March 1, 2014

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Remarks from the Chair: Saying our goodbyes

Dear friends —

We were on the verge of publishing this issue of Stages when we received very sad news.

On March 1, Professor Emerita Virginia Scott passed away after a long illness. Virginia was surrounded by friends and family in her last days, including her fellow Professor Emeritus Dick Trousdell, and her good friend and collaborator Constance Congdon ‘82G. (Please read the obituary Dick composed with Virginia's children below.)

Virginia was among those who witnessed our department’s earliest years, and she helped shape our dramaturgy program, which was, at the time of its founding, one of only a few in the country. She was a valued colleague to faculty members and a revered mentor to generations of students, whom she inspired far beyond their graduation from the department.

Virginia joined us at UMass in 1970 after receiving her PhD from the University of Iowa. With the exception of a brief time in the mid-1970s, she spent the rest of her career enriching the lives of her colleagues and students here.

This fall, we recorded her and June Gaeke speaking about the history of the department, which you can listen to here.
Virginia will be tremendously missed as a colleague and mentor, as a scholar of theater, and as a friend to the department.

My thoughts go out to her family and friends at this time, as I know yours do as well.

We would like to read and share some of your memories about Virginia. If you have an anecdote, a tribute, or a photo you would like to share, please send it to us (agoossen@theater.umass.edu ). We hope to publish as many as possible in our May issue. Please share with us before April 15.

Warmly,

Penny


Virginia Scott, 1934-2014

Virginia Scott, Professor Emerita of Theater at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, died at her home in South Amherst on March 1, 2014. She was 79.

Virginia Scott was an internationally recognized scholar, author and teacher in the field of Dramaturgy. Adam Gopnik, reviewing Moliere: A Theatrical Life for the New Yorker said: “She is a refreshing guide.  She has an excellent eye for period detail and fills the empty corners of Moliere’s life with neat pen-portraits… and unfussy accounts of his dealings as an actor-manager.” Publisher’s Weekly said: “As the first substantive English-language biography of Moliere since 1930, this is a happy arrival for students of the theater and of French literature and culture.”

Among her many honors were the George Freedley Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Literature of the Theater; the Outstanding Scholar Award from the American Society for Theater Research; and the 2011 Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the Camargo Foundation (twice), and has received several awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, including a Senior Fellowship. Published works include The Commedia dell'arte in Paris (University Press of Virginia, 1990), Molière: A Theatrical Life (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Performance, Poetry and Politics on the Queen's Day: Catherine de Médicis and Pierre de Ronsard at Fontainebleau, with Sara Sturm-Maddox (Ashgate, 2007),  Tartuffe: A Critical Edition with Constance Congdon (Norton, 2008), and Women on the Stage in Early Modern France (Cambridge University Press, In Press). 

Virginia Scott described herself as “a late-blooming academic.” In a 2010 interview in The Frenchmag, she said “Finally, when I was 50 I received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation that enabled me to spend a sabbatical in Paris and begin archival research for my book on the Comédie-Italienne. I realized then that, although I had enjoyed wearing my many hats, the one that best suited me was research and historical writing.”

Virginia Lee Peters was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 2, 1934, the only child of Grace (Blackwell) Peters and Lee Henry Peters.  Her mother was a nurse and her father drove a car for a funeral home. When Ginny was fourteen she played Jo in a production of The Little Women and began her life in the theater. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Iowa, she spent the next four years in New York City. She then returned to Iowa for an MFA in Playwriting and, finally, a PhD in History and Criticism of Theater.

Virginia was a founding member of the Department of Theater at the University of Massachusetts, where she served as a Professor of Dramaturgy and Playwriting. She was also a Visiting Professor in Dramaturgy at the Tufts University Department of Drama and Dance. Her translations of Moliere’s plays (some with her former playwriting student, Constance Congdon) have been widely produced in regional theaters. Her original produced works include the plays Letter to Corinth; Bogus Joan; Lesser Pleasures: A Secret Opera (music & lyrics by Joshua Rosenblum); and A Living Exhibition of Sweeney Todd.

As a child of the Depression and the Progressive Era, Virginia was a passionate believer in the importance of affordable public higher education, a cultural value that gave her a superb education, and a social principle she championed throughout her long career.  To that work, she brought her vast knowledge of history and social conditions, her diligent research in the theater archives in this country and in France, and her demands for honesty and excellence in her students’ writing, interpretation, and theater production.  In these ways she helped her students build a solid foundation for their own teaching and research careers or for their professional lives on stage and in film.  She eagerly followed their accomplishments as dramaturgs, directors, designers, playwrights, and actors whose work was seen in New York and Hollywood, and in regional theaters and classroom across the country and abroad.  She took great pleasure in her students’ many successes.

