Grab a drink, socialize, and get your Nerd on! Thrilling raffle prizes! Challenging trivia! Engaging Presentations! Join us at Maceli’s in the banquet room (to the right when you first walk-in) for a delightfully square time!
Doors at 7:30 pm, talks begin at 8pm, $1.00 cover at Maceli’s 1031 New Hampshire
Our Presentations:
“Witch Fulfillment” by Jane Barnette – This presenation is about the wishes spectators fulfill when directors put Witches on display. What functions do Witch characters have in the stories where they appear? How do the actors who play these roles affect those wishes? Why are Witches so popular with audiences? We will answer these questions and more through a comparison of a handful of television examples, ranging from WandaVision to AHS: Coven.
“Trinity Site Visit, July 16, 1995” by Matt Kirby – Talking about his unexpected opportunity to attend the 50th Anniversary of the Trinity Bomb Explosion in New Mexico, the site of the first nuclear bomb test.
“Women of the Palace” by Terry Asper –If asked you about medieval Persian women, I’m willing to bet you’re answer has to do with harems. But what does that word mean? Would the people we’re talking about even know what it mean? We never expect medieval women to be judges, to be in charge of factories, in charge of political prisoners, or to finance armies and decide who the king will be. And we definitely don’t expect that of enslaved women. And we’re wrong. Come learn about the women of the palace and just a few of their amazing accomplishments.
Our Presenters: Jane Barnette is the Head of Dramaturgy and an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Kansas (KU). Her book Adapturgy: The Dramaturg’s Art and Theatrical Adaptation explores the potential of dramaturgically-savvy adaptations for the stage. Barnette’s research includes feminist adaptations, student-centered pedagogy, and depictions of witchy characters onstage as well as in popular culture. Recent projects include: Caryl Churchill’s Love & Information (codirector) at KU, “The Tale of Ora Mae” (author/performer, Ghost Light at KC Rep), and Jen Silverman’s Witch (dramaturg) at Theatreworks in Colorado Springs, CO. Her next book, Witch Fulfillment: Adaptation Dramaturgy and Casting the Witch for Stage and Screen, is coming in 2024 from Routledge.
Matt Kirby is a local artist, designer, musician, instrument maker and always enjoys a good adventure.
Terry Asper is a huge history nerd! After getting too many degrees in the subject, she now spends her free researching, teaching, and teaching about research with the Society for Creative Anachronism. For the past several years her focus has been on the lives of medieval women in Persia.
Grab a drink, socialize and get your Nerd on! Thrilling raffle prizes! Challenging trivia! Engaging Presentations! Join us at Maceli’s in the banquet room (to the right when you first walk-in) for a delightfully square time!
Doors at 7:30 pm, talks begin at 8pm, $1.00 cover at Maceli’s 1031 New Hampshire
Our presentations:
“Fatal Error! Code: 1983 – The Video Game Market Crash”: Bree Shaffar How did video games get their start? How did Atari fly too close to the sun in the 80s? What actually happened to all those ET cartridges? These questions and more will be answered in this crash course (pun intended) on the video game market crash of 1983.
“Table Top Role Playing: How to Get Started in Community Publishing” by RPG Elise
Have you ever wanted to design and publish your own TTRPG? Interested in learning about publishing through community content sites such as Drive Thru RPG, DM’s Guild, or Pathfinder Infinite? Published author RPG Elise will discuss how you can get started in community publishing. She will discuss everything from accessing templates and style guides to design resources to help you on your path toward game design.
“What are Flowers For?” by Jacob Canyon
Botany and the coevolution of angiosperms and modern animals
Our Presenters:
Bree Shaffar is a software developer who has lived in Lawrence since 2015. She has always had an interest in video game history and design, especially in how the technology has changed over the past six decades and how the medium has grown into a unique style of storytelling.
RPG Elise is an Ennie nominated writer for the DM’s Guild and DriveThruRPG and the project lead of the Through The Veil Feywild series, Sea Shanties: A Bardic Guide, and Tartarus: Journey into the Underworld (D&D5e). Elise has freelanced for Wizards of the Coast and is a contributing author of best sellers such as Uncaged, Blackstaff’s Book of Bloodlines, Incredible Creatures, and The Great Dale Campaign Guide. She is published on HitRecord and a contributor to the Emmy-winning Create Together series. She is a founding member of Chuck Palahniuk’s Plot Spoiler.
Jacob Canyon is an overeducated gardener. He works in conservation and sustainable agriculture.
Nerd Nite in Lawrence returns with our first Summer Shorts event in four years! Instead of three presentations of 20 minutes each, we will have 20 presentations of three minutes each. It’s the perfect event for those who love to learn a little bit about a lot of things. Here are the details:
Date: Wednesday, July 12th
Time: Doors open at 7:30 PM (talks start at 8)
Location: Maceli’s in Downtown Lawrence (1031 New Hampshire St)
Cover: $1
As usual, we will play a round of trivia and be giving out thematic raffle prizes. The venue will have drinks for sale.
