From the Chair
In 2011-12 The Department of Theatre and its undergraduate programs—the Barnard College major in Theatre, and the Columbia College major in Drama and Theatre Arts—developed several new initiatives, an expanded Stages of Inquiry lecture series, and an exciting co-production with a downtown theatre company, New Georges, New Plays at Barnard. In Stages of Inquiry, we began the year with a visit from David Greenspan, whose superb performance of Aristotle's Poetics in The Argument gave added inspiration to the theatre studies courses engaged with Aristotle in the fall; also in September, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Alice Reagan brought an exciting panel of playwrights and producers—Susan Bernfield, Emily Morse, Lauren Feldman, and Sylvan Oswald—together for From Page To Stage: A Discussion about New Plays and How they are Getting Produced Now. In the spring semester, we were joined by two internationally-celebrated directors. In January, the Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen gave a public lecture on his work, "What's Left of the Intercultural after Globalization?" as well as a seminar for undergraduate students, and in March, joined by the Barnard Center for Translation Studies, we hosted Finnish director Kristian Smeds, who participated in Assistant Professor Hana Worthen's talk, "Ethics of Translation: Kristian Smeds's Mental Finland," attended classes, and conducted a workshop for advanced directing students, as well as meeting with students and faculty. While the Department of Theatre's public face is often associated with the performance season, the Department and its Barnard and Columbia major programs are committed to the "liberal arts" blending of critical and creative, analytical and artistic work, and we have used the Stages of Inquiry platform to bring the work of contemporary performance into a critical dialogue with the wide field of theatre studies. This critical engagement is also reflected in the public work of our faculty; in March, Assistant Professor Shayoni Mitra traveled Mumbai, India, to participate in Barnard’s fourth annual global symposium, “Women Changing India.” While there, she and Barnard’s six Global Symposia fellows visited Sangli, a rural community on the border of India’s Maharashtra province, to spend a day with a collective of sex workers who use theatre to help women assert their rights; returning to Barnard, Professor Mitra spoke about the collective to the larger campus audience. And, of course, this kind of critical tenacity also extends to the senior theses in research undertaken by many of our seniors, and this year is no exception, seeing three original projects interrogating the critical practice of drama, theatre, and performance: Diana Levy's (CC '12) "First Folio Acting and the Search for Effective and Authoritative Performance,"; Hillary Kritt's (BC '12), "The Imitation of Liveness: An Analysis of Mediated Liveness in the Cine-Cast," and Kathryn Maslak's (BC '12) "Performing the Devadasi: Idol, Icon, and Religion in Traditional Indian Dance."
That said, the production season is perhaps the most visible place for staging our commitments. Since our season is also the proving-ground, so to speak, for our senior thesis students in acting, they were auditioned last spring, which gave them additional time to work with their advisor, Adjunct Lecturer Charise Greene, and begin preparation; we were also able to assign design and technical theses, providing additional time for research and technical accomplishment as well. The results were, in all three productions, splendid: Jacob Coppola and Yasmeen Jawhar in Saheem Ali's pointed production of José Rivera's Marisol; Jacob Lasser and Lizi Myers in Sharon Fogarty's raucously updated Ubu the King, featuring sound design thesis by Adrienne Giffen; and Victoria Pollack in Alice Reagan's lucid staging of Lauren Feldman's new play, The Egg-Layers, with a scenic design by Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Sandra Goldmark (whose professional design work for the Transport Group and for Shakespeare and Co. drew critical praise this year), and a technical direction thesis by Lila Neiswanger. This last production, co-produced with New Georges as the first production in the New Plays at Barnard spearheaded by Professor Reagan, is part of our ongoing effort to bring the city's professional resources into our classes-professional actors, directors, designers, and playwrights visit our classes all the time-and to make the Barnard and Columbia undergraduate programs more visible in the most dynamic theatrical scene in the United States. These efforts will continue in the coming year with what I'm certain will be three splendid productions, Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, directed by a Columbia Drama and Theatre Arts alum, David Paul; Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, directed by Alice Reagan; and in the spring, we hope to have a surprising event, to be announced soon!