Virginia had a life-long appreciation of France and French culture. She was an excellent cook and delighted her family and her friends with many beautifully cooked meals. In recent years she traveled a good deal, most often to Paris, her favorite city.

Virginia died peacefully in her home in South Amherst after a year-long illness. The cause of death was bile-duct cancer. She is survived by her three children with former husband Nicholas Scott: Peter Scott (Suzan Scott, Bozeman MT); Garet Scott (Kevin Thomsen, Upper Nyack, NY); Sarah Scott (Peter Arensburger, Riverside, CA) and nine grandchildren. Memorial gifts in lieu of flowers may be made in Virginia’s name to SOS Children’s Villages International (sos-childrensvillages.org) and to VNA Hospice of Cooley-Dickinson (vnaandhospice.org).  A Memorial Celebration of Virginia’s life will take place on May 3, 2014 at the Amherst Women’s Club.


Amy Levinson '94, '97G remembers Virginia Scott

Virginia Scott was a force.  My first interaction with her was as an undergraduate student in her theater history class and frankly, she scared the crap out of most of her students.  But not me.   To me, she was brilliant and wry- a wellspring of fascinating ideas that set my imagination on fire.  She loved the subject of history and she taught the analysis of drama- dramaturgy- through a historical lens.  And man, did she not suffer fools.  During the second course I took with her that focused on her greatest passion, Moliere, she asked to see me during her office hours.  I was sure I was in trouble.  As someone who had always underachieved academically, this was my default response.  But instead, she said the thing that would change my life, “Amy, I think you may be a dramaturg.”  For the next few years, Virginia shepherded my learning, but for every year after that, she shaped my life.   I am, in fact, a dramaturg- and I might have never known that were it not for the formidable, indomitable Virginia Scott.  And I am only one of so, so many.  A good professor enriches young minds.  A great professor enriches their lives.  While I have thanked her many times over the years, I wanted one more opportunity to do so.  The world has lost a tremendous woman, mother, teacher and friend.   I love you and thank you, Virginia.

Amy originally published this tribute to Virginia on her blog: http://pairofgenes.com/2014/03/04/saying-goodbye-to-the-woman-who-changed-my-life/

Our thanks to her for allowing us to share it with you.


Donor profile: Dee Waterman

Over this past year, we have been blown away by the generosity of our donors. They make it possible for us to turn ideas into reality, and we couldn’t be more grateful. As we have for several years now, we will be profiling some of these folks throughout the year, because they’re not only generous, they’re all truly interesting people. In this issue we talk to Dee Waterman, who is not an alumna of the department but is well-known and liked by many in the UMass Theater community as an actor and friend.

 

UMass Theatr affiliationFriend and fellow artist, actor in many Department of Theater productions

A favorite UMass Theater memory: Greg Leaming directed Samuel Beckett’s Endgame at UMass, and the role Dee Waterman played called for her to hide under the stage for the whole production “until we came up through trash cans. So I had to go, get under there with my candy and my lozenges and things, and lie there under the stage.”

Why do you donate to the Department of Theater: Because some of my happiest and most productive moments were spent on the stage and working in rehearsals. I made such wonderful friends!

Dee Waterman finds community in theater

Dee Waterman’s name has shown up in programs of many local theater companies and events: Hampshire Shakespeare Company, Arena Civic Theatre, the 24-Hour Theatre Project in Northampton, readings for playwrights Brian Marsh and Dorothy Johnson. She’s logged significant time at UMass Theater, too, appearing in mainstage productions as well as the late, great Theater-In-the-Works, a new play festival UMass ran years ago.

Given her stature in local community theater, it’s amazing to learn that Waterman picked theater up more or less on a whim, looking for something to do, and that all her theater learning has come in the rehearsal room and onstage.

Waterman’s found a community among the theater artists of the valley, and so it’s no surprise that when she’s asked why she’s donated to the Department of Theater over the years, she cites the great friends she’s made in theater as a primary motivation.

“Some of best times I’ve had were in theater, both community and UMass,” she said.