Continue to watch this space for any updates. Be there and be square!
Nerd Nite Lawrence will be here, like clockwork, on the second Wednesday of the month (June 14th). We will be at Maceli’s (1031 New Hampshire St). So come on down to grab a drink and hang out starting at 7:30 PM, with talks starting promptly at 8 and going until 10. As usual, there will be a $1 cover at the door. We will also play a game of trivia and be giving out thematic raffle prizes.
Our presentations: “The Grand Canyon: A Hole Lot of Fun, or Rocks, Water and Backpacking”: an adventure by Jacqueline Grunau
“The Pennsic Wars” by Larry Brow “Anyone who has heard of The Society for Creative Anachronism may have also heard of the Pennsic Wars. Held annually in August an hour north of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, this event hosts ten to sixteen thousand medieval enthusiasts who gather to party and teach and fight in a wildly diverse, historically themed way. An entire sub-culture has been nurtured over the decades and our speaker, Larry Brow, aka Sir Lars Vilhjalmsson, has been part of it since 1974. Bring your questions. If he doesn’t have the answers, he’ll make some up.”
“Julius Caesar gets Kidnapped by Pirates”: by Alex Haskins. A young Julius Caesar gets kidnapped by pirates and demands a higher ransom. Hijinks ensue.
$1 at the door! Raffle tickets, trivia and good times included! Doors open at 7:30 and presentations begin at 8pm.
Our speakers for the evening are:
local legend Richard Renner talking all about the comedy luminaries “The Marx Brothers”
Nerd Nite alum Dan Krull will be regaling us with: “First, Do Nothing: Reducing Naïve Interventions Through Regenerative Farming.”
The rumors are true. We took a one month break after our most recent Nerd Nite to recruit a couple of new co-bosses. If you attended our previous event, you already know who they are. Skyler and Will have both officially earned co-boss status, and will be joining Jason and Elliot to bring Nerd Nite to you! This is going to make putting together these events a lot easier for us, and we will be resuming our typical schedule of hosting one Nerd Nite event every month (except for August), with July being reserved for our annual Summer Shorts event.
Our Presentations: “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard” – the story of how the Marx Brothers became the legends of comedy in America Richard Renner learned every line from every Marx Brothers movie as a young actor and found the genius of their performances inspiring and iconic. In this speech he dives deep into their creation, evolution through stage, film and television into the influential icons that they are now. Be prepared for fast paced puns, genuine silent genius, and 100 year old humor that has never died.
“First, Do Nothing: Reducing Naïve Interventions Through Regenerative Farming.” One of Mankind’s greatest gifts is problem solving, and one of our greatest blindspots is our strong tendency toward naïve intervention. Dan will discuss several examples of human problem solving that make things worse, and how to avoid falling in to that trap.
Our Presenters:
Richard Renner has been a theater nerd ever since his first production in 1972 and getting his first laugh in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He was so hooked that he pursued that feeling of fulfillment into college at KU and afterwards as a professional entertainer. His has performed his own one man show, the Slapstick Circus since 1986 across North America. His influences are Dick Van Dyke, Jerry Lewis, Red Skelton and Groucho Marx. In 2008 he produced the Lawrence Busker Festival as a celebration of the same kind of surprise and zaniness he loves. It is now in its 15th year and is still keeping people happy, laughing and distracted.
Dan Krull is Co-Founder of Good Oak LLC, a regenerative farming consulting and implementation company. Dan is the Co-Creator of the Robinson/Krull Agroforestry System, he designed and operates a 100+ hive regenerative bee keeping operation, and is proud to be part of a regional regenerative ag movement in the Kansas City Area. Learn more at www.agoodoak.com
Please note that there is a change to our schedule and our two presenters this evening will be Will Averill and Skyler Rehm. Thanks and we are looking forward to seeing all you Nerds!
Mark your calendars, because Nerd Nite Lawrence is excited to be back large, in charge and IN PERSON with our monthly nerd-genda! Our first live event in almost 3 years will take place on March 8, 2023! We will feature live presentations from Will Averill, Skyler Rehm and Joann F, our ever popular raffle, trivia and who the heck knows what else! Presentations start at 8:00pm and if you want to grab a drink and chill with friends, we’re opening the doors at 7:30. $1 cover at the door. Join us at Maceli’s Banquet Hall in downtown Lawrence for a nerdy good time!
Maceli’s is located at 1031 New Hampshire St, Lawrence, KS, United States, 66044
Our Presentations:
“Richard III was an Inside Job: The Truth Behind the Worst Uncle Ever.”
