interested in these kinds of public events as New York or Washington or London,” said Tom Hollihan, a professor and associate dean at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. Moreover, he noted, there are more “non-university settings to appeal to a broader constituency.”

Those audiences say they want thought-provoking alternatives to the sports, concerts, movies and electronic distractions the region is awash in. A dollop of celebrity is appealing too.

“It’s nice to see these people firsthand and see how they are. Not just on television or in the newspaper. It gives you a better understanding of what is going on the world,” said Marty Katz, a North Hollywood resident who has a Music Center lecture subscription.

He added that although some of Clinton’s and Powell’s remarks didn’t seem fresh and the audience’s questions were screened, the price was worth it. “I’d much rather see these guys than spend the money on a Laker or a Dodger game,” said Katz, who owns a business dealing in recycled truck and auto parts.

Fellow subscriber Selena Lantry, a Glendale obstetrician, similarly said it was important to see and hear “a real person who did real things, not a fictional person.” For example, an emotionally moving talk last month by Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hero of “Hotel Rwanda,” had “a different level of energy” than the film.

THE Los Angeles Public Library, UCLA, USC, the Getty Center, UCLA’s Hammer Museum, Town Hall Los Angeles, the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and the Zocalo “Public Square” series are among the entities that have long sponsored popular lectures, readings and conversations with authors, activists and politicians. Many of them are free or cost relatively little for audiences because many speakers don’t get paid.

In contrast, several series use paid subscription formats. Among them, the University of Judaism and the privately run Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California both attract healthy audiences and well-compensated star names. (Powell, a busy lecturer reportedly on a high pay scale, spoke at both of those series this season before appearing at the Chandler.)

The Music Center program’s debut last year at so prominent a location, and on such a large scale, “really speaks to how much Angelenos want events of this nature,” said Regina Mangum, outreach manager for cultural programs at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. The foundation’s ALOUD at Central Library series, founded in 1993, holds about 75 lectures or readings a year, with room for just 230 in the audience. (Tonight, novelist Anne Taylor Fleming has a public “conversation” there with PBS essayist Richard Rodriguez.)

Josephine Ramirez, the Music Center’s vice president of programming and planning, describes the lecture scene around town as a “kind of ecosystem” with various sizes and emphases that “wouldn’t exist if there weren’t a hunger for it.”

The Music Center’s idea is that “coming and hearing someone talk about their visions and their ideas is just as unique and just as special as hearing Placido Domingo sing opera,” according to series co-producer Dan Savage of SR Productions. He and his partner, former soccer impresario Alan Rothenberg, run the series in conjunction with the Music Center and with sponsorship by City National Bank (which also helps to support the University of Judaism and library talks).

People want “to get away from their blogs, to get away from their television screens and cellphones, and to experience one-on-one communication,” Savage said.

The talks are at the 3,156-seat Chandler or the 2,265-seat Walt Disney Concert Hall. Subscribers this year can choose between two series of six speakers each, with series prices ranging from $180 to $660. (Bill Moyers and NPR’s Nina Totenberg were also on the list, which ends May 16 with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.) Subscribers have taken half the seats; single-ticket sales reportedly push attendance to between 60% and 95% of capacity.

But talk is not cheap. Without specifying fees, industry executives say top draws get $25,000 to $125,000 a night.

Those kinds of costs, along with marketing and scheduling problems, have caused SR Productions to lose money on both seasons so far, according to Rothenberg, who declined to quantify the losses. (The Music Center is supposed to receive a cut of receipts and payment for use of otherwise dark halls, and its contract protects it from any losses, officials said.)

But Rothenberg said that his firm would work to reduce fees and mailing costs, improve marketing and schedule speakers better. And he said he was optimistic the series would be a permanent Music Center fixture.

“We don’t want to walk away from it, because it’s a great contribution to the city,” he said.

THE Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California is a family-run, subscription-only business that started 10 years ago at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and now also sponsors talks in Redondo Beach and Thousand Oaks.

Its speakers have included such world figures as the Dalai Lama, Lech Walesa and Shimon Peres. This season’s seven nights at each site included former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and will end with author Tom Wolfe in late May, co-founder Kathy Winterhalder said.

Despite Music Center competition and high speaker fees, her series remains a moneymaker with more of a hometown flavor, Winterhalder said: “It’s a big deal to have Margaret Thatcher come to Redondo Beach. It’s a big deal to have Mikhail Gorbachev come to Thousand Oaks.”

