Expression Fall 2002 by Debra Falzoi

Expression FA L L 2 0 0 2

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF EMERSON COLLEGE

Revivingthe golden ageof oratory ALSO FROM THIN AIR TO ‘ON AIR’: HOW A TV SEASON COMES TOGETHER FICTION: “A PRAYER FOR LAWRENCE WELK”

John Anderson, associate professor of communication at Emerson College, brings 19th-century author Henry James from the history books to the lecture hall.

REUNION REVELERS

Above: The marquee at the Emerson Majestic Theatre welcomes 2002 Emerson College Reunion-ers. Left: Poring over memorabilia during the Faculty/Alumni Brunch are Associate Professor Cynthia Bartlett (left) and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dorothy Aram.

Surprises at the Kappa Gamma Chi Lunch include the announcement that Susan Giordano ’93 is getting married. Looking on are (from left) Shannon Mangum Henderson ’95, Angela Lepito ’94, Giordano and Wiesia Sadowski ’93.

Jason Grossman ’02 performs during the Emerson College Comedy Workshop’s 25th Anniversary Celebration.

Members of the Class of 1997 gather for a reunion class luncheon on nearby Boston Common.

CONTENTS FALL 2002

Expression

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

For alumni and friends of Emerson College

CAMPUS DIGEST The Communication Department is reconfigured; new chairs named; marketing students score big

E X EC U T I V E E D I TO R D AV I D R O S E N E D I TO R

WRITER C H R I STO P H E R H E N N ESSY D E S I G N C O N S U LTA N T RONN CAMPISI

’TIS THE (TV) SEASON With the fall television season upon us, how did the programs we watch make it on the air? Alums in the industry explain all

R H E A B EC K E R

PA G E 5

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“A PRAYER FOR LAWRENCE WELK” A never-before-published short story by Rémy Rougeau, MFA ’98

JOHN ANDERSON

WHERE HAVE ALL THE SPEECHES GONE? What is the value of reviving old-time oratory in a culture that is saturated in electronic media? Associate Professor of Communication John Anderson offers a viewpoint

Cover photograph by Kathleen Dooher EXPRESSION is published three times a year (fall, winter and spring) for alumni and friends of Emerson College by the Office of Public Affairs (David Rosen, associate vice president) in conjunction with the Department of Institutional Advancement (Jeanne Brodeur ’72, vice president) and the Office of Alumni Relations (Barbara Rutberg ’68, director). OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS public_affairs@emerson.edu (617) 824-8540, fax (617) 824-8916 OFFICE OF ALUMNI RELATIONS alumni@emerson.edu (800) 255-4259, (617) 824-8535, fax (617) 824-7807 Copyright © 2002 Emerson College 120 Boylston St.

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THE POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE OF COMMENCEMENT 2002

24 BOOKSHELF 26 ALUMNI DIGEST Alumni Weekend 2002 coverage and more

30 CLASS NOTES 34 PROFILES Meet a man who has broken new ground with films on such striking personalities as Tammy Faye Bakker and Monica Lewinsky; and a woman who breathes life into the legacy of Harriet Tubman

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36 MY TURN Michael Wilder ’95 describes his adoration for the College’s grandest structure

Boston, MA 02116-4624

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letters a Midwest community theater who has for 15 years been involved with script development and workshop productions, I thoroughly appreciated the article on new play production in the spring 2002 edition of Expression. It spoke eloquently and informatively on an extremely important topic. In the fall of 1987 I began an association with a Connecticut playwright upon me the incredible significance of first, second and third productions of new scripts. He was committed to the idea that a play can never be considered finished until it has undergone numerous rewrites based upon productions mounted

AS THE DIRECTOR OF

MEMORY LANE

of Emerson College, who finished in the runner-up spot of the Greater Boston Small College League last season, are looking forward to the playoffs again this year. There is every possibility that [the] hoopsters will take the crown in the league this season, and enthusiasm is running higher than ever.” January 1962 Beacon

“THE PURPLE PANTHERS

“DURING CEREMONIES at Hand-MeDown Day, Haig der Marderosian ’54 was presented with his old 60-inch belt, suitably bronzed…in memory of his dear departed avoirdupois. In a sixmonth period, Haig whittled off 116 pounds for his health and Emerson’s happiness.” [Haig had developed a campaign to support the College by soliciting pledges from Emerson students, alumni and friends for every pound he lost between Nov. 1 and April 30.] July 1962 Beacon

on Friday night with the Senior Play, a reader’s theatre performance of Wilde’s The

“COMMENCEMENT BEGAN

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IN THIS ISSUE

specifically for that purpose. Since that time I have staged over a dozen new scripts as world premieres or second productions, most of which have been in association with and/or been seen by the playwright. Having generally mounted shows which have been done numerous times before, I can truly state that the workshopping experience is both rewarding and creatively satisfying. Most importantly, it is critical for the development of the American theater. I thank you for addressing this subject and applaud you for doing it so well. Ralph Maffongelli ’68 Sheboygan, Wisc.