Much of our effort in the Department on the day-to-day level involves teaching our courses; developing the season; dealing with the usual administrative issues of university departments; designing, rehearsing, presenting, and paying for (!) our productions. But I am particularly concerned that we not lose sight of what all this work is about: inquiry into the creative and critical practices of drama, theatre, and performance. While some of that work takes place in our classes and on stage, much of it takes place elsewhere, as our faculty and students engage in professional work in the arts and research, the work that animates our teaching, and so makes an education in the Barnard/Columbia major richly engaged in the contemporary exploration of our many fields. Many of our students have recently begun studies in prestigious MA (Nahuel Telleria, CC '11, University of Chicago, Humanities), MFA (Casey Llewelyn, BC '09, Brown University, Playwriting; Peiyi Wong, BC '10, Cal Arts, Design), or Ph.D. programs (Paige Johnson, CC '10, Berkeley, Performance Studies; Sarah Hartmann, BC '10, Santa Barbara, Theatre), and many more are working professionally in theatre. To my mind, these kinds of opportunities are the direct outcome of the professional work of our faculty, whose many professional achievements in directing, design, and research can be found later in the newsletter.
We're embarked on a new year, and we're always looking for fellow voyagers—please don't hesitate to come along for the ride.
— W. B. Worthen, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts, Chair
Photo credits for the images in the Newsletter: Jill Usdan (BC '09), Stephen Yang
This Season, 2011-12
The 2011-2012 season opened with a startling and rich production of José Rivera's brooding millennial drama, Marisol, directed by Saheem Ali and featuring senior thesis performances by Yasmeen Jawhar (BC '12) and Jacob Coppola (CC '12). For their senior theses, Jacob Lasser (CC '12) and Lizi Myers (BC '12) played that vividly murderous duo, Pa and Ma Ubu, in Sharon Fogarty's brutally updated production of Alfred Jarry's violent farce, Ubu the King, dramaturged by Assistant Professor Hana Worthen, and featuring a senior thesis in sound design by Adrienne Giffen (GS '12). Developed over the fall semester at New Georges, Lauren Feldman's The Egg-Layers premiered in the Glicker-Milstein Black Box Theatre, under the direction of Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Alice Reagan, and with a stunning scenic design by Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Sandra Goldmark; her performance as the Woman was Victoria Pollack's (BC '12) senior thesis, and Lila Neiswanger (BC' 12) undertook a complex senior thesis in technical direction on this production as well.
We concluded this outstanding series of performances with Thesis Festival I and II. On the first weekend, we saw three senior theses in directing: Alexandra Clayton's (GS '12) production of Maurice Maeterlinck's symbolist classic, The Blind; Cody Haefner's (CC '12) direction of John LaChiusa's musical Gloryday; Louisa Levy's (CC '12) production of Tennessee Williams's The Long Goodbye, featuring a senior thesis in costume design by Amy Larrowe (BC '12). Then at the end of the semester, we saw original theses in solo performance: Invisible Memory by Kimberly Shepherd (BC '12) and The Tender Undertow by Tara Sonin (BC '12); and readings of three new plays: A Knee That Can Bend, by Emma Goidel (BC '12); Homecoming, by Emily Nagel (CC '12); and Almost Happy, by Jacob Rice (CC '12). The work of our season depends on the effort and creative imagination of the faculty, the staff, the professionals who design many of our productions, and on the students who provide stage management, technical support, and backstage crew. Hats off and sincere thanks to all involved in the Department's season, especially Production Manager Mike Banta, Costume Shop Manager Kara Feely, and Technical Director Greg Winkler, and a special thanks to the directors of the Senior Theses in Performance: Adjunct Lecturer Kyle deCamp (solo performance), Adjunct Lecturer Sharon Fogarty (directing), Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Sandra Goldmark (design), Adjunct Lecturer Charise Greene (acting), and Adjunct Lecturer Sylvan Oswald (playwriting); I'm also grateful to Adjunct Lecturer Fitz Patton and Technical Director Greg Winkler for their assistance on technical theses.
Next Season, 2012-13
Our 2012-13 season will open with David Paul's production of Sarah Ruhl's contemporary classic, Eurydice, at once an updating of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth and an interrogation of its place and function in contemporary cultural politics. Our second production, directed by Alice Reagan, is Shakespeare's late play, The Winter's Tale. One of Shakespeare's most beloved plays, The Winter's Tale offers a romantic, yet clear-eyed parable of outrage and forgiveness, a tale in which many wrongs can be righted, but some wounds refuse to be healed by the balm of time. Our first production of the spring semester is still under wraps: we hope to have a surprise announcement soon. In the Senior Thesis Festival, Rebecca Clark (CC '13) will direct a play by Adrienne Kennedy, Kyle Radler (CC '12) a Susan Glaspell classic, and Christina McCarver (BC '12) a play by Tennessee Williams. Although we're all looking forward to the summer, we're anticipating next year with great pride and excitement. We also look forward to a range of acting, solo performance, design, dramaturgy, and research theses!
