The MARK TWAIN HOUSE & MUSEUM MID-APRIL E-NEWS
SATURDAY, APRIL 16 at 6pm MARK MY WORDS: An Evening with Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer is an American playwright, screenwriter, public health advocate, and gay rights activist whose confrontational style of advocacy, while divisive, was credited by many with catalyzing the response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. He’ll be in conversation about his life, his work, and his latest book The American People: Volume 1: Search for My Heart: A Novel a book he has been working on since 1981, and which was finally published as a novel in 2015. In the book, Kramer asserts that many iconic American historical figures, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Mark Twain, were gay.
Kramer witnessed the spread of AIDS in the early 1980s. He co-founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), which has become the world's largest private organization assisting people living with AIDS. He expressed his frustration by writing a play titled The Normal Heart, produced at The Public Theater in New York City in 1985. His political activism continued with the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in 1987, an influential direct action protest organization with the aim of gaining more public action to fight the AIDS crisis. ACT UP has been widely credited with changing public health policy and the perception of people living with AIDS, and raising awareness of HIV and AIDS-related diseases. Kramer has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Destiny of Me, and has been a two-time recipient of the Obie Award.
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Tickets are $25 / $20 for MTH&M Members. Call (860) 247-0998 or click here.
The Mark My Words series of authors in conversation is generously sponsored by The Hartford, Wish You Well Foundation, and Hoffman Auto Group.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 7PM to 10PM The Mark Twain House & Museum and Hartford Fashion Week present THE COUTURE TOUR Project Runway meets Gilded Age Glamour!
Hartford Fashion Week, The Mark Twain House & Museum and the Culinary Academy at Weaver High School proudly present the first-ever COUTURE TOUR of The Mark Twain House. Matching Victorian elegance with modern fashion, eleven area couture designers have been assigned a room in The Mark Twain House.
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Guests for the evening will be able to stroll through this National Historic Landmark and see original creations paired to theme with each designer's selected room. In addition to the tour, attendees will enjoy food and décor created by students from Hartford’s Culinary Institute at Weaver High School, music by DJ Whitney Bobby, and additional fashions in the ultra-modern Webster Bank Museum Center.
Supported in part by BEAR'S Smokehouse BBQ.
Tickets: $30 / $20 for MTH&M Members. Cash bar. To order, call (860) 247-0998 or click here.
TWO BOOK/MARK DISCUSSIONS
ON TWO NEW BOOKS ABOUT TWAIN!
Every year sees a number of releases on one of the most studied authors of all time, and 2016 is no exception. April finds two new books on very different aspects of Mark Twain's career! Thursday, April 21st at 7pm
Richard Zacks on Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain's Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour.
Richard Zacks, bestselling author of Island of Vice and The Pirate Hunter,offers a rich and lively account of how Mark Twain’s late-life adventures abroad helped him recover from the financial disaster that led him to leave his beloved home in Hartford. Despite being plagued by a family tragedy, this global tour revived his world-class sense of humor
In Chasing the Last Laugh, Richard Zacks, drawing extensively on unpublished material in notebooks and letters from Berkeley’s ongoing Mark Twain Papers & Project, chronicles a poignant chapter in the author’s life—one that began in foolishness and bad choices but culminated in humor, hard-won wisdom, and his beloved comic travelogue, Following the Equator.
Tuesday, April 26th at 7pm Mark Zwonitzer chats with Twain scholar Craig Hotchkiss on The Statesman and the Storyteller: John Hay, Mark Twain and the Rise of American Imperialism. This talk is being filmed for C-SPAN!
In the tradition of the bestselling historical works of David McCullough and Doris Kearns Goodwin, award-winning documentarian Mark Zwonitzer brings two extraordinary American figures--and friends--into the spotlight at a time when their country was taking center stage in the world.
John Hay was famous as Lincoln’s private secretary and later as secretary of state under presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was famous for being “Mark Twain,” humorist, author, inventor, and social critic. They grew up fifty miles apart, on the banks of the Mississippi River, in the same rural antebellum stew of race, class and want. This shared history helped draw them together when they first met as up-and-coming men in the late 1860s, and their mutual admiration never waned in spite of sharp differences in personality, worldview, and public conduct. Both book discussion are free and will be followed by a book sale and author signing. Pre-registration is highly encouraged. To register, please call (860) 247-0998 or click here.