Not so very long ago, nearly every town and city in America had a lecture hall, a community meetingplace where visiting speakers expounded on subjects – both great and small – before gatherings of local citizens. For Americans of the 19th century, absorbing information aurally – even complex thoughts that might prove challenging to audiences of today – was as common as breathing. This ‘oral culture’ was eventually supplanted by a print culture, which was displaced by today’s largely visual and electronic culture. But must orality necessarily take a backseat to the power of images? Associate Professor of Communication John Anderson examines this question in this issue’s cover story and, as he does so, illuminates the College’s place in the history of orality. How did the television shows Importance of Being Earnest…. Relaxyou’re watching this fall get on the ation was the order of the day for cockair? Staff writer Christopher Hentail time, and a Dutch-treat party was nessy spoke to high-ranking Emerheld at the Hampshire House…. son alums who work in the televiAt the Alumni Banquet, entertainsion industry to find out. In ment was provided by June Hamblin accompanying pieces, he also exMitchell ’35, who presented a cutting amines the power of the Nielsen from Life with Father. It ratings system and exwas without doubt the plains how it works, and Expression welcomes short letters to the editor on topmost delightful fifteen looks at the marketing ics covered in the magazine. minutes of the weekmachines that promote The editor will select a repend.” television programming. resentative sample of letters July 1962 Beacon Finally, we are proud to publish and reserves the to present a never-beright to edit copy for style and length. Send letters to: “PROBABLY THE MOST fore-published short Editor, Expression, Office of EXCITING news from story by alum Rémy Public Affairs, Emerson Colthe campus these last Rougeau, MFA ’94, lege, 120 Boylston St., few weeks has been the whose first novel, All Boston, MA 02116-4624; acquisition of six new We Know of Heaven, public_affairs@emerson.edu. fiberglas sailboats for was named a “Best the newly formed Emerson College Book of 2001” by the Los Angeles sailing club. [These boats] will be used Times. The story movingly denot only for an intramural sailing proscribes a quirky pilgrimage to – of gram, but also for races and regattas all places – the birthplace of orwith other colleges in the area…. The chestra conductor Lawrence Welk. white sails with the big ‘E’ on them We hope you enjoy it as much as can be seen quite regularly on the we did. Charles River.” Rhea Becker, editor

December 1962 Beacon

campus digest Three new department chairs named NEW CHAIRS FOR THE Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing, the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the new Department of Marketing Communication have been appointed. They are as follows:

Kempler

Daniel Tobin Poet and literary scholar Daniel Tobin will be taking the helm at the Writing, Literature and Publishing (WLP) Department. Tobin earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia and most recently taught for over a decade at and served as chair of the English Department at Carthage College in Wisconsin. He also holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Warren Wilson College. Tobin has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His first book of poetry, Where the World is Made (Bread Loaf Press, 1999), was selected out of almost 1,000 entries to win the Katherine Bakeless Nason Prize. His second book, Double Life, will be published in 2003. Tobin has also won The Nation Award, a Robert Frost Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. His scholarly essays have been published

Tobin

widely, and one of his critical studies on the Irish poet Seamus Heaney has Tharp been described as the best study thus far on the Nobel laureate.

Daniel Kempler With a distinguished career as a research scientist and a clinician, Daniel Kempler, newly appointed chair of Communication Sciences and Disorders, comes to Emerson having taught for nearly 20 years in his field, most recently as a professor with multidisciplinary teaching appointments at the University of Southern California (USC). He has also served as chief

Communication Department reconfigured The Department of Communication in the School of Communication has been reorganized into two new departments, the Department of Marketing Communication and the Department of Organizational and Political Communication. Stuart Sigman, dean of the School of Communication, spearheaded the reorganization. These two departments will join the existing Journalism and Communication Sciences and

Disorders departments in the School. A new chair, Marye Tharp, has been hired to lead the new Marketing Communication Department (see accompanying story on the College’s three new chair appointments). Phillip Glenn, previous chair of the Communication Department, will take over as chair of Organizational and Political Communication.

speech pathologist and director of communication disorders at the joint Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Los Angeles and has received numerous federal grants for his research. Kempler’s major area of research is in language and memory disorders in neurologically impaired adults and speech intelligibility in sufferers of Parkinson’s disease. Kempler has published widely, is coauthor of Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior (Academic Press, 1979) and is currently writing Neurobehavioral Disorders in Aging, to be published by Sage Publications. He was awarded the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association Outstanding Service Award in 2001.

Marye Tharp The new chair of the Department of Marketing Communication comes to Emerson with nearly 30 years of teaching experience that spans four countries. Marye Tharp has degrees in marketing and international business, including a Ph.D. and an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, where she most recently taught. Tharp has also taught at the University of Texas at San Antonio and in Mexico, England and Peru. She has been published widely and is the author of Marketing and Consumer Identity in Multicultural America (Sage Publications, 2001). She has co-authored three other texts and has delivered refereed presentations at conferences throughout the U.S. and in Canada, France, Japan, Morocco and Portugal. Tharp has been a Fulbright Scholar teaching in Peru. FA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

campus digest

Emmys love Emerson Friends’ producer wins, seven others nominated THE 54TH ANNUAL EMMY AWARDS , telecast in late September, was a banner evening for one Emerson alum, co-executive producer of Friends Kevin Bright ’76. His show, the hit sitcom that helped make “Must See TV” a household phrase, was awarded the coveted Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series after almost a decade on the air. Since its debut season (1994-95), Friends has received 44 Emmy nominations, including five nods for Outstanding Comedy Series. Bright competed in the Outstanding Comedy Series category against fellow alum Max Mutchnick ’87, executive producer of Will & Grace, and Bright’s Emmy was presented by yet another Emerson alum, Jay Leno ’73, host of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which was nominated for Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series.