Prizes and awards
The Kenneth Janes Award for outstanding artistic and intellectual achievement by a Barnard College student majoring in Theatre was awarded to Victoria Pollack, BC '12. Victoria completed her senior thesis in acting in the production of The Egg-Layers this spring.
The Austin E. Quigley prize for outstanding artistic and intellectual achievement by a Columbia College senior majoring in Drama and Theatre Arts is awarded to Jacob Coppola (CC '12). Named in honor of Columbia College's dean from 1995 - 2009, the prize is funded by Nobel Laureate Richard Axel, Columbia College class of '67.
The Department is also delighted that Columbia College's Departmental Honors will be awarded to Jacob Lasser (CC '12).
The Dasha Amsterdam Epstein Fellowship in Playwriting provides a Columbia or Barnard undergraduate a three-week writing residency in playwriting in conjunction with the New York Stage and Film Powerhouse Theater program at Vassar College. The winner of this award for 2012 is Emma Goidel (BC '12).
Postgraduate studies!
Several recent graduates of the Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts program will be pursuing advanced degrees next year, including Sarah Hartmann, who was admitted to the Ph.D. Program in Theatre at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Sarah has been working on her career as a director while working in the Barnard College Office of Admissions since her graduation in 2010. Our sincere congratulations, and we all salute you at the start of your new career!
Is there life after college?
Every year, Barnard and Columbia students majoring in Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts leave the groves of academe to pursue a wide variety of activities. Some decide to pursue the next step in their education immediately; some decide to take a year or two to explore a range of interests. Some take up various forms of employment to make money while they begin professional artistic careers; others make their way directly into the world of professional theatre. And, of course, some decide to pursue other enriching careers. This year, we've asked three recent graduates from Barnard and Columbia to write us back about their experiences in the past year or two. Kati Fitzgerald (BC '10) undertook a senior thesis in research, and won the Janes Prize; since leaving Barnard she has developed her interest in forms of performance in Nepal by traveling and studying there. Rachel Karp (CC '10) is currently working in the New York theatre, and describes her current activities below. Casey Llewellyn (GS '09) has been working in the theatre in New York and pursuing an MFA in playwriting at Brown University.
Kati Fitzgerald, BC '10
I was a member of the 2010 Theatre Department graduating class. I spent much of my undergraduate life hanging lights and designing plots for various Barnard and Columbia shows. I also spent a good amount of time worrying about what I could possibly do with my degree in theatre and my multitudinous student loans. Shortly after graduating from Barnard to words of wisdom from Meryl Streep, I left the United States for Nepal. Thirsty for something familiar in a foreign land, I attended a performance of Milarepa (maybe the most famous and beloved Tibetan saint) on the birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2010. (read more)
Rachel Karp, CC '10
I graduated from Columbia in 2010 with a major in Drama and Theatre Arts and a specialization in directing. I had a pretty great time there, with my thesis production of Edward Bond's Chair being the shining highlight, and various experiments I conducted in 229 and the surrounding classrooms and stairwells standing out as well. A month after graduating, I set off for upstate New York to further my directing training by serving as a directing apprentice at Powerhouse Theater Festival. The festival's apprentice company of 40-some young, promising theater artists—which included Emily Kaplan (Barnard '11) and Katie Lupica (Columbia '11)—took classes, put up shows, observed professional rehearsals, and had an all-around amazing summer. (read more)
Casey Llewellyn, GS '09
I am interested in theatre that is total, conscious, takes nothing for granted, and leaves you with something you didn’t have before. An innate love of the event of theatre, the communal experience and the presence of performance has led me to keep at it even when I have found little to excite me in plays or specific theatre experiences. I kept trying to sneak up on theatre (through strange dance pieces, writing anti-theatrical text, my obsession with Fellini) because I felt a pull that wouldn’t go away even when my experience said there was no place for me there, no space where I could fit. (read more)
Stages of Inquiry
