The coming week at Guild Hall will be bracketed by comedy: shows by the comedian Mike Birbiglia tomorrow and Saturday, and “2020,” an evening of comic monologues performed by Susie Essman, Isaac Mizrahi, and Mercedes Ruehl under the direction of Bob Balaban on Friday, July 16. In between are book talks, a live performance, a participatory installation, and a film screening.
Walter Isaacson, the best-selling author of biographies on Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Steve Jobs, among others, will discuss his new book, “The Code Breaker,” on Saturday afternoon at 3. Mr. Isaacson’s subject is Jennifer Doudna, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year for her work on the CRISPR system of gene editing.
On Sunday at 4:30 p.m., Amanda M. Fairbanks will talk about “The Lost Boys of Montauk,” her chronicle of the tragic death at sea in 1984 of four men on a Montauk-based fishing vessel. The Wall Street Journal called it “a book eloquent with the sorrow and beauty of being on this earth, and no less expressive of the love.” Tickets for each talk are $15.
Guild Hall After Hours, a free series, will feature three programs next Thursday related to the museum’s current exhibition, “Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks.” Starting at 6 p.m., the evening will include live music, an installation by Mamoun Nukumanu, a talk by Erica Cirino about her book “Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis,” and a screening of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”
Mr. Birbiglia, the host of the podcast “Working It Out” whose one-man show “The New One” played on Broadway, will perform all new comedy tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $65.
“2020” will feature short monologues from noted playwrights about the year most people would like to forget. Tickets to the 8 p.m. show are $100.