WINKLER WHIRLWIND Actor and producer Henry Winkler ‘67 came to campus in September to give a master class for a packed house at Brimmer Street, where he offered career advice, reminisced about his days at Emerson, and encouraged students never to give up their dreams. In addition, Winkler visited an on-campus Hollywood Squares audition for Emerson students. Winkler is executive producer of the popular television game show.

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Mutchnick’s show won Outstanding Comedy Series in 2000. In a film clip during this year’s telecast, Will & Grace star Debra Messing praised Mutchnick and co-creator David Ko-

Kevin Bright ’76, co-executive producer of Friends

han, likening the show to a song with the two men as “composers of that score, and you hear it every week.” Other Emerson alums nominated in major categories included Lewis H. Gould ’72, co-executive producer of Law and Order in the category of Outstanding Drama Series. This was the 11th consecutive year the show was nominated, the record for that category. (The show won in 1997.) Also nominated were: Jay Bienstock ’87, supervising producer, Survivor (Outstanding Special Class Program); Kate Boutilier ’81, producer, Rugrats: All Growed Up (Outstanding Children’s Program); Lori Eskowitz-Carter ’88, Will & Grace (Outstanding Costumes for a Series); and Tina Gazzerro ’94, producer, HBO-Miramax’s Project Greenlight (Outstanding Nonfiction Program Reality).

The pitch is good! A team of Emerson advertising and public relations students made history last spring when they placed first in the district competition of the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition, considered the collegiate ‘World Series’ of advertising, according to competition officials. The College is the only school ever to win two back-to-back New England titles. They went on to compete in the national competition in June, during the American Advertising Federation’s annual convention in Bal Harbor, Fla. This year, the team’s winning campaign, for the contest sponsor Bank of America, was entitled “BASecurities — Personalizing Success.” All teams were required to produce an awareness campaign for Bank of America’s investment services for affluent markets. More than 30 Emersonians contributed to Emerson’s win, including students from a Campaign Planning course, directed-study students, and members of the student-run integrated marketing agency EmComm. A team comprised by graduate students from the Global Marketing Communication & Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communication programs competed over the summer in a global student advertising competition called the InterAd, sponsored by the International Advertising Association (IAA). The competition challenges students to solve a real set of problems for an actual client. The team placed second in the U.S.-Canada Region before its advance to the Global competition.

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;TIS THE (TV)

By Christopher Hennessy

SEASON

How did the television shows youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re watching this fall get on the air? High-ranking industry alums tell all

everyone from couch potatoes to casual channel surfers cheerfully settled into comfy couches all across the country to watch a week of season television premieres. We ate up exciting resolutions to the cliffhangers from the previous spring, and tastetested a smorgasbord of new series. For the networks, the week means that those in charge can heave a sigh of relief as the culmination of many months of hard work unfolds. So how do all of these shows get on the air in the first place? Who determines >>

IN LATE SEPTEMBER,

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HOW TO GET FROM HERE TO ‘AIR’

Concepts and scripts flood the network and cable offices on a daily basis throughout the year. “Internally, externally, lunches, dinners, drinks – ideas come from everywhere and at all times. Ideas are not a nine-to-five commodity,” says USA Network President Doug Herzog ’81. Glenn Meehan ’83 has been on both sides of the pitch meeting. Now a producer with his own production company, Meehan previously worked in development for Paramount Studios, where he often heard pitches four times a day. Meehan recalls some unforgettable pitches, including one by a brother and sister team who billed themselves as the “anti-Donny and Marie” and by psychics who told his fortune. But when Meehan himself is pitching, “I look at it like a cocktail party,” he says. “Let’s go in, get our ideas across, have 6

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R O N B AT Z D O R F F

what we watch and what goes on behind the closed doors of concept meetings and time slot discussions? Industry insiders ranging from a network president to development executives to producers – all Emerson alumni/ae – draw on their years of experience to provide some answers. Long before September arrives, network development execs are ‘taking pitches’ and ordering scripts, looking for the next Friends, CSI or Survivor. But TV show concepts don’t materialize magically in front of programming execs. TV insiders agree that there are as many ways for a TV show to find its way onto the airwaves as there are TV shows. Besides the original ideas from producers and writers, TV programming can come from a movie, another TV show (i.e., a spin-off), a stand-up com‘These are the edy routine, even a book, for example lucky few, [some] Sex and the City, from Candace Bushnell’s column-turned-novel. After reviewing a plethora of op20 to 30 per nettions, the top programming brass send work, who will out the order in January for the pilots they deem worthy of development. get . . . to make “These are the lucky few, typically 20 their pilots.’ to 30 per network, who will get financing to make their pilots,” explains NBC’s vice president of on-air promotion Jim Vescera ’78. Review committees at the highest levels then whittle the list even further to the new shows that have enough promise to earn the coveted series deals. Returning shows are also considered – which shows deserve to continue, which shows are past their prime, and which shows are ‘on the bubble,’ that is, teetering toward cancellation. In May, at media presentations called the Upfront, the networks announce these final decisions – which shows will make up the fall schedule.

