The Grand’s new series is all talk

When you think of The Playhouse on Rodney Square, you’re probably thinking about the big, glitzy touring Broadway shows that the 140-year-old theater has become known for. And the Playhouse is still doing that — next year you can catch both “Jersey Boys” and “The Color Purple” — but there’s also a new series coming that taps into our TED-fueled obsession with live talks: “Vibrant Voices,” which will bring big names to Wilmington.

The voices in this first series range from a former military commander to a cult TV icon, with topics touching on everything from equal pay to the Latino American Dream:

• Sept. 28 — Former commander of U.S. and International Forces in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal, founder of the McChrystal Group, an advisory services company
• Nov. 3 — Emmy award-winning anchor John Quiñones, creator of “What Would You Do?“, the hidden camera ethical dilemma newsmagazine, also known as “the face of doing the right thing”
• March 7 — Soccer star and equal pay advocate Abby Wambach, author of The New York Times bestseller “Forward: A Memoir” and the cofounder of the forthcoming Wolfpack Endeavor, a leadership development for women in the workplace
• May 2 — Actor and social justice activist George Takei, a cast member of the original “Star Trek” series and author of the graphic memoir, “They Called Us Enemy,” about his childhood in American internment camps during World War II

Tickets and subscriptions are available on The Grand’s website — and if you haven’t been to the Playhouse (or downtown Wilmington in general) recently, you’ll definitely want to check out DE.CO, the food hall located right down the hall from the theater inside the DuPont Building.