This year, we had several engaging visitors to the Department's series of occasional talks and lectures on contemporary performance. David Greenspan, the noted playwright, actor, and performer, came to Barnard in the fall to perform his hugely successful play, The Argument. Based in part on G. E. Else's lectures on and massive study of Aristotle's Poetics, Greenspan delivers a brilliant, funny, and incisive performance on and of The Poetics. Since many of our majors are working closely with Aristotle in Theatre History in the beginning of the fall semester, this was a wonderful opportunity to make a direct connection between Aristotle's thinking about tragedy and the arts—including the comic arts—of performance. Also in September, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Alice Reagan conducted a panel, From Page To Stage: A Discussion about New Plays and How they are Getting Produced Now. Featuring Susan Bernfield and Emily Morse of New Georges, the playwright Lauren Feldman (The Egg-Layers) and Sylvan Oswald (BC '01), who teaches playwriting and directs senior theses in playwriting in the Department, the panel explored the trials and tribulations of writing and "developing" plays in the contemporary theatre. It was a full house in the Glicker-Milstein Black Box Theatre, and the event drew not only our majors, but undergraduate students, MFA students, faculty, and others from across the campus and across the city. In January, Ong Keng Sen, the artistic director of TheatreWorks, a company based in Singapore but with a global audience, came to Barnard, to give a public lecture on his work—"What's Left of the Intercultural after Globalization?"—and to offer a more intimate seminar with our students the following day. Ong is best known in the West for his brilliant series of Shakespeare adaptations—Lear, Desdemona, Search: Hamlet—which typically combine a range of modern and traditional Asian performance disciplines in a richly composed, visually stunning performance. Here, though, Ong took some distance from that "old" work, and was able to introduce the Barnard and Columbia community to his current work for the stage. Later in the spring, the celebrated Finnish director Kristian Smeds returned to Barnard, for a week of classroom visits, a workshop with advanced directors, and to participate with Assistant Professor Hana Worthen as a respondent and interlocutor to her paper, "Ethics of Translation: Kristian Smeds's Mental Finland." Co-sponsored by the Barnard Center for Translation Studies and the Dean of International Studies, these events took shape from Smeds's brilliant series of performances, which—whether staging Chekhov's Cherry Orchard in an immigration transit "ghetto" on the outskirts of Vienna, or a high-tech meditation on an emerging "European" identity (Mental Finland) in Brussels, or a magical version of Paul Auster's Mr Vertigo in the Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki—brilliantly use the theatre as a site of investigation, not mere reproduction, a place to imagine and remake ourselves. In May, we also produced a staged reading of the first act of Caridad Svich's The Way of Water, directed by Lisa Campbell (BC '13), a play marking the two-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill and its consequent human health and environmental damage; the stage reading and talkback with faculty from the Earth Institute was part of a coordinated, international series of performances of the play commemorating the spill.
In the coming year, we hope to have an equally splendid series of talks and performances.
Faculty and Staff News
Betsy Adams (Adjunct Lecturer) recently designed Dancers Over 40 Cares: It’s Not Where You Start at the Ailey Citigroup Theater. The production was a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and Project Achieve/Columbia University & the NYC HIV Vaccine Trials Network. She is also designing the Shakespeare Rep at Juilliard for her fourth year. This year’s productions will be Romeo & Juliet (directed by Rebecca Guy) and Taming of the Shrew (directed by Jessica Bauman). Next fall she will be designing The Laramie Project and TLP: Ten Years Later at Kansas City Rep and as a featured production of the Next Wave Festival at BAM. She was the original Lighting Designer for both productions. The Laramie Project chronicles the response of Laramie, Wyoming to the brutal murder of gay college student, Matthew Shepard.
Miriam Felton-Dansky (Adjunct Lecturer, BC '02) is a doctoral candidate in the Yale School of Drama's dramaturgy and dramatic criticism program, where she won the John W. Gassner Memorial Prize for criticism. She is an associate editor at Theater magazine and a regular contributor to the theater section of the Village Voice. She has also written for Theatre Journal, PAJ, and TDR. She is a founding member of the theater company Polybe + Seats, with whom she recently serving as dramaturg on Alice, or the Scottish Gravediggers, and she is delighted to be teaching the New York Theatre class at Barnard this semester.
Patricia Denison (Senior Lecturer) enjoyed teaching wonderful students this year in the Shakespeare lecture, the Victorian and Modern Drama seminar, and other classes. She peer reviewed an article for Women & Performance, July 2011, and participated in a Columbia Stages panel discussion of Refrigerator Mother (Alessandra Hirsch, BC ' 08) at the Theatre Division, School of the Arts, Columbia University, September 22, 2011. At the Mint Theater, NY, she gave a post-performance talk on Rutherford and Son, "Bold Bargains by Women in the Edwardian North," March 7, 2012. In the Scholars in Conversation Series, at the Lantern Theater, Philadelphia, PA, she spoke on "Capulets, Montagues, and Modern Feuds in Romeo and Juliet," March 19, 2012.