Selling the Season What TV marketing execs do to get you to tune in Mammoth media conferences, slick promo reels, fall launch campaigns and the swirl of billions of dollars worth of advertising. This is the complex world behind a network’s drive to promote its new fall shows. Each April — well before the summer re-run blahs, and even before the spring’s eagerly anticipated season finales — a top-secret list makes its way from each network’s programming honchos to the heads of marketing. On the list are the shows that might, just might, make it into the fall lineup. Along with the list come the reels containing each 22-minute pilot. Broadcast networks such as NBC often consider 20 to 30 new shows for sometimes five or fewer slots, says Jim Vescera ’78, the network’s vice president of on-air promotion. Immediately, Vescera and his team begin preparing their multimillion-dollar promotional and marketing campaigns. And with only a pilot to go on – the second episode isn’t available until after Labor Day – understanding what a show is about is no easy task. “Other people make the meal, [but] it’s our job to create the appetite for the shows,” says Vescera. In one of the most unusual promotions this fall, appetite is exactly the right word. Through a partnership between NBC and Baskin-Robbins timed to promote the new fall season, the ice cream seller has been featuring flavors like Will & Grace’s Rocky Road of Romance, and Good Morning, Miami Mint, named after a new comedy. Emmy Winner Max Mutchnick ’87 executive produces both shows. Paul McGuire ’80, senior vice president for network communications for the WB network, says that spring is his department’s crunch time. As he and his team meet to discuss their options, they “consider what our best show is, what a show’s most enticing element is, what shows would make for good billboard campaigns,” he says. “You look for the hook.” An entertainment “franchise,” for example, the WB’s Smallville, which is based on the long-successful Superman

The new WB series What I Like About You stars (from left) Wesley Jonathan as Gary, Amanda Bynes as Holly, Jennie Garth as Valerie, and Simon Rex as Jeff.

a good time, tell them a little bit about ourselves and then let’s get out of there,” he says. Sometimes the cocktails do come later. Execs and producers report that the power lunch and the pitch over a martini is a real – and they say valuable – part of the business. Donna Ebbs ’85, vice president of development and production (movies and mini-series) at Disney/ABC, takes “hard-core

story, is usually a selling point for viewers and advertisers alike. Last year, for example, Smallville, about the teenage trials of a pre-Superman Clark Kent, paid off as one of the biggest successes for the network last fall. The show’s summer billboards, which pictured a shirtless Clark, played by actor Tom Welling, bound to a post in the middle of a cornfield and branded with a red ‘S,’ had the nation buzzing about the show even before its first episode aired. Sometimes, the hook will be a hot cast member. The WB’s new What I Like About You will feature young stars Amanda Bynes and Jennie Garth. McGuire is keenly aware of Bynes’ appeal; she built a youthful following during her days on the popular The Amanda Show on Nickelodeon. McGuire hopes the WB can bring that audience, now older, to the new sitcom. As Kelly on the popular Beverly Hills, 90210, Garth brings a similar promotional appeal to the show. Sometimes a show itself makes promotion easy. For the new NBC program American Dreams, “it was one of those shows that the moment we saw it, we knew this show was going on television,” Vescera recalls on first seeing the pilot. (Broadway actress and singer Sara Mann ’97 will make her network television debut on the series as a recurring character who is trying to make it as a singer/songwriter.) The show, which NBC has billed as “the next great American drama,” is set in Philadelphia in the 1960s and follows one family’s growth through the turbulent period. Executive produced by Dick Clark, the show benefits from original footage from Clark’s American Bandstand. Vescera is optimistic that the on-air promos his team has created, using classic ’60s music, have excited prospective audiences. “Music is so critical; it’s how I get you, the viewer, to react emotionally.” He says that the network approved big budget expenditures to license music like the Temptations’ “Get Ready.” With promotional strategies like these in place, the networks begin in mid-May working on what’s known as the Upfront sales presentation. Each network organizes its own

business pitching lunches three times a week,” and discusses work after the close of business sometimes twice a week. Ebbs adds that some pitches are overt while others are about “building a relationship” so that a trust can be established between potential business partners. According to Ebbs and others, “trust is a big part of the business.” Friends’ Executive Producer Kevin Bright ’76 believes that

event, all held annually in New York City, to offer advertisers the first chance to bid on the fall shows’ commercial airtime. For Neal Roscoe ’92, executive director of special projects for the WB network, the Upfront is “by far the biggest thing my team and I do at the network.” Roscoe is in charge of making the WB’s event a hit with the nearly 2,200 advertising execs, TV critics, producers and affiliate top bananas who attend the presentation. “Featurettes,” as Roscoe calls them, are the centerpiece of the Upfront presentation. Each promo reel, usually about five minutes long, introduces a new show and its cast. “If the shows look good and the network seems confident and energetic in its presentation [of those shows], it can mean millions of dollars in advertising for us,” Roscoe explains. In July, promoters of new shows turn their attention to the press for the annual Television Critics Association press tour, a nearly three-week series of press junkets held in Los Angeles during which new shows and their stars are showcased. The event is “one of the singlemost efficient ways to get the word out,” says Paramount Television Group’s Executive Vice President for Marketing John Wentworth ’81, noting that journalists from across the country attend. Paramount is producing, among other shows, the new The In-Laws, starring TV veteran Jean Smart. For Wentworth, Smart, from Designing Women and Frasier, is a real asset. “She’s so well-known among the TV community and viewers, and she’s been through the process of premiering shows a number of times,” Wentworth says, which make her an impressive spokesperson for the show. Lest we forget about returning shows, ironically they often can be a cinch to promote, thanks to one word: cliffhangers. Vescera reveals that he and his team urge the programming department to think like he does, that is, “to push the shows into doing some kind of big season-ending episode that I can exploit during the summer.” Now we know who to blame for making us sweat all summer.

