Cultural series brings joy and connection

Throughout the 2020–2021 school year, on the second Tuesday of each month, the Miss Hall’s community is gathering to learn, laugh, and celebrate human connection.

This series of virtual gatherings — inspired by our 2020 Summer Series — features bold and creative graduates of Miss Hall’s inspiring community conversation around passion projects and topics of shared interest.

The inaugural Second Tuesday was Votes For Women, a screening of the short film Into the Light about suffrage activist Inez Millholland. Accomplished writer, producer, and director Martha Wheelock ‘59 was joined by MHS Trustee and Treasurer of the Board of the National Women’s History Museum Susan Danish for a discussion about the 87-year struggle for the passage of the 19th Amendment and the importance of knowing women’s history.

Next came Tea Talk, a dialogue across the globe between Yiyan Zhou ‘91 and Julius Wu, experts in Chinese culture and art, about the legacy and experience of tea drinking.

Our next program — Speaking Your Truth, on January 12 at 5:30 p.m. Eastern — features photographer and author Joan Brooks Baker ‘62 in conversation with Head of School Julia Heaton and MHS English Teacher Liz Kulze. They’ll be talking about the beauty of being one’s self and finding role models in rebellious women, topics at the center of Joan’s new memoir, The Magnolia Code.

February’s Second Tuesday will provide special access to the film Richard Estes: Actually Iconic, the recent biopic about the celebrated photo-realist painter whose work is a love letter to the City of New York. The February 9 screening will be followed by a discussion with Director Olympia Stone, daughter of Clare Stone ‘58.

In March, we will come together for a discussion between accomplished interior designers Alice Butler Burnham ’65 and Lieve Saether ‘90 about the thoughtful cultivation of our environment as a way to discover ourselves more thoroughly and reflect who we are. Miss Hall’s Expressive Arts teacher Gary Grosenbeck will moderate.

Breaking Barriers, April’s gathering, will center around Rene Powell, the first woman to compete in a men's golf tournament, second African-American woman ever to play on the LPGA Tour, and daughter of golf course entrepreneur Bill Powell about trailblazing in sport and life.

In May, school Vice President Chelsea Canal ’21 will join lawyer, journalist, and The View co-host Sunny Hostin to talk about her career path from a federal prosecutor of sex offenders, to an investigator of international fraud, to her current position as Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News.

Heading into summer, the 2020–2021 Second Tuesdays series will conclude with a conversation between Head of School Julia Heaton and her sister Sara, a soprano with the Metropolitan Opera, about life in the opera before COVID and what the future holds at the opera house and beyond.