Live From The Hotel Edison Times Square Chronicles Presents, is normally filmed from the Hotel Edison, but today we went Zoom Style. Live From The Edison Times Square Chronicles is a podcast extension of T2C.

Today owner Suzanna Bowling talked with Jim Brochu. Brochu wrote and starred Off-Broadway in Zero Hour, a one-person play about the life and career of actor and comedian Zero Mostel, from 2009–2010. For this performance, he won the Drama Desk award for Outstanding Solo Performance.

Brochu’s stage debut was in a production of William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. In 2005, he was nominated by the Los Angeles Ovation Awards as Best Actor in a Musical for The Big Voice, an honor he won from both the Palm Springs Desert Star Awards and the Valley Theatre League ADA Awards. In 2007 and 2008, he and Steve Schalchlin co-wrote the musical The Big Voice: God or Merman, which Brochu starred in Off-Broadway. The Big Voice: God or Merman? was also given the Ovation Award as Best Musical, presented to Brochu and Schalchlin by Jerry Herman.

Brochu was a friend of Lucille Ball and is the author of her unauthorized biography, titled Lucy in the Afternoon, and in this capacity, appeared on an episode of MythBusters.

Jim Brochu has written his first murder mystery, set in turn of the 20th century vaudeville. Like Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” everybody has a reason and an opportunity to murder Frank. The characters are all at the early part of their careers, which is why Jack Benny turns out to be the guy who figures out the real killer. The group are a mixture of fictional characters and real characters, perhaps with their original names, which will be changed as they become famous. Also there is a big Surprise at the end of the book but you have to be a real movie buff to recognize it.

I am so grateful to Jim Brochu for being with us and sharing his life and career with us.

Ron Fassier and Frank “Fraver” Verlizzo Photo by Richard Hillman

Times Square has never been particularly interested in behaving itself, which made it exactly the right neighborhood for The Men Event’s latest Times Squeer Social, where networking, cocktails, Broadway and a little literary murder mystery shared the same room.

Held Tuesday, August 18, at Planet Hollywood, the free three-hour mixer brought New York’s LGBTQ+ community together for an evening designed less around name tags and forced networking than the considerably more civilized pleasures of drinking, flirting, talking, connecting and seeing where the evening might lead.

Mark William, Richard Ridge and Richard Hillman

The Men Event’s signature monthly gathering included drink specials, raffle prizes and no cover—always three rather persuasive words in Manhattan.

Photo by Richard Hillman

This edition came with a particularly Broadway twist: the celebration of Frank “Fraver” Verlizzo’s new mystery novel, Sanity Claus.

Michael and Frank “Fraver” Verlizzo

For Broadway people, Fraver hardly needs an introduction. Long before becoming a mystery novelist, Verlizzo created some of the theatre’s most recognizable visual identities, designing posters and advertising art that helped define how Broadway sold itself to the world. That made the collision of Broadway history, mystery fiction and Times Square nightlife feel rather perfectly placed.

The Boys

Sanity Claus gave the evening its literary centerpiece, but Times Squeer Social remains fundamentally about something increasingly precious in New York: actually meeting people in person.

The Press

Since launching in 2004, The Men Event has built its identity around creating social connections within the LGBTQ+ community, producing everything from networking parties and speed dating to theatre nights, gallery walks and comedy events. The organization says it has created more than 2,000 events over the past two decades.

Hugh Hysell and Frank “Fraver” Verlizzo

That matters in an era when “social” increasingly means staring at somebody’s photograph on a screen and deciding their entire worth with the movement of a thumb. Times Squeer Social offers the wonderfully old-fashioned alternative: walk into a room and say hello. You might meet a future collaborator. You might make a new friend. You might find somebody worth flirting with. You might win something. And on this particular Tuesday night, you could also leave having discovered a Broadway mystery by one of the men responsible for making Broadway itself look so enticing. Not bad for a free night in Times Square.

Fraver Table

If you missed this one, Times Squeer Social isn’t disappearing. The Men Event has already scheduled its next edition at Planet Hollywood for September 22. In a neighborhood built on spectacle, sometimes the most interesting thing happening isn’t what’s flashing across the giant screens outside. It’s who you meet upstairs.

Live From The Hotel Edison Times Square Chronicles Presents, is normally filmed from the Hotel Edison, but today we went Zoom Style. Live From The Edison Times Square Chronicles is a podcast extension of T2C.

