‘An Evening with David Sedaris’ brings author back to Royce Hall
Author David Sedaris spoke at Royce Hall Tuesday. (Courtesy of Prudence Upton)
By Natalie Green
May 5, 2016 3:38 p.m.
David Sedaris returns annually to Royce Hall while on tour, but Tuesday was his first time in culottes at UCLA.
“An Evening with David Sedaris” followed a practiced formula: The night was prefaced by an annual student humor writing contest put on by the Student Committee for the Arts and featured a reading and Q&A with Sedaris.
Two Student Committee of the Arts members, third-year human biology and society student Rosa Valan and third-year art student Isadora Bratton-Benfield, reminisced about growing up reading Sedaris’ collection of personal essays, “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” before the show.
Despite the book’s propensity for vulgarity and dark subject matter, Valan said she remembered easily identifying with Sedaris’ writing the first time she read it.
“It came at just the right time,” Valan said.
As in previous years, Sedaris first introduced his favorite book of the year – the writer of which he brings on tour. This year, it was Los Angeles Times writer Jill Leovy’s “Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America.”
Leovy spoke briefly but claimed she was not a master reader like Sedaris, so he soon regained the stage to show off his pair of dress culottes. He said with pride that they should not be confused with gauchos or skorts.
He then opened with his culottes-inspired story, “The Perfect Fit,” which appeared in “The New Yorker” in March.
Sedaris followed with a story called “The House Divided,” from his series about his siblings’ new beach home, The Sea Section. The story takes place when the Affordable Care Act website went live, and Sedaris’ sister, Tiffany, had recently committed suicide.
A slight breeze from backstage stirred up Sedaris’ culottes, and he finished his reading with diary entries.
Currently, Sedaris is putting together a book of some of his favorite entries from the past 40 years.
Sedaris, as in 2014, pulled a man onstage – a friend from England – currently looking for a job in Los Angeles. He teased the man, commenting that he really wasn’t picky, and said he could be found lingering near Sedaris and Leovy for the post-show book signing.
After answering a few questions from the audience, ranging from Ta-Nehisi Coates to podcasts to Beyoncé, Sedaris spread his culottes in a curtsy and left the stage to spend hours signing books for his audience, young and old alike.
