Cheshire Parlour is dedicated to the exploration of curiosity, kinship, and culture.
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
- Alice In Wonderland
Why Cheshire Parlour?
Perhaps there is no better representative for curiosity than Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat. The symbol of the cat is also an homage to the Golden Age of Gertrude Stein, 1920s Paris, and the frequent salons held at the much celebrated Chat Noir Café.
While the salon is the more popular term, it was actually the parlour where the most dynamic discussions took place. Parlours are more intimate and informal than salons, offering a space that doesn’t feel like “networking” but instead, feels like spending time in the home of good friends.
From creating bespoke event series to team building and brainstorming workshops, to crafting your company manifesto, if you want to deepen your message to cultivate a community that cares, you've come to the right place.
ABOUT CHESHIRE PARLOUR
Cheshire Parlour is dedicated to the exploration of culture to help us live better lives.
The ancient Greeks had their philosophy schools, the Golden Age of France had their artistic salons, and Cheshire Parlour is our modern-day haven for fostering meaningful connections.
ABOUT MONICA McCARTHY
Monica McCarthy is the founder of Cheshire Parlour. Monica is passionate about cultivating meaningful dialogues, beginning with her career as an actress on Broadway and in television and film, followed by a career and as the impresaria for communities like Holstee, Impact Hub, 92Y, and Escape The City, where she has curated and facilitated hundreds of events focused on purpose and interdisciplinary connections.
Monica’s interest in philosophy began at Pepperdine University as a student in The Great Books Colloquium, an honors program exploring works Plato to Nietzsche, from Homer to Dostoevsky, from Augustine to Freud, in a discussion-based cohort. She believes philosophy shouldn’t be boring and is the creator and host of philosophical and literary events including the OG Cheshire Parlour (a monthly philosophic dinner salon), Philosophy & Cocktails Crawl, and The Write Drunk.
Her current monthly event series is The Happier Hour: Philosophy To Help Life Suck Less, which is hosted at Caveat and is being turned into a podcast and a book.
Monica is a professional speaker on the topic of purpose in an angst-ridden era, and consults with organizations wishing to deepen their messaging and connection with their communities.
Her story has been recently featured in Pivot (Penguin Portfolio), and The New Philosopher. She has previously written for the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man campaign, Join the Reboot, and Huffington Post.
Monica is currently writing two books and a play, and procrastinates doing both by researching plane tickets. Monica’s seriously passionate about travel, having been to 50 countries on 6 continents. Along the way she tries to meet as many people and try as many cocktails as possible.
Oh, and she was obsessed with Alice in Wonderland as a child, complete with Alice In Wonderland wallpaper in her childhood bedroom, frequent trips to practice her curtsies with the "real" Alice at Disneyland, and a brief forary as Alice in her local children's theater production.