Special Events
There is a $5 handling fee for each order placed, not for each ticket. The fee will automatically be added to your order. Please do not place online orders the day of the show as we cannot guarantee confirmation of sale. You will be able to purchase tickets during that time by calling the Box Office at 414-382-6044. Box office hours are Monday - Friday 12 noon - 6 p.m., and from 2 p.m. to show time on weekend show dates. For additional information about the ticketing process, click here.
Special Events this season
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Wednesday, November 4, 7:00 pm @ Pitman Theatre. $25 ticket includes talk, signing, and voucher for book ($20 Boswell Books gift card may be substituted for book)
Buy Tickets:
$25/ticket x
= $$$$
Being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity in our personal lives, as well as in health, academia and business. In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces this attitude from its origins and exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster.
A sharp-witted knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism, this is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.
Author bio: Barbara Ehrenreich is the bestselling author of sixteen previous books, including Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America and Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. A frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation, she has been a columnist at The New York Times and Time Magazine.
Jeannette Walls, author of Half-Broke Horses: A True Life Novel
Saturday, January 9, 2:00 pm @ Pitman Theatre. $28 ticket includes reading, signing, and voucher for book ($23 Boswell Books gift card may be substituted for book)
Buy Tickets:
$28/ticket x
= $$$$
Half Broke Horses is the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls' no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town -- riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.
Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds — against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit.
Author bio: Jeannette Walls was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in the southwest and Welch, West Virginia. She graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York City for twenty years. Her previous book was the memoir The Glass Castle. She is married to writer John Taylor and lives in Virginia.