Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich
Monday, September 8, 2008

Stephen Sondheim needs no introduction to lovers of modern American musical theater.  Over the past four decades, his work as a composer-lyricist and his brilliance in matching words and music in dramatic situations set the standard for all those who followed. This year, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters special Tony award for lifetime achievement.

Among his legendary musicals are A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, Pacific Overtures, Sunday In The Park With George, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Passion, and Assassins.

Sondheim also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story, Do I Hear a Waltz?, Gypsy, and additional lyrics for Candide. Anthologies of his work as composer and lyricist are Side by Side by Sondheim, Marry Me a Little, You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow, Putting It Together, and Moving On.

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Frank Rich is an author and celebrated op-ed columnist for the New York Times. He joined the Times in 1980, when he served as its chief drama critic. He began his op-ed column in January 1994 and his longer-form essays for the op-ed page in 1999.

From 1999 to 2003, he was also a senior writer for the New York Times Magazine, a dual title that was a first for the Times. His columns and articles in each venue have drawn from his background as a theater critic and observer of art, entertainment, and politics.

From 2003 to 2005, Rich was the front-page columnist for the Sunday “Arts & Leisure” section. His weekly 1,500-word op-ed essay helped inaugurate the expanded opinion pages that the newspaper introduced in April 2005.

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Newt Gingrich
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Newt Gingrich served as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999 and was a member of Congress for 20 years, representing the state of Georgia. During his tenure, Gingrich was known as the chief architect of the “Contract with America” and a key player in the Republican Party’s regaining control of Congress after 40 years. He also championed the passing of important welfare reform legislation, the first balanced budget in 10 years and the first tax cuts in 16 years.  In 1995, Time magazine named Gingrich "Man of the Year.”

Gingrich is Chairman of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm that specializes in transformational change.  He is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, serves as General Chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future, and is a Board Member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. 

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Michael Pollan
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

For the past twenty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture.

Pollan is the author, most recently, of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.  His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. It also won the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, and the James Beard Award for best food writing. Pollan's previous book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, was also a New York Times bestseller, received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best non-fiction work of 2001, and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon.com.

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