Sandra Goldmark (Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, Design) designed sets for The Egg-Layers at Barnard this spring. In the fall she designed a new musical by Michael John Lachiusa, Queen of the Mist, with Transport Group at Judson Memorial Gym. This summer she will design King Lear and The Tempest in repertory at Shakespeare and Co., and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at Music Academy of the West.
Mabou Mines' Lucia's Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, written and directed by faculty member Sharon Fogarty (Adjunct Lecturer), was presented as part of the NYC 1st Irish Theatre Festival and was nominated for Best Actress and awarded Best Design. In the fall of 2011 Fogarty also directed Jarry’s Ubu the King at Barnard.
Charise Greene (Adjunct Lecturer) is now the resident voice and dialect coach for NYU Stella Adler Studio's undergraduate productions. She continues working as the resident voice-over talent for Turnswing, and this year recorded a book on tape through Audible. Charise recently appeared as Joanna in the three-person new play Inadmissible by screenwriter D.B. Gilles at downtown theater Canal Park Playhouse. In addition to the following, Charise's performance was reviewed by TheaterMania and Blog Critics, and the play was featured on NYTimes' The Choice. www.charisegreene.com
Shayoni Mitra (Assistant Professor) is delighted to be back in the department after having been on leave in the Fall of 2011. This Spring semester she was amongst the Faculty Global Fellows participating in "Women Changing India," Barnard's Global Symposium in Mumbai. Here she moderated the panel on arts and media called "Voices of the Region." It included as panelists actor Nandita Das, Bollywood director Farah Khan, TV journalist Mallika Kapur and architect Brinda Somaya, all of whom have found creative and compelling ways to tell stories about Indian women and their struggles. Professor Mitra also took a group of students to visit members of VAMP (Vaishya Anyay Mukti Parishad, Prostitutes for Freedom from Abuse Association) in Sangli, a small town in Maharashtra India. The Barnard contingent watched Hum aur Tum Sab (Us and You All), a performance by the sex workers detailing their struggles in organizing and interacted with the actors afterward. She and the students will be sharing some of their experiences and insights on this kind of politicized community theatre with the larger campus audience later this semester.
Piia Mustamäki (Adjunct Lecturer) published an article in the Fall 2011 issue of Dramatic Theory and Criticism called “Reading Representations of Race with Masochism: The 1990s and Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus."
Hana Worthen (Assistant Professor) gave a paper on her current research at an international conference, "The Border, An Unavoidable Concept?" on borders and their relationship to the performing arts in Europe, in Barcelona, Spain, this March. She has several articles forthcoming on the work of the Finnish stage director Kristian Smeds, whom she invited to Barnard in the spring term; these articles are appearing in the next numbers of TDR: The Drama Review, Contemporary Theatre Review, and TheatreForum. In addition to her scholarly writings, she has also a forthcoming review of Smeds's Vyšniu sodas—Der Kirschgarten, a remaking of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard with a cast of Lithuanian actors and musicians in the immigrant colony on the periphery of Vienna, Austria; it will appear in the May number of Theatre Journal. Continuing her involvement in cross-disciplinary work, and combining her interest in the ethics of nationalism, theatre, and performance, she has co-edited an anthology scrutinizing cultures of silencing in Finnish academia, which is currently under review. On the side, she was a featured commentator in the Classic Stage Company's symposium accompanying Brian Kulick's production of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo.
W. B. Worthen (Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts) served as Co-Chair of the Ph.D. in Theatre at Columbia University this year, as well as serving on the Executive Committee of the Department of English and Comparative Literature and of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia. Having spent the summer as a Fellow in the "Interweaving Performance Cultures" International Research Institute at the Freie Universität, Berlin, he gave a number of professional talks this year, including talks at the Institute, at the Dahlem Humanities Center at the Freie Universität, at the American Society for Theatre Research, and the Shakespeare Association of America. He was also invited to deliver a keynote address at "The Border, An Unavoidable Concept?" a conference on the border and its relationship to the performing arts in Europe, held at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in Barcelona, Spain. He referees widely for professional journals, and his article, "Intoxicating Rhythms; or, Shakespeare, Literary Drama, and Performance (Studies)," was published in fall 2011 in Shakespeare Quarterly, and "'The Written Troubles of the Brain': Sleep No More and the Space of Character" in the March 2012 issue of Theatre Journal. His review of the ongoing impact of Jan Kott's classic book, Shakespeare Our Contemporary, was featured in the "Relektüre" section of Forum Modernes Theater this spring. He published several book reviews this year, and has had articles translated into several languages, including an article on the Wooster Group Hamlet into Polish, for the journal Didaskalia. He is currently completing a book entitled Shakespeare/Performance/Studies.