Will’s talk will focus on Shakespeare’s most famous villain, Richard III. Accused of murdering his nephews to steal the throne, Richard is portrayed as an evil, disfigured menace. But apart from the obvious ableism, why has Richard earned that reputation, does he deserve it, and what if The Bard’s propaganda obscures the truth? We’ll explore who Richard III was, what he was accused of, and who might have committed the most dastardly regicide in English history.
“Little Ladies of Liberty”
Did you know there are 25 Statue of Liberty replicas in Kansas alone?
In 1950, the Boy Scouts of America commissioned approximately 200 miniature replicas of the Statue of Liberty and donated them across the country to celebrate their 40th anniversary. The project started in Kansas City and is spread across 30 states. Skyler has mapped out over 150 statues that he has found record of and has visited 38 of them since discovering their existence in 2021.
Join us for the triumphant return of Nerd Nite Lawrence to hear the history of these statues, how he found them, why he cares, and why you should too!
“Polio — Interesting Facts and Unintended Consequences.“
We all know people who lived through the terrifying polio epidemic, but few understand the fascinating picture of its history and science. Did human interventions contribute to turning what had been a widespread, usually benign infection into epidemics of paralysis?
Our Presenters:
Will Averill is a writer, producer, director, puppeteer, and proud Communications guy behind Community Children’s Center. Will co-founded Card Table Theatre in 1998, is the founder of Sh*tty Deal Puppet Theatre, a Massholes comedy quiz show producer, and author of several published children’s plays through Playscripts, Inc. A proud member of the Richard III society, Will DOES believe Richard III was an inside job.
Skyler Rehm has lived in Lawrence since 2010 and is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Professionally, he is a Data Analyst who is passionate about visualizing the stories hidden in the numbers. Outside of work, he is a LEGO enthusiast, cat dad, and long-time Nerd Nite attendee cursed with never winning the raffle. He is known among his friends for making spreadsheets and graphs for fun, collecting tacky knick knacks, and loving road trips but only when he’s the one driving. While he is admittedly terrible at remembering to post on social media, Skyler did remake his Twitter @vanteaux specifically for Nerd Nite’s return. You can also find him at the Lawrence Public Library’s first-ever LPL Con (March 10-11) where he will be displaying some of his LEGO builds and at Planet Comicon in Kansas City (March 17-19) where he will be volunteering with the 501st Legion.
JoAnn Farb is a former microbiologist with a global pharmaceutical company, and currently a nutrition educator. She has spent the past twenty years reading a lot of published science while discovering that the story of polio is more nuanced than it’s typically portrayed.
Nerd Nite Lawrence is tapping into our imaginations! Join us June 16th at 8pm CST for our free event: Nerd Nite 94: “Here Be Dragons”! Free flights of fantasy only at #NNLFK
Our Presentation:
Spencer Brown: Kids at the Table: Giving kids agency through D&D Children do not have an opportunity to make many decisions or understand the consequences of the choices they make. What they do, how they do it, and when they can do it is almost entirely decided by the adults in their lives. Dungeons and Dragons can provide a safe environment where children can practice their agency, make different decisions, experiment with different types of personalities, and socialize with friends. Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) provides a structured environment with rules regardless of who runs the game.
Our Presenter:
Spencer Brown: Hello! My name is Spencer Brown and I formerly taught fourth grade. I grew up in Las Vegas, NV where I got a black belt in Shaolin Kempo, a martial art originally from China. I love cooking, playing video games, and watching animation. I’ve been playing various versions of D&D for 9 years. I love playing D&D because it allows me to experience playing different characters, improv hilarious or dangerous situations, and play a fun game with friends!
And our ever present: “Elliot’s Diabolical Trivia!”
Nerd Nite Lawrence is on FIRE and we are INVESTED in giving you a great evening of online presentations! Join us April 14 at 8pm for our free event: Nerd Nite 93: “Making a Kiln-ing”! Get stoked!
Our Presentations:
Larry M. Brow: “Wood Fire Kilns: Methods and Mindsets”
David Hollond: “A Discussion of Stock Investing using Price Momentum and Acceleration”
Our Presenters: Larry M. Brow has presented a few times before at Nerd Nite on subjects as wide-ranging as “Heraldic Design Principles for Better Protest Signs,” and why “Grading Art Students is Different than Science or Humanities Students.” A Lawrence resident, off and on, since 1975, he has run PLEASE TOUCH POTTERY since 1989. A YouTube channel by that name has just recently started in which he offers daily short videos on a wide variety of topics relevant to Art and the life of artists. His blog, "> offers similar insights in essay form, four of which have been published in the international magazine, Ceramics Monthly.
