Off Minor Jazz Series: Thelonious Monk

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

The Monktet celebrates Thelonious!
Thelonious Sphere Monk is one of America’s most iconic and original artists. To celebrate his birthday (October 10th), Pittsburgh musicians Thomas Wendt and David Throckmorton have assembled a new quintet—the Monktet—to perform some Monk. With varying instrumentation between tunes, the group shares their unique take on Monk’s extensive catalog, playing with well-known classics as well as showcasing obscure gems.

In-Dialogue series Presented by the #notwhite Collective

City of Asylum @ Home

Celebrating and recognizing arts and cultural workers, especially those who tend to be under the radar and forgotten about, the #notwhite collective has featured speakers from southwestern PA as well as national leaders in the arts.
October’s conversation features Shey Rivera.
The #notwhite collective is a group of thirteen women artists whose mission is to use non-individualist, multi-disciplinary art to make our stories visible as we relate, connect, and belong to the global majority.

Queer Nature Presented by Autumn House Press

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology amplifies and centers LGBTQIA+ voices and perspectives in a collection of contemporary nature poetry. Showcasing over two hundred queer writers from the nineteenth century to today, Queer Nature offers a new context for and expands upon the canon of nature poetry while also offering new lenses through which to view queerness and the natural world.
Artists from the collection join us live at City of Asylum as well as virtually from their homes across the country. 

Mark Rylance: Live at Alphabet City

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

In-person tickets for this program are SOLD OUT. You can still join us online. 

Sir Mark Rylance is one of the most decorated stage and screen actors in the world, and a favorite of City of Asylum cofounders Henry Reese and Diane Samuels. Mark visits the Alphabet City stage to read selections from City of Asylum writers-in-residence Horacio Castellanos Moya, Huang Xiang, Rama, Osama Alomar, and Tuhin Das—along with one of Rylance's favorite poets Robert Bly.
This is an incredibly special and unique afternoon, just for the City of Asylum community, and we hope you'll join us.

World Music Series: Taak Ensemble

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

To celebrate National Hafez Day (October 12th in Iran), Taak Ensemble pays homage to this legendary 14th-century poet, weaving his poetry into their performance of classical and folk Persian music. 
Rooted in Persian music, history, and poetry, Taak Ensemble creates their own unique sound using vocals, tombak (Perisan goblet drum), santur (Persian dulcimer), and tar (Persian lute). Having performed at numerous music festivals, universities, and cultural institutions around the country, this concert marks Taak’s debut at City of Asylum.

Story Club PGH Story Slam: Bump in the Night

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

In person tickets are SOLD OUT. You can still join us via livestream.
Join City of Asylum and Story Club Pittsburgh for a monthly nonfiction storytelling series mixing the spontaneity of an open mic with the experience of live theater. Organized and hosted by the former producers of The Moth Pittsburgh. 
Every show includes volunteer storytellers and featured performers, all taking the stage to share stories based on a theme. October’s theme: Bump in the Night.

Jill Bialosky & Lynn Steger Strong

City of Asylum @ Home

What would life be without pondering ambition, art, family, and desire? Novelists Jill Bialosky and Lynn Steger Strong explore these themes and more in their latest respective novels, The Deceptions and Flight.

Happy Together Presented by ReelQ Film Festival

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

One of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing as a couple traveling through Argentina and locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again.

Freedom To Create Gala featuring Orhan Pamuk

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Each year we gather at Alphabet City to honor an international writer or artist who has overcome efforts to limit their creative freedom. This year’s honoree is Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk.

Freedom to Create Keynote with Orhan Pamuk

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Each year we gather at Alphabet City to honor an international writer or artist who has overcome efforts to limit their creative freedom. This year we honor Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.
An advocate for freedom of expression, Mr. Pamuk has experienced first-hand the dangers to writers. In 2021, he was investigated by the Turkish state for “insulting” the founder of modern Turkey and ridiculing the Turkish flag in his new novel, Nights of Plague. Mr. Pamuk faced similar claims before. In 2005, he was indicted for “insulting Turkishness” after stating that “thirty-thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands.”

Yiyun Li: The Book of Goose

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Yiyun Li is the author of ten books, including Where Reasons End (Winner, PEN/Jean Stein Book Award) and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (Winner, Guardian First Book Award). Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages, and her honors and awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Windham Campbell Prize, and more. In 2022, Yiyun was named as the director of Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Actors Talk August Presented by August Wilson House: Rico Parker

City of Asylum @ Home

Rico Parker has strong spiritual ties to the work of August Wilson. He has acted in only three of the plays, but in “King Hedley II,” he played one of the most difficult, complex lead roles in unusually difficult circumstances. Hear his thoughtful responses to the personal connections that make such work possible. Register to see it (just your zip code required) and send the link to August Wilson fans among your friends!