Today owner Suzanna Bowling talked with Eileen Bluestone Sherman Eileen Bluestone Sherman is an award-winning author, lyricist, playwright, educator and producer whose career has moved effortlessly between literature and musical theatre. She is best known for the children’s classic The Odd Potato, her National Jewish Book Award-winning young adult novel Monday in Odessa, and Perfect Picture, the musical inspired by the life and art of Norman Rockwell. Her writing also includes The Violin Players and Independence Avenue, while her work as a producer on The Odd Potato television special earned her a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award.

With her sister, composer Gail C. Bluestone, Sherman forms the musical-theatre songwriting team The Bluestone Sisters, with Eileen providing the lyrics. Their work has attracted an extraordinary roster of Broadway talent, including Lillias White, Judy Kaye, Beth Leavel, Andrea McArdle, Karen Ziemba, Sutton Foster, Elaine Stritch and Hal Prince. Their longtime creative relationship with Tony and Emmy winner Lillias White has extended across recordings and performances, while Perfect Picture has enjoyed productions and recordings featuring some of Broadway’s most celebrated artists.

Sherman is also co-founder and co-producer of The Indie Collaborative, created with musician Grant Maloy Smith to bring independent artists from across musical genres together to perform, exchange ideas and create new collaborations. Through the organization, she has produced events at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Drama League. A longtime educator as well, Sherman has taught theatre at Baker University’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies, where she was named Outstanding Professor of the Year in the Graduate Division—adding teacher and mentor to a career built around storytelling, music and bringing artists together.

I am so grateful to Eileen Bluestone Sherman for being with us and sharing his life and career with us.

Live From The Hotel Edison Times Square Chronicles Presents, is normally filmed from the Hotel Edison, but today we went Zoom Style. Live From The Edison Times Square Chronicles is a podcast extension of T2C.

Today owner Suzanna Bowling talks with Frank “Fraver” Verlizzo on his new book Sanity Clause. Verlizzo is an American design artist and Drama Desk Award-winner. He is best known for creating the posters for many prominent Broadway productions, including the original productions of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sunday in the Park with George. Prior to that Verlizzo worked for The Blaine Thompson Agency, which at the time was the largest advertising agency for Broadway shows. After five decades as one of Broadway’s most prolific designers—having created over 300 posters that defined the visual identity of the American theater—Verlizzo has channeled his deep insider knowledge into fiction. His debut novel, Scenery of the Crime, garnered acclaim for its “delicious verisimilitude” and authentic portrayal of the 1970s theater scene. His second Sanity Claus, was just released. Published by Camel Press, this latest installment in the Retro Broadway Mystery Series transports readers back to the gritty, glamorous theater world of the late 1970s for a Christmas-themed whodunit where the stakes are as high as the marquee lights.

“For most of my career, I’ve interpreted the ideas of others into two-dimensional graphic images,” shares Verlizzo. “In my second career as a cozy mystery author, I have an opportunity to create my own little ‘village’ populated by fictional characters I’ve come to hold dear.”

Suzanna had the honor of serving with Frank on the Drama Desk nominating committee and is grateful to Richard Hillman for having Frank join with us today.

If Part One of our look at the East Hampton Library’s 22nd Annual Authors Night captured the sheer excitement of the evening, Part Two reveals why this particular summer tradition has become something far more interesting than a glamorous book signing.

Under one enormous tent on August 8, worlds that ordinarily have very little reason to collide suddenly did. Historians sat near novelists. Political insiders shared space with chefs. Architects, journalists, comedians, artists, grief writers and mystery authors met readers face-to-face, while conversations moved effortlessly from the White House to Montauk, from James Baldwin to Sid Caesar, from the Titanic to Tarot.

That eclecticism is the secret of Authors Night. You may arrive looking for one writer and leave carrying the work of someone you had never heard of two hours earlier.

At the center of any gathering devoted to American nonfiction stands Robert A. Caro, whose monumental The Power Broker changed the way generations understood not merely Robert Moses, but the machinery of political power itself. More than half a century after its publication, Caro’s study remains startlingly relevant because its real subject was never simply one man. It was what happens when ambition, government and unchecked authority converge.