Waterman came to the valley in 1963 with her family. She had a BA in history from Western Michigan University and was working on a graduate degree. She and her late husband owned and ran the Jeffery Amherst Bookstore for 16 years. She’s been a realtor since 1979, when her family sold the bookstore. “It’s a job that I can continue to do, and I sort of need to continue to do. I’m working because I like it, I’m healthy, and I need to do it,” she said. It’s gratifying to her to know of all the families she has helped find a home here.

It was in 1976 that she decided to get involved in theater.

“I think I was just looking for something to do, and I went to an audition … for The Crucible,” Waterman said. “And now I’ve been in The Crucible twice. First time, I was Annie Putnam, and the second time, I was Rebecca Nurse,” she said, amused that she’s been in local theater long enough to play different generations within the same play.

Although she hasn’t acted for UMass Theater in a while (a few stints with our Play-In-A-Day notwithstanding, her last major role with us was in She Stoops To Conquer in 1999), she counts it among her theater homes. Waterman fondly recalls working with directors including faculty members Dick Trousdell and Ed Golden, as well as then-graduate student Greg Leaming, now at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida. She also mentioned the late Harry Mahnken, a faculty member who was a wonderful actor, with whom she acted in Theatre-in-the-Works, a new play development series UMass Theater ran for several summers.

She laughed as she recalled one of the pieces she acted in. “Last thing I did in Theatre-in-the-Works, Ed Golden directed. I just periodically said ‘Bring me my tea!’ and then I died.”

Then there was the late Doris Abramson.

“You know, Doris sort of grabbed me after she saw me in the first production I did there, and then I was in her Machinal which I think was the last thing she did there,” she said. Waterman and a number of her friends attended the production of Machinal mounted last year in tribute to Abramson.

Working on productions here, Waterman admitted, was sometimes intimidating. “I loved to watch the training going on. And I don’t have that. I thought the training appeared to be — and my eyes were not educated  — to be very good and thorough. I was impressed by it,” she said.

She was also fascinated with all the things that went into a production.

“I don’t know about the backstage stuff except for what I had gleaned. That’s all fascinating to me,” she said. “I like the part of theater that I have participated in, but I think it’s absolutely so interesting what it takes to get that.”

Waterman still acts. She likes readings (“because you don’t have to work so hard at it!”) and “meaty, small roles.”

She is very much a part of the Valley’s theater community.

“When I hear ‘Oh so and so’s in a play,’ I think, ‘They will have such a wonderful time and they will never forget it!"


Join us for a reading of Jonathan Curelop '87's Tanker 10!

In our last issue, we profiled Jonathan Curelop '87 and the book he wrote, Tanker 10, in which the orange Rand Theater has a starring role. Because that is the opening weekend for our production of Peter Pan, we invite alumni who are on campus to see the show — on us.

Jonathan is coming to UMass on April 11 and 12, and we'd like you to join us for the reading. Please see the schedule of events. We hope to see you there!

APRIL 11

Writing and acting roundtable
Jonathan will speak to theater students about how his theater training is the basis for his writing technique. Professor Emeritus Julian Olf, whose work spans several areas of theater, will join in for a discussion of how theater training infucens writing and vice versa.
4:30 p.m., Conference room
Amherst Books will have books for sale and signing

Peter Pan
Any alumni who have returned to campus for the reading are invited to be our guests for the evening performance of Peter Pan if they wish to attend.
8 p.m., Rand Theater
Please contact us to reserve your tickets.

APRIL 12

Peter Pan
Any alumni who have returned to campus for the reading are invited to be our guests for the evening performance of Peter Pan if they wish to attend.
2 p.m., Rand Theater
Please contact us to reserve your tickets.

Reading of Tanker 10
Jonathan will read scenes from his book and answer questions about Tanker 10 and his writing process. Followed by an opportunity to buy the book for signing, courtesy of Amherst Books.
5 p.m., Curtain Theater

Peter Pan
Any alumni who have returned to campus for the reading are invited to be our guests for the evening performance of Peter Pan if they wish to attend.
8 p.m., Rand Theater
Please contact us to reserve your tickets.


Midori Harris '05 makes the most of a dream deferred

Sometimes a dream deferred leads to a different way to find fulfillment. Midori Harris ’05 had intended to pursue a career as a director until her health put her off that path five years ago. A conversation with a friend in need of a producer, director Paul Takacs, gave her a new way to be part of New York City’s theater community. Fast forward to this winter, and Harris and Takacs are the founders and producing directors of the Shop Theater. The company has just closed its second production, a sold-out, rave-reviewed-in-the-Times run of Jon Fosse’s I Am the Wind. Given that their first outing, Philip Ridley’s Tender Napalm, was also sold out and rave-reviewed by Ben Brantley, that’s a pretty good track record.

