HomeEvening Reads Fall 2022

Evening Reads with Polly MacIntyre

October - December 2022

November 30th

These seasonal stories feature a theme that will resonate with most in the weeks leading up to the holidays.

“The Art of Coarse Acting” is a 1964 humorous book on amateur theatre by British journalist Michael Green, following the success of his The Art of Coarse Acting in 1960. Green describes a coarse actor as one whose “aim is to upstage the rest of the cast. His hope is to be dead by Act Two so that he can spend the rest of his time in the bar.” Green began his career as a junior journalist on the Leicester Mercury before becoming a sports writer on The Observer and a contributor to the Sunday Times, among others.

“The Loudest Voice" is about Shirley Abramowitz, a little girl who possesses the loudest voice of anyone in her neighborhood or school. Shirley’s vocal prowess, sometimes an annoyance to her parents and friends, is suddenly appreciated in her public elementary school. She is summoned to see the teacher coordinating the school’s annual Christmas show, and joins a cast of mostly fellow Jewish Americans barely acclimated to their new country. Grace Paley has been called the godmother to American Jewish women writers, and one of the best American Jewish fiction writers of the 20th century.

November 2nd

This month’s Evening Reads focuses on the loss of innocence.

Beginning with The Girl from Red Lion, P.A., H.L. Mencken tells the story of a girl who sins and runs away from home to the big city of Baltimore. With the help of the city’s most famous madame and a couple of newspapermen, the protagonist is set straight and sent home. The story was published in The New Yorker in 1941.

A Letter from Ruth Gordon to Her Parents was written in 1916, when the unknown actress made her stage debut in a revival of Peter Pan. Gordon’s letter was published in Women's Letters, America from the Revolutionary War to the Present (2015).

October 12th

For the first reading, the appetizer, Polly MacIntyre will present Scaffolding Man, by Jenny Allen, in which a woman's husband leaves her and she falls in love with a great guy who bakes a mean banana bread!

The next course is an entertaining story from Saki (H. H. Munro), The Phantom Luncheon. It's a humorous satire set in England that tells the story of what happens when politicians take favors and use influence and connections to win votes.

And for dessert, a selection from The Complete I Hate to Cook Book, which shares insights for people who “approach a food processor as if it were a high-tech guillotine” yet secretly would like to somehow, some way, and very quickly make a meal that would win them a standing ovation.

Polly MacIntyre started acting in Houston, Texas during the1980s, eventually becoming a company member at Main Street Theater in Philadelphia. She created “Belles of Dublin,” an evening of Irish theatre and music. Polly’s film work includes “Bob and the Trees,” which won the Grand Prize at the Karlovy Vary Festival and “Down With the King,” which premiered recently at Cannes and won the Grand Prix at the Deauville Film Festival.