Similarly, the University of Judaism has sponsored a subscription-only “Public Lecture” series at the 6,100-seat Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal City for the last five years. This year, it sold 5,400 subscriptions for its four nights, said Gady Levy, the school’s vice president for continuing education.

Levy said he has not seen his audience decline because of the Music Center. “It goes to show that there are enough people interested,” he said.

The University of Judaism’s format tends to be pairs or groups, such as last week’s event when George Stephanopoulos interviewed Wesley K. Clark, the retired general and onetime presidential candidate; former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge; and David Kay, the former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq.

It was a lively evening as the four men, flanked by big-screen projections of themselves in a hall best known for rock shows, chewed on the Iraqi insurgency and Iran’s push to obtain nuclear weapons.

At the start, ABC talk show host Stephanopoulos, a former policy aide to Clinton, recalled meeting President Bush at a recent briefing and coming away impressed with the strength of Bush’s foreign policy convictions and his commitment to exercise and bike riding. “The man is in amazing shape,” he said.

The large and attentive audience, including many senior citizens, applauded most loudly when Clark declared that the invasion of Iraq “was a monumental strategic blunder” that has made the U.S. more enemies than it had before. But Clark agreed with Ridge that immediate withdrawal of American troops now would only worsen the situation.

International current events are the mainstay for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, the 53-year-old nonprofit group that holds 30 to 40 talks a year at hotels primarily on the Westside and in downtown L.A.

Its recent speakers have included Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq; former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh; Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon; L. Paul Bremer III, former U.S. administrator in Iraq; and Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus. Afif Safieh, head of the Palestinian mission to the United States, is scheduled to offer Mideast analysis at a June 6 dinner.

The World Affairs Council does not pay its speakers, nor does another nonprofit, Town Hall Los Angeles, organizers said. Founded in 1937, Town Hall looks at local, national and international issues in the 40 or so lectures it expects to hold this year at locations around town. Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton spoke Tuesday. Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., is scheduled for a breakfast forum today, and state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) on May 19.

Jon P. Goodman, president of Town Hall Los Angeles, said an average of 213 people attend the talks and many want the chance to question the speakers. “They want to seem them in the flesh,” she explained. “The information you get face to face is processed differently than if you read it or hear it.”

Some talks on the growing circuit can be a hybrid of intellectual punditry and entertainment.

For example, at the start of Powell’s speech at the Chandler, he stood informally in front of the lectern and smoothly delivered humorous personal anecdotes, including one about how the State Department took away his luxurious 757 jet and “gave it to Condi.”

On a more serious note, the retired four-star general predicted that U.S. military action against Iran, even an airstrike, was unlikely.

He also stressed that terrorism concerns should not bar peaceable foreign students from visiting America. “It is our openness that has given us our strength,” he said.

A week earlier, Clinton had urged the crowd to get involved in charity and civic affairs and warned about global warming. During a question-and-answer session, he expressed reservations about the Iraq war but, like Clark, said a quick pullout would lead to chaos.

Clinton joked about how his Arkansas roots were helpful when visiting animal displays at rural New York state fairs with his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

But he was cautious about whether she would seek the presidency.

“If she wants to run, I’ll do everything to help her,” he said. “If she doesn’t, we’ll take more trips and have more fun.”

The Music Center audiences for Clinton and Powell seemed enthusiastic, even if neither man said anything startling.

“I think it’s terrific,” Jean Hardy, a retired executive assistant from Redondo Beach, said of the subscriptions her daughter bought her as a gift. “I learn something new all the time.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Talks of the town

Lecture series are drawing big names (think Powell, Wolfe and Gorbachev, to name a few) and raising the level of cultural debate in Southern California. Page 28

CULTURE

Wilshire Boulevard

takes a U-turn.

Page 4

POP MUSIC

Babasonicos: We will

rock you.

Page 8

*

Southern California is home to a cornucopia of lectures and readings every week. Here are some of the most prominent series and sponsors:

ALOUD

at Central Library

The Library Foundation of Los Angeles presents programs that have literary, historical and scientific flavors.

Upcoming events:

* Novelist Anne Taylor Fleming converses with PBS essayist Richard Rodriguez. 7 tonight.

* Michael Pollan, author of “The Botany of Desire,” with food writer Laurie Winer. 7 p.m. Wednesday.

* Jeffrey T. Richelson, author of “The Wizards of Langley,” discusses nuclear espionage with NPR correspondent Mike Shuster. 7 p.m. May 11.

