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Format: 2013-05-25
Format: 2013-05-25
  • View clips from a new PBS documentary about KC-born composing genius Virgil Thomson, and enjoy a conversation with the filmmakers –- James Arntz, John Paulson, and Aimee Larrabee.
    A Valentine for Virgil Thomson
    Wednesday, February 13, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) went from playing organ in Kansas City’s silent movie houses to become a fixture of “Paris in the twenties,” a prominent music critic, and a world-famous composer of operas (Four Saints in Three Acts, The Mother of Us All) and movie scores (The Plow that Broke the Plains, The River).

  • Walter Stahr examines the
    Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man
    Tuesday, February 12, 2013
    Central Library

    In 1860 William Henry Seward was poised to become the Republican nominee for president, only to lose to Abraham Lincoln.

    Now, on Lincoln’s birthday, historian Walter Stahr describes how the two put aside their rivalry, with Seward becoming Lincoln’s Secretary of State and closest adviser during the Civil War. He was so important that John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators targeted Seward along with the President.

    A former lawyer, Stahr is also the author of John Jay: Founding Father.

  • Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this series.
    All About Eve (1950)
    Sunday, February 10, 2013
    Plaza Branch

     

    Twenty Films Essential to Cinema Literacy

    Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this new series. Former Kansas City Star film critic Robert W. Butler (now a member of the Library’s Public Affairs staff) provides opening and closing remarks.

  • Friday Night Family Fun features a grand reception celebrating the participants in the 20th Annual Young Writers Contest. Winners will be announced during this event and refreshments will be served.
    The 20th Annual Young Writers Contest
    Friday, February 8, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    The annual contest is open to children ages 5-12. Entries can be anything from poems to essays to short stories.

    Entry forms can be picked up at all Kansas City Public Library and Johnson County Library locations as well as The Reading Reptile. The deadline for entries is January 21, 2013.

  • A screening of the Denzel Washington film The Great Debaters is followed by biographer Robert Farnsworth’s discussion of the life and work of African-American poet Melvin B. Tolson.
    Robert Farnsworth: Beyond the Great Debaters: The Real Melvin B. Tolson
    Wednesday, February 6, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    Celebrate the 115th birthday of Melvin Tolson, a one-time Kansas City resident who graduated from Lincoln High School and eventually became the first Poet Laureate of Liberia.

    Start with a screening of the 2007 Denzel Washington film The Great Debaters, the Hollywood version about how Tolson led black college students to a 1935 national debate championship.

  • Photojournalist Gil Cohen-Magen marks United Nations International Interfaith Harmony Week with a discussion of his images of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim celebrations in modern Israel.
    Images of Faith in the Holy Land - Gil Cohen-Magen
    Tuesday, February 5, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    Photojournalist Gil Cohen-Magen has spent a decade in Israel covering not only political and military conflict but also the coming together of various faiths. He is one of the few journalists to observe and record the ceremonies and lifestyles of ultra-Orthodox Jews who live apart from their country’s mainstream culture.

    In a presentation marking United Nations International Interfaith Harmony Week, Cohen-Magen shows photographs depicting Jewish, Christian, and Muslim celebrations, many from his 2011 book Hassidic Courts.

  • The Kansas City Public Library premieres its seventh season of Script-in-Hand performances presented by the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre with a continuation of 2012’s popular female-focused Women of the Years series.
    Dirty Blonde
    Sunday, February 3, 2013
    Central Library

    The Kansas City Public Library premieres its seventh season of Script-in-Hand performances presented by the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre with a continuation of 2012’s popular female-focused Women of the Years series. First up is Claudia Shear’s Dirty Blonde.

    This 2000 Broadway hit weaves scenes from the life of Mae West – the sexually uninhibited comedienne who became a household name in the 1930s – with a budding romance between a modern man and woman who share an obsession with the platinum-coiffed movie icon.

  • Brother John performs, We Be Jammin’!, the one-man musical play depicting the life of the late reggae music legend and social activist Bob Marley.
    Brother John: We Be Jammin’!
    Friday, February 1, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    Brother John performs We Be Jammin’!, the one-man musical play depicting the life of the late reggae music legend and social activist Bob Marley. Brother John will portray various characters to bring to life Marley’s story.

  • Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg chronicles the incredible lives of Holocaust survivor Lou Frydman and Polish resistance fighter Jarek Piekalkiewicz who survived the privations of World War II and after 30 years met at the University of Kansas and became the best of friends.
    Needle in the Bone - Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
    Thursday, January 31, 2013
    Plaza Branch

    Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg discusses her new book Needle in the Bone about the incredible lives of a Holocaust survivor (Lou Frydman) and a member of the Polish resistance (Jarek Piekalkiewicz) who somehow endured extraordinary privations during World War II and after 30 years met at the University of Kansas and became good friends.

    Mirriam-Goldberg is a poet, novelist (The Divorce Girl), and certified poetry therapist.

    Co-sponsored by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

  • Eli Paul, manager of the Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections, examines the stories behind some of the 200 vintage postcards currently on display in the original exhibit Greetings from Kansas City, now at the Central Library.
    Greetings from Kansas City - Eli Paul
    Wednesday, January 30, 2013
    Central Library

    Eli Paul, manager of the Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections, examines the stories behind some of the 200 locally made post cards comprising the Greetings from Kansas City exhibit opening in January at the Central Library.

    The exhibit is divided into three categories: Business and Industry (factories, the stockyards, trains and trolleys), History and Heritage (local monuments, cityscapes, the American Royal) and Entertainment, Arts, and Culture (museums, theaters, parks and boulevards).