David Hollond is an institutional investor with nearly 30 years of investing experience. He worked for nearly 20 years for a large money manager in Kansas City where he managed over $9 billion in assets as the portfolio manager for a mid cap growth strategy and an all cap growth strategy. He currently runs a small investment company here in Lawrence with two partners. He really got hooked on stock investing after reading Peter Lynch’s book “One Up On Wall Street” in the early 1990s and after hitting it big after buying Yahoo! shortly after it went public. David’s investment philosophy focuses on investing in companies whose stocks are exhibiting strong price momentum and whose businesses are experiencing fundamental acceleration. In addition to investing, David loves to travel and to explore nature. He also founded and sometimes hosts the Free State Story Slam at the Lawrence Arts Center. David lives with his family on a century old 40 acre farmstead east of Lawrence.
After a pandemic-related hiatus WE’RE BACK! We have two very interesting speakers discussing the themes important to Black History Month
Presentations start at 8:00 on our Facebook page (you’ll see a streaming link). https://www.facebook.com/nerdnitelawrence
Ask us questions in the Zoom Chat!
The Presentations:
Dana Snipes feels Now more than ever, America and maybe the world sits at a crossroads created by individualism, separatism, and racism. It is easy to see the things that divide us; including gender, political views, and racial identification to name a few.February is Black History Month. It is the annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. The focus and discussions over this month often lean toward serious and formally structured academic and political discussions. Don’t get me wrong, these are important…But tonight I ask you to open your ears and heart to a new approach around learning through the universal language of music. We’ll scat and riff our way through a “jazzy” discussion!
Ithar Hassaballa will share “Engaging Black Communities in the Decision-Making Process Related to their Health Needs”. Ithar will discuss strategies for engaging Black communities in addressing their health needs in various communities across the U.S. We have a notion that “if we build it, they will come” which is a top-down approach that is ineffective. It is important to meet communities where they are, engage them in the decision-making process, and respect/incorporate their culture and identity to into community programs.Let’s kick this off!About the speakers: Dana Snipes is a bonafide Experientialist and humble yet passionate seeker of all things which sit at the precarious intersection of the Emotional & Rational; Left-Brain/Right-Brain, Science & Spiritual and self proclaimed Extroverted-Introvert. A Kansas City native, Dana is a “Double-Dukie” having focused her studies on psychology and biology during undergraduate study at Duke University in Durham North Carolina. She continued the trend during her studies at the Fuqua School of Business through her focus on marketing and the health care sector. Focused studies of Epidemiology at the University of Chapel Hill, and Marketing at the University of Otago, in New Zealand round out her passionate focus on Marketing within the Health Sector as a powerful force to help influence awareness and access to tools and products that improve the life of people and pets. Dana has focused over 25 years in the healthcare industry. Initially supporting the development of new drugs via clinical trials research with major pharmaceutical companies, and most recently over a decade marketing in pet health. After spending time in North Carolina, Texas, and Illinois, Dana found her way back home to the Kansas City area. Currently, she is proud to lead an incredibly talented marketing team at Hill’s Pet Nutrition as Global Marketing Director of Innovation.Most importantly, Dana is a mother of two daughters, a wife, and a lover of the arts. She enjoys cooking, music, and dance. It is through this rich tapestry of experience and expression that she sees the world, and works to give the best to her family and community.
Ithar Hassaballa’s purpose in life is to contribute to improving conditions for the health and well-being of populations. Ithar obtained a doctoral degree in behavioral psychology [Community Health & Development] from the University of Kansas, and a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Kansas Medical Center in Spring 2017. Experienced in community health project management, evaluation, quantitative and qualitative interdisciplinary research, and university teaching, Ithar aims to improve the social and built environments to promote healthy behaviors and reduce the burden of non-communicable and communicable diseases within communities.With eight years of experience in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of community interventions, she provided consultation, training, and evaluation to more than ten organizations and universities through a nation-wide type 2 diabetes initiative directed towards vulnerable populations.Furthermore, Ithar provided more than seven years of consultations, training, and evaluation services to the World Health Organization’s African Regional Office in Brazzaville, Congo, including evaluation of the 2014 Ebola response effort in Liberia. Ithar taught at the American University in Cairo and addressed youth violence prevention in Kansas City, Kansas.Recently, Ithar joined the Center for Public Partnerships and Research and her goal is to address mental health in Kansas and globally.
This March, order has given way to chaos and madness has descended. We’ve invited speakers to nerd out about a mish-mash of topics, as the universe tends to entropy. March 11, 2020 at Maceli’s
March 11, 2020, presentations start at 8:00 but if you want to grab a drink and chill with friends, we’re opening the doors at 7:30. $1 cover at the door. Maceli’s Banquet Hall, 1031 New Hampshire St. Lawrence, KS 66044
The Presentations:
Jacob Canyon will expound on color theory in “Color Out of Space”
Joseph Tennent will drop some knowledge on something exciting <its a chaotic surprise and we’ll let you know soon>
Satya N’s talk on Holi – the Indian Festival of Colors should brighten up your evening.
