NOVEMBER PROGRAMS
Monday Quarterback Luncheon
November 2 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Dean Edwards is our Quarterback.
Thursday Roundtable Luncheon
November 5 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Speaker is Steve Zettler. Topic ‒ Writing and Remembering: When Life Gives You a Story.
Innmate Steve Zettler reads from his memoir Leave the Kid Alone: A Fractured Remembrance (Vine Leaves Press, 2026), recalling how growing up above a raucous bar/restaurant/country inn set the path for his future as a Marine, photographer, actor, and novelist.
As a writer, Steve penned the international thrillers The Second Man, Double Identity, Ronin, Two for the Money, Tick… Tick… Tick…, and the romantic suspense novel Careless Love. With wife and Innmate Cordelia Biddle, he coauthored twelve titles in the best-selling Nero Blanc Mystery Series. He created the memorable role of Captain Wilcox in the original off-Broadway production of Charles Fuller’s “A Soldier’s Play,” which won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for drama and acted in many television shows and feature films. Steve is a Marine Corps combat veteran who’s additional “life roles” include bartender, crossword puzzle creator, election day clerk, jackhammer operator, model, stage manager, voiceover artist, wallpaper hanger, and many, many more.
New Initiatives Salon
Friday, November 6 from 6pm to 8pm
Shakespeare in the Kitchen with author Marissa Nicosia.
Audiences and scholars alike have long remarked that Shakespeare’s poems and plays record the pleasures and perils of the table. Shakespeare in the Kitchen asks (Routledge, 2026) asks what Shakespeare’s works can tell us about Renaissance culinary recipes, and what these recipes can tell us about Shakespeare’s works. Author Marissa Nicosia considers how preparing the recipes that permeate the canon helps us interpret references such as the festive cakes in Twelfth Night. From Shakespeare’s London to the present day, Marissa explores how the physical act of cooking can transform our understanding of Shakespeare’s works — then and now.
Marissa Nicosia is Professor of Renaissance Literature at Penn State Abington and is the author of Imagining Time in the English Chronicle Play: Historical Futures, 1590–1660 (Oxford University Press, 2023), is co-editor of the volumes Making Milton: Print, Authorship, Afterlives (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Renaissance Futures, a special issue of Explorations in Renaissance Culture (2019). Marissa also runs the public history website Cooking in the Archives.
Monday Quarterback Luncheon
November 9 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Eric Orts is our Quarterback.
Thursday Roundtable Luncheon
November 12 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Speaker is Sharon Ann Holt. Topic ‒ Mountain or Molehill: Is Censoring History Really THAT Big a Deal?
For the Roman historian Livy, history was useful because “it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.” The Trump administration, perhaps unknowingly, embraced Livy when it issued Executive Order 14253 titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” in March 2025. The order directs the Department of the Interior to evaluate information presented at monuments, memorials, statues, and markers within their jurisdiction and determine whether it “inappropriately disparage[s] Americans past or living.” Historian Sharon Ann Holt explores consequences of this sweeping order and of the July 2026 Domestic Policy Council report “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage.”
A native of the Great Lakes region, Sharon Ann Holt earned her PhD from Penn in 1991. She is the author of Making Freedom Pay: North Carolina Freedpeople Working for Themselves, 1865-1900. Her career has been divided between academic and public history, serving universities, museums, and historic sites in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington, DC, New York, and Maryland. Now retired from Penn State’s Abington campus, she continues to practice independently as a public historian and looks forward to becoming editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in January.
Monday Quarterback Luncheon
November 16 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Buck Rodgers is our Quarterback.
Friday Club Dinner
November 20 with Member Mixer at 5:30pm, presentation at 6:15pm, followed by dinner.
Speaker is Sara Aldana. Topic ‒ Gustav Mahler: Embracing the World.
“The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” So said Gustav Mahler in declaring his creative vision to fellow Romantic composer Jean Sibelius.
Sara Aldana, Philadelphia Orchestra’s assistant conductor, takes us into Mahler’s world ‒ his childhood, sense of isolation, complicated personal relationships, love of nature, and a double life as a celebrated conductor and a “summer composer”, creating much of his most important music during months spent away from conducting duties. She explores how Mahler transformed personal memories, folk melodies, and everyday sounds into a bold new vision of the symphony. By expanding the expressive possibilities of the orchestra, he helped bridge the Romantic tradition of the nineteenth century with the musical innovations of the twentieth. Mahler’s legacy and the extraordinary musical worlds he created continue to influence generations of composers. in 2027, the Philadelphia Orchestra presents its Mahler Concert Series featuring Symphonies 1, 3, 5, and 7.
Sara Aldana, assistant conductor of the orchestra for the 2026-27 season, previously served as cover conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, assistant conductor of the Reno Chamber Orchestra, associate conductor of the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra, and conducting fellow and assistant conductor at Festival Paax GNP in the Mexican Caribbean. She conducted the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Bogotá Symphony Orchestra, and the Lansing Symphony Orchestra. Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Sara studied with Marin Alsop (principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra) at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. She holds a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan and two degrees in violin performance from the University of Texas at Austin.
Monday Quarterback Luncheon
November 23 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Roberta Kangilaski is our Quarterback.
Tuesday Movie Night
October 27 at 6pm; feature at 6:30pm
The Third Man
The Third Man follows pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) arriving in war‑scarred Vienna to visit a friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find him dead and rumors of a mysterious “third man” at the scene. Martins’ search takes him through fog‑laden streets and tense encounters, unearthing secrets amid a divided city. The film is praised for its atmospheric cinematography, iconic zither score, and unforgettable performances.
Director Carol Reed, UK, 1949, B/W, 1 hour 44 minutes, English, German, French, Russian with English subtitles.
Monday Quarterback Luncheon
November 30 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Rick Pasquier is our Quarterback.