Nicholas Boggs brought Baldwin, his major biography of James Baldwin, returning readers to one of America’s most essential literary and intellectual voices. Baldwin’s questions about race, sexuality, belonging and America’s ability—or refusal—to examine itself have hardly grown less urgent.

That examination of America continued with Gloria Browne-Marshall’s A Protest History of the United States, while Eddie S. Glaude Jr. brought America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, considering how America’s celebrations of itself inevitably collide with the parts of its history it would sometimes rather leave outside the ceremony.

Jonathan Mahler turned his attention toward another kind of American power in The Gods of New York, exploring the personalities and forces that shaped a city forever negotiating between money, ambition, politics and myth. Nearby,

Julian Zelizer

Julian Zelizer offered The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden: A First Historical Assessment, bringing together the kind of immediate historical examination that begins almost before an administration has disappeared from view.

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre arrived with Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, while Don Lemon brought two books examining subjects that have defined much of his public career: race, religion, faith and America’s continuing argument with itself.

Then there was Bradford E. Billet, whose Chaos Reveals It contains enough history for several lives. Billet’s experiences encompass TWA Flight 800, September 11 and his tenure as New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs, dealing directly with the United Nations and State Department. It is precisely the kind of book Authors Night is made for: you pick it up because of the title and suddenly find yourself standing across from someone who witnessed history from inside the room.

Hassan Nemazee’s Persia, Politics and Prison offered another journey through power and consequence, while Aziz Abu Sarah’s The Future Is Peace turned toward one of humanity’s oldest and most elusive ambitions: finding a way through conflict rather than perpetuating it.

The evening was equally rich in cultural history. David Margolick’s When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy revisits the astonishing influence of the comic genius whose television work helped shape modern American comedy. Carol Leifer, herself part of comedy history and famously associated with the inspiration for Elaine on Seinfeld, took a considerably less solemn approach with How to Write a Funny Speech . . . for a Wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Graduation & Every Other Event You Didn’t Want to Go to in the First Place. Even the title knows exactly what room it has walked into.

Tom Junod brought In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man, while Jay McInerney, forever associated with the literary electricity of New York, offered See You on the Other Side. Amy DuBois Barnett’s If I Ruled the World joined Gayle Feldman’s Nothing Random, Jenna Blum’s wonderfully titled Murder Your Darling,

Amy Chozick

Amy Chozick’s With Friends Like You, Amy Ephron’s Unseasonably Cold

Adam Ross

Adam Ross’s Playworld, and Joanna Margaret’sThe Daughters among the fiction and literary works inviting readers into entirely different worlds.

Then there was one of the titles impossible to walk past without stopping: J. Brooke’s I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side. In an age when almost everyone seems to arrive with a version of events designed to secure allegiance before the facts have even entered the room, the title alone feels wickedly contemporary.

Mystery and suspense were everywhere. David Baerwald brought The Fire Agent, Rachel Ekstrom Courage Death on the Lanai

Tom Clavin

Tom Clavin Vengeance

Alex DeMille

Alex DeMille The Tin Man,

Steve Israel

Steve Israel The Einstein Conspiracy, Chris Pavone The Doorman, Bob Reiss The Impossible Detective

John Searles

John Searles Single Girls, Alyssa Sheinmel Such Sheltered Lives, and Charles Lachman They Shall Not See the Dawn. Aphrodite Jones, long known for examining notorious criminal cases, arrived with Michael Jackson Conspiracy, Jeffrey Sussman’s Mafia Hits, Misses, Wars, and Prosecutionspromised exactly the wonderfully combustible history its title suggests.

The East End itself naturally had its chroniclers. Christy Scott Cashman brought What Happened in Beulah, while David Cataletto’s Kings of the Coast: Montauk kept the geography decidedly local. Jennifer Ash Rudick’s Inside the Hamptons turned the lens on the homes and aesthetic identity of the East End

Michael Gross

Michael Gross’s Treasured Island examined another enclave synonymous with extraordinary wealth.

Architecture and design were particularly well represented. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Paul Goldberger’s Why Architecture Matters asks us to look beyond buildings as objects and understand how the spaces surrounding us influence the way we live. David Netto’s Rosario Candela & The New York Apartment: 1927–1937 celebrates the architect whose elegant apartment houses helped define Manhattan luxury. Jeffrey Banks brought Storyteller, while

Steven Kasher

Steven Kasher’s Memoir of a Collection: Finding Meaning Through Art explored the deeply personal relationship between collector and object.