Saturday, April 23rd at 7pm CAPITAL CLASSICS presents THE OLDEN GLOBE AWARDS
Awards for Shakespeare’s most popular moments and staged readings of the works of Shakespeare (and Mark Twain) are just some of the festivities on deck for an event four centuries in the making! Capital Classics Theatre Company, in partnership with The Mark Twain House & Museum, presents The Shakespeare "Olden Globes Awards” on Saturday, April 23, 2016 — the 400th anniversary of the date William Shakespeare “shuffled off [t]his mortal coil.”
“The Shakespeare Olden Globes Award Show” will be hosted by Chion Wolf (WNPR producer, announcer and photographer) and Jacopo Della Quercia (author of A License to Quill, a page-turning James Bond-esque spy thriller starring William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe). There will also be a special appearance by the University of Hartford's President Emeritus, Dr. Humphrey Tonkin.
Following a month-long online voting process on www.VoteShakespeare.com, “The Olden Globes” hosts will announce our community’s favorite characters and moments from the works of William Shakespeare. The evening will also feature members of the Capital Classics Theatre Company performing readings of the winning selections and Shakespeare-themed works by Mark Twain, such as “the Royal Nonesuch” from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Twain’s Is Shakespeare Dead?
Tickets are $15 for the general public and $10 for MTH members, seniors and students (18 and under). To reserve tickets, call (860) 247-0998 or click here.
NOW OPEN! IN THEIR FATHER'S IMAGE: SUSY, CLARA & JEAN CLEMENS
Exhibition open during regular hours of operation.
Join us as we celebrate our latest exhibition, IN THEIR FATHER'S IMAGE: SUSY, CLARA & JEAN CLEMENS. Mark Twain's three daughters were every bit the characters that their father was. Stroll through the history of their lives, their passions, and the tragedies that made them unforgettable women.
IN THEIR FATHER'S IMAGE is supported by United Technologies Corporation and Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company. 
LIVING HISTORY TOURS ARE HERE! Experience The Mark Twain House in whole new way with a LIVING HISTORY TOUR!
Tour the Mark Twain House with someone who actually "lived" there! Our Living History Tours come to life in March. Take a tour with that sassy, brassy housemaid Lizzie Wills, or thoughtful lady's maid Katy Leary, or even Olivia Clemens herself. These historically accurate tours are unlike anything you've experienced here before! Be among the first to bring friends and family for an intimate behind-the-scenes look at "the loveliest home that ever was." What could be more special? For more details or to pre-register for your living history tour, click here.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR MAY EVENTS!
May 4 - DISCONNECT: A Panel Discussing Conversation in the Digital Age (co-presented with Connecticut Forum)
May 9 - Trouble Begins at 5:30 - Kevin Mac Donnell on "Mark Twain Kills a Boy"
May 14 - CLUE Murder-Mystery Tours of The Mark Twain House
May 14 - Solo theatre performer Kimberly Cannon presents "Hot Sauce in My Bag"
May 18 - Actress-Comedian SANDRA BERNHARD in Conversation
May 19 - Book/Mark: OFF SCRIPT: An Advance Man’s Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide with author Josh King
May 25 - Book/Mark: OF BEARDS & MEN: The Revealing History of Facial Hair with author Chris Oldstone-Moore
For complete details and registration information, click here.
The Mark Twain House & Museum has restored the author's Hartford, Connecticut, home, where the author and his family lived from 1874 to 1891. Twain wrote his most important works during the years he lived there, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
In addition to providing tours of Twain's restored home, a National Historic Landmark, the institution offers activities and educational programs that illuminate Twain's literary legacy and provide information about his life and times.
The house and museum at 351 Farmington Ave. are open daily from 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. The house and museum is closed Tuesdays in January and February. For more information, call (860) 247-0998 or visit www.MarkTwainHouse.org.
Programs at The Mark Twain House & Museum are made possible in part by support from the Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development, Office of the Arts, and the Greater Hartford Arts Council's United Arts Campaign. The Waterford Hotel Group is the official hotel group of The Mark Twain House & Museum.
