Arden Theatre Company Announces TULIPOMANIA Talkback, 6/30

In conjunction with Arden Theatre Company's current production of Tulipomania: The Musical, the company will host a conversation: Tulips, Tech and Mortgages – 400 Years of Financial Bubbles on Tuesday, June 12. Guests are invited to arrive at 5:30pm for wine and light refreshments, followed by the discussion. Admission is free with purchase of tickets for the 7pm performance of Tulipomania: The Musical, which are $34 for adults and available online at www.ardentheatre.org or by calling 215.922.1122.

Learn about the history that inspired writer/composer Michael Ogborn to tell this story of obsession, greed and the sport of extreme gardening. Long before we had the subprime mortgage crisis, Holland had the Tulip bulb bubble of 1636. Economist Kevin Gillen, Ph.D. in Applied Economics, joins Mary Flannery, former Business Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, for a lively discussion on the history of these financial bubbles and how human nature leads us to keep buying and selling.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Mary Flannery was Business News editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer during the rise and collapse of the Tech Bubble. During her 25-year career as a journalist, she also was the multi-media editor for the Inquirer and a health-care reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News. She received a Kaiser Family Foundation fellowship in 1993 and authored a non-fiction book on an internationally-renowned treatment program for people with mental illness entitled Fountain House (Hazelden, 1996). She began her career as a sportswriter and was the beat writer for the New York Islanders at The New York Daily News. She left the Inquirer to head communications at the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and is now the Director of Communications at Drexel University College of Medicine's Institute for Women's Health and Leadership. Ms. Flannery is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Kevin Gillen, Ph.D. is Vice President of Econsult Corporation. With a background in urban economics and real estate finance, Dr. Gillen's research has been cited in the Wall St. Journal, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Magazine. He has provided testimony to the Philadelphia City Council, the Pennsylvania State Legislature and the U.S. Congress. Dr. Gillen received his Ph.D. in Applied Economics in 2005 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and received both the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Dissertation Award and Lincoln Land Institute Dissertation Fellowship. He retains an affiliation with the University of Pennsylvania as a Research Fellow in its Institute for Urban Research, through which he publishes his quarterly reports on the current state of the Philadelphia region's real estate markets. Prior to attending Wharton, Dr. Gillen worked for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and HUD's Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

Tulipomania: The Musical
Book, Music and Lyrics by Michael Ogborn
Directed by Terrence J. Nolen
On stage now through July 1
Tickets: $34-$45
Details: www.ardentheatre.org/2012/tulipomania.html
Production photos: http://www.ardentheatre.org/news/photos.html#tulipomania