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NBC’s American Dreams is set in Philadelphia in the 1960s. Pictured are (background) Gail O’Grady, Tom Verica and (foreground) Brittany Snow.

CHRIS HASTON

The USA Network’s series Monk stars Tony Shalhoub as an obsessive-compulsive detective. The show is also airing on ABC.

“ultimately, talent triumphs over all, [but] it sure is a hell of a lot faster if you put yourself in the right situation of making contacts with people who can help that cause.” For sitcoms in particular, Bright believes the producers must “get the network to vividly see these characters and find them appealing,” for a network to take a chance that audiences will connect with the characters. SEALING THE DEAL

The pitch meeting went great, a development exec is excited about the idea, and there’s talk of a series. The key word is ‘talk.’ “Usually, it takes an exec’s passion to really push it through so you can even be having the conversation [considering possible development],” says Ebbs. “So many things never get through the first phone call,” she says, adding that it’s even more difficult to get an in-person meeting to pitch an idea. And, of course, a developed pilot is no guarantee of success. Failure always looms in a town where the oft-cited statistic is that 80% of all new series don’t make it. Bright puts it simply: ‘We felt [these “Once you make a pilot, your fate is in the pilot’s hands – and the hands two shows] were of the testing groups they bring in to tell you what you did wrong.” the best ... we But even a failure can someday had and we deturn into a success in TV land. Enter the “broken pilot,” a common occurcided to roll the rence, according to insiders. This is a dice on them.’ pilot that is developed but then dropped before a series deal is inked. If the idea is still seen as viable, generally the production company that owns the pilot shops it from network to network, sometimes for years, looking for an exec who will commit to it as a series. Bright reveals, “Almost every project goes to every network.” With more competition, a producer’s chances increase, he adds. Herzog picked up the new show Monk after it originated as a pilot for ABC and The Dead Zone after it was rejected by UPN. Admitting that there’s no magic and more than a little bit of luck to selecting shows to air, Herzog says, “We felt [these two new shows] were the best shows we had and we decided to roll the dice on them, quite frankly.” The roll paid off. Both shows received stellar ratings. Herzog says he experiences “love at first sight” all the time as he reads scripts for new shows. When a script for a show called Malcolm in the Middle was handed to him while Herzog was president of Fox Television, he so loved what he read 8

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that he told the producer, “Make the pilot exactly as it’s written.” The show, in its fourth season, is now thriving, with strong ratings and Emmy wins to boot. TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Even if a show’s pilot is picked up for a series, producers still must wait with bated breath to hear which time slot they’ll score. Presidents of networks and their teams have the thorny task of slating a season’s worth of shows, a puzzle Herzog compares to solving a Rubik’s cube, explaining that “one move ultimately affects another move, [causing] a sort of domino effect.” These kinds of decisions can take days to make, and meetings can drive execs a little crazy, he reports. As frustration mounts, he’s witnessed people literally rip to shreds the schedule-in-process. When arguments arise, as they’re sure to, and when making final decisions, Herzog jokes, “I play the role of the benevolent dictator.” As countless men and women in suits stir the pot, as pitches fly or flop, and as decisions are painfully mulled, ironically what really matters – and what can ultimately make a new show this fall succeed or fail – is the viewer. A whole slate of new and returning shows awaits, and each is at the mercy of the unstoppable click of the remote control. n

Rating the Season The Nielsens count – in more ways than one They’re household names: the Partridge family, the Bradys, the Bunkers, the Cosbys, the Simpsons and the Osbournes. But there’s one family name that trumps them all: the Nielsens. It’s no cliché that “people live and die by the ratings,” says David Woolfson ’71, MSSp ’72, a 23-year veteran of Nielsen Media Research, the leading provider of TV-audience measurement. Woolfson is currently senior vice president of global research at Turner Broadcasting System International. Ratings are not only used by programming executives to determine the fate of TV shows, but they also come into play regarding all manner of contract negotiations. Actors, writers, producers, “everybody in the mix” can use big ratings to advance their careers and salaries, says Douglas Holloway ’76, president of network distribution and affiliate relations for the USA Network. “Networks, individual shows and executives are measured and evaluated” according to the Nielsen numbers they bring in, Holloway adds. Broadcasters also use ratings to negotiate pricing with advertisers, and shows use big ratings for promotional purposes in trade publications like Variety, Woolfson notes. The Nielsen company calculates its ratings numbers using a random sample of 5,000 households. But who are these famous ‘Nielsen families’? Because the sample is random, any “family” (i.e., all individuals at a single address) can be chosen. What about families that don’t watch a lot of TV? Nielsen needs these families, too, Woolfson reports, in order to maintain the sample’s integrity. Families that make a request to become a Nielsen family, however, must be denied. The families’ viewing is monitored by “The People Meter,” which is hooked di-

