City Arts & Lectures

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Jeff Hiller May 24, 2026

Show notes

This week, our guest is Jeff Hiller. The veteran comedian and actor is hardly a newcomer, but it’s his recent role on the television series Somebody Somewhere that has finally brought him widespread recognition. In 2025, he earned an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for that performance. Hiller talks about the journey in his memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success. Fans have appreciated his captivating and heartfelt humor for decades at stand-up shows; in theater performances including Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Tempest, and most recently the 2025 revival of Urinetown; and on television series like 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Community.

On May 8, 2026, Hiller came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Poulomi Saha about comedy, friendship, and success. Sahais an English professor and the Co-Director of the Program in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley. The evening was co-presented with San Francisco Public Library and a supporting non-profit, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Sir Demis Hassabis and Sebastian Mallaby May 18, 2026

Show notes

Demis Hassabis isan artificial intelligence researcher, scientist, and entrepreneur. In 2010, he co-founded DeepMind, an AI research lab which is now part of Google. In 2024, Hassabis won a Nobel Prize for using AI to predict the 3D structure of proteins, critical for disease understanding and drug discovery. He was also awarded a knighthood that year by King Charles III.

On April 20, 2026, Sir Demis Hassabis came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with author Sebastian Mallaby, who recently published a book about Hassabis’s work, The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence. The two were interviewed on stage by journalist Emily Chang.

Sharon Brous May 10, 2026

Show notes

Rabbi Sharon Brous is a leading voice at the intersection of faith and justice in America. She is the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a trail-blazing Jewish community based in Los Angeles. Brous’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. Her new book is The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend our Broken Hearts and World.

On April 23, 2026, Sharon Brous came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with john a. powell, another scholar helping forge connections across political, spiritual, and cultural differences. Powell is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute and a Professor of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book is The Power of Bridging: How to Build a World Where We All Belong.

Ada Limon May 03, 2026

Show notes

Ada Limón’s poems expertly combine brilliant observations of our complex world with a tender sincerity. As a two-term Poet Laureate of the United States, Limón focused on using poetry to connect us more strongly with the natural world. She is the author of seven books of poetry, including Startlement: New & Selected Poems; The Hurting Kind, The Carrying; and Bright Dead Things. Her newest book, Against Breaking, is an expanded version of her final talk as Poet Laureate - and a celebration of poetry’s ability to heal and connect us. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Limón was raised in Sonoma, California. On April 14, 2026, Ada Limon came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with KQED host Alexis Madrigal, which was a co-presentation with Litquake.

Michael Tilson Thomas (from 2009) Apr 26, 2026

Show notes

This week, we’ve gone back into the City Arts & Lectures archives for a 2009 interview with the late conductor, composer, and pianist Michael Tilson Thomas. Tilson Thomas was the music director and conductor of the San Francisco Symphony from 1995 to 2020 - and stayed active as its music director emeritus until the last year of his life. He was known as a champion of contemporary American music - and an innovator in presenting symphonic music - even collaborating with heavy metal band Metallica. He received 12 Grammy Awards for the San Francisco Symphony’s recordings of Mahler, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and John Adams.

In June of 2008 - Michael Tilson Thomas presented “The Thomashevskys - Music and Memories of a Life in the Jewish Theater” at Davies Symphony Hall. This multimedia performance celebrated the life and work of his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashevsky. He shares some of those stories in this program. We’ll also hear him talk with culture critic Steven Winn about “Keeping Score” the PBS documentary series which he created and hosted...and about his work with the New World Symphony in Miami.
In the years since this program was recorded on January 6, 2009 - Michael Tilson Thomas continued to lead the San Francisco Symphony - and guest conduct orchestras all over the world. In 2021, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer - but continued to work and travel - and was able to take the podium at his 80th birthday celebration in 2025. Michael Tilson Thomas died at his home in San Francisco on April 22, 2026.

Emma Straub Apr 19, 2026

Show notes

Emma Straub plays many roles as a leader in the literary world: independent bookstore owner, award-winning novelist, and children’s book author, to name a few. Straub is a Guggenheim Fellow, a New York Times best-seller, and the owner of Brooklyn’s Books Are Magic, where she helps celebrate our vibrant literary world through countless readings and events.