Kendell Cronstrom and Alejandro Saralegui

Kendell Cronstrom and Alejandro Saralegui each celebrated Madoo, preserving the extraordinary Sagaponack garden and creative world associated with artist Robert Dash, while Alice Harris and Christian John Wikane’s A Night at the Disco turned the cultural clock toward another dazzling New York institution: the dance floor.

Food, naturally, had its own irresistible corner. New York Times food authority Florence Fabricant brought Salty Not Sweet, while chef Michael Symon offered Symon’s Dinners Cooking Out.

Jenn Lueke, Sabrina Rudin, Ali Rosen

Jenn Lueke’s Don’t Think About Dinner, Ali Rosen’s The Slow Burn, and Sabrina Rudin’s Healthy With a Side of Happy approached the pleasures—and daily realities—of feeding ourselves from very different directions.

There were books about the body and the complicated business of taking care of it. Breast surgeon Dr. Elisa Port offered The Breast Advice

Michael J. Norton

Michael J. Norton’s deliciously irreverent The S** I Heard at Yoga* suggested that wellness culture deserves a raised eyebrow along with the downward dog.

Some of the evening’s most affecting books dealt with what happens when life refuses to follow the plan. Danielle Crittenden’s Dispatches from Grief and Kate Doerge’s Reimagining Grief confronted loss from different perspectives

Susan Klein and Cynthia Schaffner

while Susan Klein and Cynthia Schaffner brought Heart Art. David Biro’s The Unstoppables looked toward endurance, and April Reynolds’ The Shape of Dreams toward the landscapes we construct within ourselves.

Elsewhere beneath the tent were Lenny Ackerman with Moments Out of Time; Nelson Aspen with Kindred Spirits: A Titanic Talk; Andrew Blauner with On the Couch; Karen and Bill Brodsky with Beyond Honor; Judy Batalion with The Last Women of Warsaw; Harriet Newman Cohen with Passion and Power

Ken Davidoff

Ken Davidoff with 101 Lessons From the Dugout; Tom Freston with Unplugged; Luke Goebel with Kill Dick; Bianna Golodryga with Don’t Feed the Lion

Xochitl Gonzalez

 Xochitl Gonzalez with Last Night in Brooklyn; Harrison Hill with The Oracle’s Daughter; Madeleine Henry with The Last Celebrity

Andrew Lownie

Andrew Lownie with Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York

Conner Martin

Conner Martin with The Silver Fish

Lisa Raicek

Lisa Raicek with The Plunge; Deborah Goodrich Royce with Best Boy

Sydney Sadick

Sydney Sadick

 Sydney Sadick with Aim High; Allison Winn Scotch with The Insomniacs; John Seabrook with The Spinach King; Heather Ann Thompson with Fear and Fury; and Jessica Walker with The Secret Astronomers.

Monte Farber and Amy Zerner

Monte Farber and Amy Zerner

Monte Farber

Then there were Monte Farber and Amy Zerner whose books on Tarot are legendary. The longtime creative and spiritual partners arrived carrying a book they wrote 35 years ago, when Tarot existed considerably farther outside the mainstream than it does today. As they pointed out, they were writing about Tarot long before Tarot became a cultural trend. There is something rather wonderful about that. Authors Night is necessarily obsessed with what is new—the new novel, the new biography, the new investigation, the book everyone will be discussing tomorrow. But books have their own clocks. Some explode immediately. Others wait patiently for the culture to catch up with them. Thirty-five years later, Tarot is everywhere. What once occupied the esoteric edges now fills bookstores, social media feeds and conversations about spirituality and consciousness. Monte Farber and Amy Zerner were there before the fashion arrived.

That may be the perfect way to understand Authors Night itself. For all the famous names, beautiful homes, summer clothes and Hamptons glamour, the evening ultimately celebrates something considerably less fashionable and far more enduring. Ideas survive.

They move from writer to reader, sometimes immediately and sometimes decades later. They are argued with, rediscovered, rejected, reconsidered and occasionally understood by an entirely different generation than the one for which they were originally written.

On Saturday night in East Hampton, nearly 100 writers arrived carrying those ideas between two covers and thousands of conversations began.