David Woolfson ‘71, ‘72 MSSp, worked for Nielsen Media Research for over two decades.

rectly into every tuning device (e.g., television, satellite dish, TiVo) in the home. The meter “measures everything that you could possibly receive on your TV set,” says Woolfson. It records whether the TV is on or off, and if on, which channel is being watched and by whom. (When an individual is viewing, he or she must first press an ‘identity’ button on a remote or on the TV set’s meter that links his or her identity – for example, a 28year-old white male – to the show being watched. There is even a ‘Guest’ button for visitors.) EVERYTHING’S RELATIVE Ratings don’t always indicate success or failure. Some shows build their audience, and thus their ratings, over time, such as All in the Family (created by Norman Lear ’44) famously did through the 1970s, Woolfson says. Other shows may premiere to big numbers but fall

flat later on. And even though ratings can track a show’s growth or decline over time, this is not entirely reliable because 50 percent of the Nielsen sample is replaced every year. With a 100% turnover rate every two years, the audience sample is always changing, sometimes meaning evaluating the life of a show can be a guessing game. Currently, broadcast networks consider an “eight” rating to be average. This eight percent represents the number of viewers in a particular “universe.” The universe can mean the United States’ 260 million total people, total households, or any single demographic. “Eight is average, but it’s all relative,” Woolfson notes. For example, cable broadcasters and networks expect different numbers. The USA Network’s new Dead Zone, based on the Stephen King novel, averaged a 3.5 rating (4.8 million viewers) in cable homes during its first five weeks this past summer, according to Variety. For basic cable, such a rating actually made history because it was so high. USA’s Monk, which also earned big numbers, is so popular that ABC acquired the show, airing each episode the week following its original USA airdate – “something that’s never been done before,” said Holloway. But there’s more to consider. Advertisers like to know who’s watching. The 18- to 49-year-old adult demographic is considered the most prized, due to the buying power of this group. Other demographics might be more relevant to certain advertisers. For example, a toy maker wants to know what younger viewers are watching. In the end, Woolfson points out that ratings don’t signify that an audience likes a particular show, just that the audience is tuning in. So, pardon the pun, but perhaps the Nielsen families’ reach is relative.

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s h o r t f i c t i o n ~ An original short story published here for the first time ~

APrayer for

Lawrence Welk

By Rémy Rougeau

he one claim to fame Gertie Pfiffig could make was that she shook the hand of Lawrence Welk’s cousin. She had an autograph to prove it: Aloysius Klein, blacksmith, August 16, 1959. Back in those days, people still knew who Lawrence Welk was. Reruns of his Champagne Musical Hour were seen on television into the ’70s, and every time Gertie watched she felt affirmed and beautiful. Aloysius was her secret. Sometimes she whistled “Hot Diggity Dog Diggity” after a program had ended. In a large and empty house, Gertie spent her days in retirement. She had outlived three brothers and two sisters, none of whom married. She was left with no in-laws, nephews or nieces. And because she and her siblings had never quit their parental household, each of the bedrooms was preserved as a shrine, kept the way it was on the day of that sibling’s funeral. The same was true of the bedroom of her parents. That dusty place on the main floor was a room she rarely entered. Upstairs, Mildred’s and Dorothy’s bedrooms, side by side, took the morning sun. Arlan and Woody had shared a room,

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and their beds were made up as if waiting, should they return. Chester had slept in a room off the kitchen, and although he was long gone, Gertie closed the room so that she had to laboriously climb the stairs each night and sleep in her own little room at the back of the house. She did not deny they were dead. Gertie was under no illusions about their ever returning to make life cozy and joyous. Still, she found comfort seeing the rooms just as her siblings had kept them: Chester’s overalls on the peg at the door, Mildred’s knitting basket near the window, Dorothy’s books on her desk, Arlan’s and Woody’s slippers by their beds. All of them, before they died, had respected the empty room of their parents, and the few times Gertie entered there, she saw Father’s spectacles on the night stand and Mother’s

