Programs
The Hammer is a cultural center that contributes an assorted range of free public programs six evenings a week throughout the year, including lectures, readings, symposia, film screenings, musical performances, and other events. The Billy Wilder Theater opened at the Hammer Museum in late 2006, after a $5 million gift in 2004 from Audrey L. Wilder, the widow of Billy Wilder, enabled the museum to resume building a 300-seat theater left unfinished at Hammer's death. Its 2006 opening coincided with the centennial of Wilder's birth. The venue houses the Hammer's public programs and is also the new home of the UCLA Film & Television Archive's well-known cinematheque. The museum also hosts a dialog series called "Hammer Conversations." Participants have included the writers Joan Didion, Jonathan Lethem, George Saunders, the filmmaker Miranda July, comedians Jeff Garlin and Patton Oswalt, playwright and screenwriter David Mamet, magician Ricky Jay, artists Tom Morello and Sam Durant, and many others. Most notably, 2,000 people packed the museum's outdoor courtyard to hear Gore Vidal speak about the Iraq war the night before the bombing began in March 2003. National Public Radio affiliate KCET hosts a podcast of selected Hammer Conversation programs; the series is also syndicated through iTunes.
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Famous quotes containing the word programs:
“Although good early childhood programs can benefit all children, they are not a quick fix for all of society’s ills—from crime in the streets to adolescent pregnancy, from school failure to unemployment. We must emphasize that good quality early childhood programs can help change the social and educational outcomes for many children, but they are not a panacea; they cannot ameliorate the effects of all harmful social and psychological environments.”
—Barbara Bowman (20th century)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)