Straub’s new novel, American Fantasy, has been named one of the most anticipated books by Time, The New York Times, People, and Harper’s Bazaar. Set on a nineties-boy-band-themed cruise, Straub’s characters explore the intersections of aging, nostalgia, memory, and possibility, creating a hilarious, intimate portrait of the surprises and reawakenings that life can provide.

On April 11, 2026, Emma Straub came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk on stage with Ayelet Waldman. Waldman is the author of A Really Good Day, My Marriage, and the essay collection Bad Mother. Her new novel A Perfect Handwill be published in May. She was one of the creators of the Netflix show Unbelievable, and was an executive producer for the show Star Trek: Picard.

Gina Gershon Apr 12, 2026

Show notes

Over the past forty years, Gina Gershon has remained a beloved actress while constantly pushing herself as an artist, adding to her astonishing and diverse resumé. Since her small, breakout performance in Pretty in Pink, Gershon has been best known for her roles in movies (including Bound, Showgirls, Face/Off, The Insider) and television (including Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Riverdale, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Assassin), but her career, and community, began as a musician and dancer. She performed at Carnegie Hall, recorded albums, and toured the United States, playing her jaw harp with Sting, Laurie Anderson, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, and Herbie Hancock. While she has not yet performed with her close friend Bob Dylan, they were sparring partners when Gershon took up boxing. On the stage, Gershon has worked with David Mamet, and performed in Sam Mendes’s Cabaret and the Tony Award-winning Boeing-Boeing. In 2007, Gershon took on a new artistic practice, publishing the children’s book Camp Creepy Time with her brother Dann. She later released her first work of nonfiction, In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Pussy and Lost My Mind, the true story of Gershon’s search for her runaway cat. Gershon’s newest book AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs, looks back at how she learned to survive and thrive in Hollywood, tracing her brilliant and unique career to find cautionary tales, turning points, and everything in between.

On April 3, 2026, Gina Gershon came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater for an onstage conversation with Gina Pell, Content Chief of The What.

Encore - Lauren Groff Apr 05, 2026

Show notes

This program originally aired in 2022. Lauren Groff is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the author of four novels and two collections of short stories. Her 2022 novel, Matrix, imagines the life of Marie du France, a medieval writer who became France’s first woman poet. On April 12, 2022, Lauren Groff came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about Matrix with Isabel Duffy. The two also discussed the utterly unique way in which Groff writes her novels. After copious research, she writes a complete first draft, tosses that away without reviewing it, writes a new draft, and repeats the process again.

Encore - Abraham Verghese with Michael Krasny Mar 29, 2026

Show notes

This program was originally aired in June 2023.
Abraham Verghese is a best-selling novelist, and a physician whose focus on healing and empathy stands out in an era when technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine. His novel Cutting for Stone is the story of twin brothers in Ethiopia coming of age on the brink of the country’s revolution. That book remained on the NYT Bestsellers List for over two years. His newest novel, The Covenant of Water, tells much of the story of twentieth-century India through a single family. Verghese’s nonfiction books are My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story and The Tennis Partner. Abraham Verghese is Professor and Vice Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the School of Medicine at Stanford University.

On May 11, 2023, Abraham Verghese came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Michael Krasny, host of the Grey Matters podcast and former host of the award-winning KQED program Forum. Krasny is the author of Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life, Let There Be Laughter, and Spiritual Envy.

Michael Pollan Mar 22, 2026

Show notes

This week, our guest is Michael Pollan, author of ten books including "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "How to Change Your Mind". Since the 1980s, Pollan has captivated readers on an array of topics, from the consequences of what we eat, to the history and contemporary use of psychedelics. Now, he’s turned his eye towards what might be his biggest subject yet: consciousness. In his new book, "A World Appears", Pollan examines the nature – and very definition – of consciousness. From cutting-edge neuroscience, to conversations with spiritual practitioners, the book offers multiple perspectives on something as fundamental to our humanity as it is mysterious.
On March 4, 2026, Pollan came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab.

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