 
Publicity still from The Shop Theatre's production of I Am The Wind. Photography by Cherylynn Tsushima

A producer from early on

Harris’s foray into producing has its foundations in her time at UMass Theater. When she was a sophomore, she and fellow theater major Shannon Stillings (now Dupont) founded the Shakespeare Festival. It has morphed, over the years, into the Renaissance Festival, and it is now in the hands of the Center for Renaissance Studies, where it is still going strong. Harris recalled being a full-time student and working a part-time job while she was at UMass, in addition to taking on the mammoth task of mounting a festival, arranging everything from porta-potties to poetry recitations.

“Some I think back on those days and I don’t even know how I functioned,” she laughed.

After graduating, Harris had her sights set firmly on directing. Five years ago, she landed one of 6 spots in the New School for Drama’s prestigious directing program. Only a semester in, though, things went wrong — she became ill with what was eventually diagnosed as Graves disease, and her doctors said there was no way she was in any kind of shape to continue the program.

Ironically, the illness that felled her may have been prompted by her life’s passion. “I think that grad school was actually a cause of me getting sick. Graves’ disease is an emotionally stress-induced illness… As a director I get pretty involved emotionally,” Harris explained.

“When I got sick, it was really devastating for me,” she said, and she freely admits that she misses directing every single day and hopes to return to it one day. “I can see myself at some point going back to directing and having it feel like I never stopped,” Harris said, and she hopes that the time away will eventually make her stronger.

Producing isn’t exactly a piece of cake, but its demands weigh differently on Harris.

“I feel like when I’m producing I can be removed enough from the emotional aspects. It still matters to me, and its still important, and I can get stressed at times, but it’s not on the same level,” Harris explained.

Although they have the same title — co-producing director — Paul Takacs’ role is more akin to that of an artistic director, while Harris handles more of the business aspects, dealing with contracts and the like. “We complement each other,” she said of their friendship and business relationship. “He respects me, and we make decisions together.”

The majority of Harris work is done by the time the show opens.

“During the run I just have to kind of look pretty and smile and shake hands,” she laughed, adding that she has one other job: keeping her stressed-out compatriot “sane.”

Becoming a theater team

After leaving the directing program, Harris spent the next two years recuperating and not doing much theater, but she had made a few friends at the New School. Notable among them was Takacs. One afternoon shortly after his graduation, the two had lunch and he talked to her about a play he’d like to mount that was in need of a producer.

“He wasn’t even asking me to produce necessarily, just talking to me about it. But I said ‘Oh I have a lot of producing experience, so if you need some help with that, then just let me know’,” Harris recalled. “It was just sort of this magical moment where we said, ‘Oh yeah, that could work!’”

Love In Transit, which played to an audience of “mostly friends and family”, was a small, very off-Broadway production “done sort of on a shoestring,” but Harris and Takacs realized they worked really well together and wanted to do it again. Takacs, who favors European playwrights, secured the rights to Tender Napalm. It was the American premiere of the piece and the pair, now calling themselves The Shop Theater, rented space at 59E59 Theaters for a three-week run in August 2012.

“The subject matter in Tender Napalm is pretty rough. It’s about a couple and they lose their … child in an explosion. The world they live in is the world they created to deal with what happened to them,” Harris said. “Usually every night in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the show, we would have one to five people walk out.”

Venerated New York Times critic Ben Brantley was not among the walk-outs. He gave the production a rapturous review, and suddenly, Harris and Takacs’s fledgling theater company entered rarified territory. He wasn’t the only critic to love the piece, and in short order, they’d sold out their entire three-week run.

“After we sold out we got crazy requests for industry comps because it was this hot ticket. We got a rave in the Times, and no one could get tickets so every single day I had like a list of people who were on the waiting list who wanted to come see it,” said Harris. She found herself being the gate-keeper, deciding which industry big-wig was going to get one of the handful of seats she’d held in reserve. “It’s a great  problem to have, but it’s something I hadn’t anticipated, especially in our first Off-Broadway show!”

Among the thrills of that production was finding out that Stephen Sondheim had attended a performance, which they found out via Twitter, when someone posted that they’d seen him in the audience.