Illustration by Hadley Hooper

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a prayer for lawrence welk

Mildred, the oldest in the family, never went anywhere. She stayed home to run a dress shop on Main Street. Out-of-date clothing was sold there. Occasionally, she did brisk business with collectors who discovered her ancient things and spread the word. Mildred was none the wiser. A living antique, she wore the merchandise. Her white summer gloves were now found on the sideboard near the front door, flattened and desiccated. Once, Mildred wrote a letter to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., at the time of the march to Montgomery in 1965. His reply rested underneath those gloves, almost as if received in the morning’s mail. Chester’s boots were stationed at the back door. He had been dead for twenty years, but Gertie loved to see them there. He worked as a farm laborer bringing earthy smells into the household. Until Zikmund’s Dairy went out of business, he milked Holsteins. After that, the local feed lot employed him. Chester worked hard all his life, but vacationed in Nashville for a week every winter. A framed photograph on the wall showed him with Johnny Cash, signed and dated by the legend himself. But Gertie had stumbled into no one famous. Because she cleaned other women’s houses when she was young, and sewed clothes for a living, little time was left for travel. She had a hankering to meet Loretta Young, but the idea of traveling to Hollywood did not appeal; she did not like reports Dorothy brought back about uncomfortable tour buses. One trip she did make was to Strasburg, North Dakota, to see the birthplace of Lawrence Welk. Gertie was not alone in liking him. Every Saturday evening, her entire family sat around the television set watching about the author the darling Lennon Sisters—Peggy, Janet, Dianne and Kathy—sing Rémy Rougeau, a 1998 graduate of Emerson’s M.F.A. program in creative their lovely tunes. In those days, Big writing, published his first novel, All We Know of Heaven (Houghton MifTiny Little played the piano, the flin), in 2001. The work was selected by the Los Angeles Times for its list Champagne Lady Alice Lon danced of Best Books of 2001, and a Toronto Star reviewer declared the book and sang, and Aladdin gave dra“one of the best reads of 2001.” “All We Know of Heaven speaks with matic recitations. Tears came to gentle lyricism of the search for holiness,” wrote the Philadelphia InquirGertie’s eyes whenever the violinist, er. The book had its beginning as an Emerson thesis. Dick Kessner, played with his velRougeau has been profiled in the New York Times, and he has just comvety tone. She loved Welk: he was pleted a new novel about the life of a French-Canadian family living in the responsible for that sumptuous United States, with an expected 2003 publication date. spread of Saturday night culture. So His short stories have appeared in Beacon Street Review, North Dakota when she expressed an interest in Quarterly, The New Quarterly and The Atlantic Monthly. Two of his stojoining Mrs. Lingenfelser and Mrs. ries were short-listed for Best American Short Stories of 2001. Schreifels on a day trip to Strasburg, her family completely understood. Secretly, Gertie was hoping to teeth in a glass. The teeth were without water, yet the room seemed inhabited somehow. Gertie’s days were spent running into items from the past. A business card poked from her Bible like a yellow ear and read “Pfiffig & Pfiffig Pfaff Repair.” Arlan and Woody marketed and repaired Pfaff sewing machines. Back then, they covered hundreds of miles. Sometimes separately, sometimes together, they traveled to distant towns by rail and did a fine business. Once, they returned home from Fort Dodge, Iowa, to report that they had not only seen, but heard and shaken the hand of Vice-President John N. Garner. His fame rubbed off: the Pfiffig brothers made the front page of their North Dakota hometown Gillville Gazette with the headline, “Garner & Pfiffigs Shake.” On a window sill sat a bowl of red dirt from El Santuario de Chimayo, collected on Dorothy’s trip to New Mexico. The dirt was supposedly miraculous. During her years as a schoolteacher, Dorothy used her summer vacations traveling. She visited all fifty states of the Union. While in New Mexico, at the shrine of Chimayo, a woman on her tour bus was cured. The place, Dorothy reported, “is the Waterless Lourdes, and dirt from the pozito when eaten has curative powers.” Indeed, the woman had traveled with her crutches all the way from Chicago, but when she mixed the dirt with soda water and drank it, she walked unassisted through the church, knelt at the communion rail without pain, and walked back to the bus. Dorothy shook the woman’s hand and asked her to autograph the back of a holy card.

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Secretly, Gertie was hoping to meet Welk himself. And however unlikely it was that Welk would be in his hometown while she was there,

meet Welk himself. And however unlikely it was that Welk would be in his hope was hope. hometown while she was there, hope was hope. Reason did not enter into it. She simply could not stop from wishing. Mrs. Lingenfelser was behind the wheel that day. She held pin curls in place with a print scarf. Horn-rimmed glasses seemed to anchor the scarf. “Gertie,” she said, “why is it that no one in your family is married? I find that a bit odd. And people in Gillville wonder, you know. Mind, I’m not prying.” She looked at Gertie through the rearview mirror. “Oh, I don’t know, Mrs. Lingenfelser,” she said. “Our family is close. Why should any of us want to marry and move away?” “Because it’s natural,” Mrs. Schreifels chimed in. She was the widow who did the housekeeping for the parish priest. Her gray hair was in a net, on top of which was perched a straw hat to keep her skin free of age spots. “Your parents should have given you a push.” Gertie smiled and rolled her eyes. “My parents loved us all so much, they didn’t want us to leave. Besides, we’re comfortable in our way.” Mrs. Lingenfelser’s head scarf fluttered near the open window. “We’re not condemning, mind,” she said. “Other people’s affairs are their business. But I’ve never had the courage to ask Mildred or Dorothy about it, and being you’re the youngest, I thought I’d ask.” Mrs. Schreifels chimed in again. “They should have given you a push,” she said, “a push toward the door.” Gertie looked through her window at passing haystacks, still bright green after the cutting. “I always thought,” she said, “people should be as they wish. Besides, my parents weren’t the forcing kind.” AFTER HOURS OF DRIVING, Strasburg came into view. A

church spire seemed to shepherd white houses together against a vast open prairie. When they drove into the town, Mrs. Lingenfelser started looking for a gas pump. On Main Street, she found a Texaco situated on a corner. The station attendant appeared and filled the tank of the Studebaker. When finished, he checked the air in the tires and washed all the windows without having to be asked. Mrs. Lingenfelser handed him money. “The Welk home,” she said. “Where abouts is it?” Before he could answer, Mrs. Schreifels chimed in. “Where are the signs?” she asked. “Don’t you want tourists?”