Alumni News
Jessica Silsby Brater (BC '00) is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Center, CUNY. This spring she presented a paper at the American Conference for Irish Studies in New Orleans and this summer she will co-chair a panel on avant-garde appropriation with fellow alumna Miriam Felton-Dansky at the American Theatre in Higher Education conference in Washington, D.C. In the fall of 2011, she directed the English-language premiere of the nineteenth-century French melodrama Alice, or the Scottish Gravediggers for her company, Polybe + Seats. Alice was developed and performed in residency at Park Slope's Old Stone House. This winter Brater received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council on behalf of Polybe for their upcoming project, a new play inspired by the history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard written by fellow alum Avi Glickstein. The project will be produced in collaboration with the yard's new museum, BLDG 92, in fall 2012. www.polybeandseats.org
Dana Everitt (BC '08) is currently volunteering at a school for orphaned girls in Tanzania where she is teaching drama classes to students in grades 7 and 8. After learning about improvisation, basic acting technique, and storytelling, the students are now writing short plays that they will rehearse and perform for the school and the local community.
This past fall Kara Feely (BC '99) directed a live, staged adaptation of American composer Robert Ashley's "Automatic Writing" at the Incubator Arts Project, and a new live-film performance piece entitled "Actua 1" at the Presents Gallery in Brooklyn. Additionally in March she completed a string of performances/presentations of her company Object Collection's work at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Gallery Oblon (Turin), and Medionauta (Milan).
Zoe Johnson (BC '10) has been very active in the Los Angeles theatre scene post-graduation. In the fall, she performed the role of Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein's musical version of Voltaire's Candide, and then played the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol each night for the entire month December. She both helped create and starred in an independent short musical film that is scheduled to premiere in May. In February, she sang opera in the world premiere dance production, Cleopatra C.E.O. on the 51st floor of City National Bank in downtown Los Angeles. Besides performing, she has served on a Playwright's Festival Selection Committee, and currently gives singing lessons to high school students. Finally, she ran the ING NYC marathon in November because she already missed New York too much!
After graduating in May of 2010, Gilli Messer (BC '10) moved home to her native Los Angeles, where she is pursuing acting on the screen and stage. Over the past year, Gilli has worked on numerous national commercials, print ads, and television shows, performed in several well-received stage productions, and played a supporting role the satirical indie comedy A Convenient Truth. She continues to pursue her interest in writing when time allows. Gilli is proud to announce that her younger sister, Romi, was admitted early decision to the Barnard class of 2016. Check out Gilli's site and blog for news and career updates: http://gillimesser.com/, http://gillimesser.blogspot.com/.
Lily Perlmutter (BC '07) continues to work in NYC as a stage manager and production assistant. Last fall she worked on readings with Richard Foreman, Michael Greif, and Michael-John LaChiusa, as well as the Public Theater's productions of Sweet and Sad and The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. She participated in FringeNYC for the third time, New York Musical Theater Festival for the second time, and somehow piloted Big Apple Baroque's full-scale, five-act opera The Fairy Queen with a cast of fifty. Most recently, Lily was honored to work with Athol Fugard as the production assistant on Blood Knot, the very first show at the brand new Signature Center.
This season, Natalie Robin (CC '02) is making her lighting design debut at Dallas Theater Center, designing productions of Next Fall and God of Carnage. She is the associate producer of American Realness, a festival of contemporary performance curated by Ben Pryor. She was the 2011 Apollo Lighting Standing O Award recipient and is returning this year to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Poetry 2012 and to Williams College for The Importance of Being Ernest and designing the five MFA playwriting plays at the New School for Drama.
© May 2012
Barnard Department of Theatre
Columbia Major in Drama and Theatre Arts
About this newsletter
We send the Theatre Newsletter once a year to current students and alumni. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please send an e-mail to Jessica Brater.