With that success under their belts they originally had had planned to be back at 59E59 Theater in August 2013, but they had a hard time finding the right follow-up to Tender Napalm. An agent finally offered them some suggestions, and the piece they eventually selected was celebrated Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse’s I Am The Wind, in a wonderful translation by Simon Stevens.

“It’s two actors on a boat at sea. They very much create a universe on their own,” Harris said. “It’s a poetic play. The best way to describe it is, it’s a play about those seemingly insignificant moments in your life that, when you look back on them, become significant …  What would you do if you could go back, what would you do, what would you say differently?”

It struck a chord. Once again, Ben Brantley and his fellow critics loved the show, and the run quickly sold out.

Being good people

Harris works a full-time job in addition to her theater work, and after hearing her talk about her philosophy as a producing director, it’s no surprise that she has a background in customer service and related fields.

She and Takacs have a great relationship with 59E59 Theaters “beyond just bringing them a hit,” and bringing the theater a younger audience than it usually gets.

“We sort of pride ourselves on not getting big or swollen heads about it,” she said. Instead, they try to be “good, kind honest people that are part of a collaborative art, and that includes box office and front of house and all the people.”

“We’re respectful and we’re kind and we say please and thank you,” she said.

Harris and Takacs jealously guard that reputation, being careful to pick collaborators “who are not just good artists but really solid people. That’s just really important to me,” she said.

I Am the Wind in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/theater/i-am-the-wind-by-jon-fosse-features-men-alone-at-sea.html?_r=0

I Am the Wind in TDF Stages: http://wp.tdf.org/index.php/2014/01/i-am-the-wind-jon-fosse/


 

Play lab: An interview with the director

Last week, as rehearsals for the first annual UMass New Play Lab began, Paul Adolphsen (dramaturg for And Then They Fell, one of Play Lab’s two offerings) sat down with Play Lab director Jared Culverhouse to talk about his past experience with play development, and why he’s excited to work on new scripts by our two playwrights-in-residence: Liz Duffy Adams and Tira Palmquist.

Check out the interview on our Podomatic podcast channel HERE. (Please note, one of the play titles contains an expletive.)


 

Bond birthdays and big bashes: Student Anna Engelsman interns with an event production company

Like many other students, Anna Engelsman joined UMass Theater intent on performance. Like many, she found something else to love in our “try everything” curriculum. For Engelsman, it was stage management and event planning. Those interests led her to spend the fall of 2013 in New York City where she interned for event production company Van Wyck and Van Wyck.

The company, which is based in New York but operates all over the US, puts on everything from large-scale weddings to industry events. Among the clients Engelsman named were the New York City Ballet, Bulgari and Beyoncé, whose perfume launch the company planned.

During her time with the company, Engelsman helped company staffers research venues, source invitations, look at menus, organize on-site logistics and set-up, and more.

She joked that, like all internships, this one involved the occasional coffee run. However, because of her stage management experience and technical theater skills, she found herself in demand. The technical director Engelsman worked with frequently “stole me,” she said, and put her in charge of build crews because he knew she had the skills he needed.

The most memorable experiences took her to Cincinnati for a week, where she helped the company put on a James Bond-themed birthday party.

“I got to work hands-on with the stunt crew,” she said, as well as help build the stage and problem-solve a number of challenges. The interns were also on hand and on duty for the party itself.

Engelsman’s interest in event planning and management came out of her service in the Undergraduate Advisory Council, which puts on some events in the department throughout the year.

“I liked doing that and I wanted to see what it would look like in the professional world,” she said.
She was speaking to a family friend about her interest in event production works, and said friend knew someone who worked at Van Wyck as a production manager. When Engelsman got in touch, the informational interview turned into an offer for an internship.

Engelsman’s theater background stood her in good stead, she said; she called on skills including carpentry, stage management, and her work in the electrics shop. In fact, she even scored a job offer from a lighting and sound company that subcontracted with Van Wyck and was impressed with the skills she brought to bear.

Engelsman graduates this May and thinks she may explore this side of the industry for a while, although she hopes not to turn her back on stage management entirely.

In the meantime, she offers advice to other interns: “Don’t be afraid to ask questions, because the whole point of you being there is to learn.”