* New Yorker editor David Remnick on his reporting, with Los Angeles Times Book Review editor David L. Ulin. 7 p.m. May 15

Where: Mark Taper Auditorium at the Richard J. Riordan Library, 630 W. 5th St., L.A.

Price: Free, but reservations suggested

Info: (213) 228-7025, www.aloudla.org

Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California

This privately run series sends lecturers to spots in Pasadena, Redondo Beach and Thousand Oaks on three consecutive nights.

Upcoming events:

No single tickets are available for its Tom Wolfe talks May 22 through 24. But the group is selling subscriptions for next season, its 11th, which begins in October and includes Robert Redford, retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, alternative medicine expert Dr. Andrew Weil and NBC’s Tim Russert.

Where: Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St.; Countrywide Performing Arts Center at Thousand Oaks, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd.; Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd.

Price: $210 to $357 for a seven-night series

Info: (800) 508-9301, www.speakersla.com

Los Angeles World Affairs Council

The nonprofit organization often hosts diplomats and world leaders.

Upcoming events:

* Afif Safieh, head of the Palestinian mission to the United States, 7:30 p.m. June 6.

Where: Park Hyatt, 2151 Avenue of the Stars, Century City

Price: $65 for nonmember general admission and dinner. Reservations required.

Info: (213) 628-2333, www.lawac.org

Music Center

Speaker Series

This subscription series is ending its second season of political, media and philanthropy stars.

Upcoming event:

* Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times and author of “The World Is Flat.” 8 p.m. May 16.

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

Price: Individual tickets for $68 and $90 are at Ticketmaster, (213) 480-3232, www.ticketmaster.com or the Disney Hall box office. Rush tickets may be available starting two hours before the event at $25, and $15 for students and seniors.

Info: (213) 972-3494, www.musiccenter.org

Town Hall Los Angeles

The nonprofit group attracts civic, business and international figures at locations around the area.

Upcoming events:

* Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., 8 a.m. today.

Where: Paul Hastings tower, 515 S. Flower St., 25th floor, L.A.

Price: $25 for nonmembers

* State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), 7:30 a.m., May 19.

Where: Omni Los Angeles Hotel, 251 S. Olive St., L.A.

Price: $45 for nonmembers

* Walt Disney Co. President and Chief Executive Robert Iger, 8 a.m. June 15.

Where: Beverly Hills Hotel, 9641 Sunset Blvd., Beverly Hills

Price: $50 for nonmembers

Info: (213) 628-8141, www.townhall-la.org

UCLA Hammer Museum

The museum presents readings, lectures and conversations with writers, artists and critics.

Upcoming events:

* Writer Wayne Koestenbaum and art curator and critic Bruce Hainley, 6 p.m. Sunday.

* Poet John Hollander, 7 p.m. next Thursday.

* Writers Susan Straight and ZZ Packer, 6 p.m. May 14.

* Jeff Garlin of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and comedian Patton Oswalt, 7 p.m. May 16.

* Artist John Baldessari, 7 p.m. May 18.

* Writers Ben Ehrenreich and Daniel Alarcon, 12:30 p.m. May 21.

Where: Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood

Price: Free

Info: (310) 443-7000, www.hammer.ucla.edu

University of Judaism

The university’s department of continuing education recently finished its four-night subscription season ($225) and is planning to continue its focus on national and world affairs next year. Separately, it will hold a discussion about talk radio’s influence.

Upcoming event:

* Talk-show host Bill Moran moderates a panel with radio experts and personalities Bill Handel, Michael Harrison, Michael Jackson, Doug McIntyre and Stephanie Miller. 2 p.m. Sunday.

Where: University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Drive, Bel-Air

Price: $20

Info: (310) 440-1246, www.uj.edu

Zocalo

Zocalo bills itself as “a cultural forum for the new L.A.” and often sponsors lectures on eclectic topics at the Central Library and other locations.

Upcoming events:

* Actress Amy Brenneman and her husband, director and writer Brad Silberling, discuss artists’ moral responsibilities. 7 p.m. May 16.

Where: Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City

* Robert Ross, president of the California Endowment, discusses “What’s Wrong With Philanthropy in L.A.?” 7 p.m. June 6.

Where: Mark Taper Auditorium at the Richard J. Riordan Library, 630 W. 5th St., L.A.

Price: Free

Info: (213) 403-0416, www.zocalola.org