Updates

In our bid for artistic world domination, we've got a few places you can find us online. We'd love to have you follow, like, comment, whatever — just click on one of the icons to visit us elsewhere:

Follow us on Twitter for updates and our tweet-previews of upcoming productions

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Watch us on youtube

Listen to us on Podomatic

Calling all of June Gaeke’s colleagues and students, past and present:
As you may have heard, June has retired. We want to celebrate her work and her influence here in Stages in the spring issue, and we would love to read your stories and thoughts. If you have a story about June or a compliment you’d like to pay her, please email us. Please send me any great photos you have, as well, whether of June or her creations. We’ll publish as many as we can in the year-end issue.


UPDATES

After a successful crowd-funded campaign in the summer of 2013, Lian Amaris ’02 produced and directed her original play The Video Game Monologues at The Phoenix Theater in San Francisco and Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City this Fall. 
Based on the real stories of gamers, The Video Game Monologues shares first times, legendary battles, and the lives changed by pressing „Start.” Part ethnography and part fantasy, this episodic play stages the adventures of hardcore and casual gamers alike, punctuated by cameos of notorious and beloved game characters. From arcade to console, The Video Game Monologues reminds us to learn from our fatalities and cherish our 1Ups.
Salon called TVGM "a slyly perceptive set of discourses on relationships embedded in gaming culture" and "positive and affirming; a demonstration of how our life with games has real meaning."  The Video Game Monologues was also presented at The Cartoon Art Museum and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of its premiere in San Francisco. 
Lian continues to write, perform, and direct original genre-bending work as she has every year since her graduation from UMass and looks forward to touring TVGM in 2014.  For the past year, she has worked at a video game company in San Francisco as Director of User Engagement, translating her creative communication expertise into great audience experiences.

Sound Design Lecturer Amy Altadonna designed sound for Take Me Back at Walkerspace in Soho. Her work got a positive mention in the New York Times.

The just-published African American Connecticut Explored (Wesleyan University Press) features an essay about actress Gwen Reed by Assistant Professor Christopher Baker.  Reed, born in 1912, grew up working the tobacco fields in Connecticut. Her love of Shakespeare drew her to acting and she eventually was part of the Federal Theater Project’s Negro Unit in Hartford, one of the few cities that had both black and white companies.  For twenty years she earned her living as a spokesperson for Quaker Oats, impersonated Aunt Jemima at store openings and civic events. Her later career included roles at Hartford Stage and as a well-loved children’s storyteller on local television.  “Reed was part of theater history,” says Baker, “from One Third of a Nation with the Federal Theater Project to productions at a young Hartford Stage at the beginning of the regional theater movement.  She never made much money as a performer—she died in poverty—but she was tenacious. She stuck to the thing she loved.” 

Andrew DiBartolomeo ’11 stopped by to let us know his stint as a stunt performer in China was up — he moving on to Singapore Universal Studios. This show, which is based on the Kevin Costner flick, Water World, has more water stunts than his previous show, including lots of jet skiing (see the highlight reel he put together when he auditioned for the job here):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et96otbezQ0
He’s hoping the new gig offers a stepping-stone to Universal properties in Osaka or LA.

Jessica Hegarty ’11 emailed us to say she’s currently the Assistant Box Office Manager for the Charles Playhouse, the theater made notable by Blue Man Group and Broadway in Boston.

Peripheral ARTeries magazine published an extensive interview with Troy Hourie ‘97G about his work: http://issuu.com/artpress/docs/peripheral_arteries_art_review_-_de

Tim Matos ’00 wrote us a newsy email about his latest doings: “It's been a long time since I've checked in.  It is so nice to see so many familiar names in Stages.  My new book, a prose-poem novella titled The Secret Correspondence of Loon and Fiasco, has just been accepted for publication by Mayapple Press.  It is slotted to be released in Dec 2014.  In the last five years I have also published three other books of poetry and a book of scholarship on the productions of Ibsen's plays in late nineteenth-century London. It was based on the dissertation I wrote at UMass.  Harley was the second reader on my dissertation committee.  It is called Ibsen's Foreign Contagion: Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Wing Pinero and Modernism on the London Stage.  I don't publish under the name, Tim, however.  I publish under Carlo Matos.”

Gilbert McCauley has received a Mellon Fellowship. Supported by the UMass Center for Public Policy and Administration, the Fellowship supports faculty members as they develop classes to connect the theoretical with real-world applications. In Gil’s case, he plans to use the opportunity to create a course with a social justice perspective, in which students would work with inner-city teens to create theater pieces exploring “the roles social and cultural diversity, or lack thereof, and oppression have played in our own academic lives and in educational access more generally.”


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