He gave directions, and while he was doing so, Gertie looked about at the rich soil from which a television personality had blossomed. “Lawrence Welk saw all this,” she whispered to herself in amazement. Although the town looked similar to Gillville, with the very same Texaco gas station and a Red Owl grocery across the street, the ambiance was unique and somehow exotic. She could feel its distinctiveness: Lawrence Welk was stamped everywhere. Before heading out to the Welk farm, the ladies drove down the block and made a quick visit inside the Catholic church, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Gertie had to pin a Kleenex to her hair since she was not wearing a scarf or hat. Each of them dipped a finger in the holy water font, curtsied toward the sanctuary, and knelt for a rapid prayer. They whispered. Gertie was thankful for a safe journey, and asked God to please, please, pretty please let her see Lawrence Welk. While the other ladies mumbled Hail Marys, Gertie used their same rapid and whispered tone to present arguments. “Everyone in my family has had their brush with fame except me,” she explained to the tabernacle. “Why can’t I meet someone famous? Just this once? What would it hurt?” She had been afraid to make inquiries at the gas station as to whether or not Welk was home. “I know he doesn’t live in Strasburg anymore,” she whispered in her prayer, “but the man must come home to visit relatives now and again.” Back in the car, the ladies took a deep breath of fresh air and headed south. None of them spoke. They were too close to their destination to trouble with words. On either side of the dirt road, a prairie stretched out flat and treeless. If Gertie had been set down blindfolded, she would have been convinced she was but two miles outside of Gillville. But she tried to see something special in the pastures. “That fence post,” she said to herself, “could have been set in by Welk.” The farm was like any other: buildings gathered around a transformer post, the electric line elevated by poles across miles of prairie. The yard was nearly treeless. A red barn seemed to house nothing but swallows. A white machine shed was padlocked. The one-story clapboard house appeared too small for a family of any size. Gertie grabbed her camera and the ladies got out of the car. Someone was pounding a hammer in a small blacksmith forge. Before they could reach the forge, a woman ran from the house to intercept them. She gesticulated in an efFA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

a prayer for lawrence welk

fusive but friendly manner. A clean cotton dress hung from her shoulders almost as if she were nothing more than a coat hanger. “Hello. I’m Agatha Goetz,” she said. “Welcome to the birthplace of North Dakota’s most famous citizen. Is this your first visit?” After the ladies assured her that they had never seen the place before, she herded them up to the house. Once inside, they received a detailed tour of every item on hand, from the reed organ in the corner and an accordion on the kitchen table, to flatware and even kitchen towels. “My mother had saucers with that pattern,” Mrs. Lingenfelser announced. “And I’ve been looking all over for a roaster pan like that one over there. Any chance you’d sell it?” “Oh no,” Agatha Goetz answered. “That’s an historic item. You see, these things belong to the Welk family. They still own the place. We’re working to get the government to declare the whole farm a national historic site. We may have to wait until Mr. Welk passes on, but the idea is to keep everything intact, you understand. We can’t be selling things.” Mrs. Schreifels wanted to know if Mrs. Welk made Krautstrudels and whether or not she used pepper & parsley in them. Agatha Goetz blinked several times. “You mean the mother, or the wife, of Lawrence Welk?” “Whoever does the cooking,” Mrs. Schreifels answered, and Mrs. Lingenfelser cut in “because,” she explained, “the Welks probably live in Hollywood now, and servants do all the cooking. Besides,” she added, “you’re the only one who uses pepper and parsley in your Krautstrudels and it doesn’t add.” “What do you mean, it doesn’t add?” The two ladies began to argue about strudel, and when that subject came to a deadlock, they moved on to soup. Meanwhile, Gertie wandered off. Since their guide had said nothing about Lawrence Welk being in Hollywood, and because she had seen enough of the house to know he was not in there, she went to the yard. Pounding still came from inside the forge, a rigorous ping of metal that reminded her of Verdi’s “Anvil Song” from Il trovatore, a musical piece she once heard Welk do on the accordion, with backup from his famous Champagne Music Makers. She crept over sparse dandelion-choked lawn, all the while humming the tune. Halfway to the forge, a change in the breeze caught a bread-like smell of live coals mixed with acrid hot iron. She looked inside the door. 14

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“Oh, I knew it,” Gertie said, shaking her camera. “I knew you’d be here.” She spoke to a round-faced man in a pair of overalls. “Would you mind if I took your picture?” He stopped pounding and smiled just as the bulb flashed. Light caught a blue shine in his oiled hair, which was parted and slicked back from a widow’s peak, something like Bela Lugosi’s Count Dracula. Big broad teeth were framed by a fleshy nose, dimpled cheeks and a square chin. His bright eyes were unmistakable. “Thank you, oh, thank you,” Gertie said. She tried to keep herself from gushing while she looked in her purse for paper and pen. She had to have an autograph. An autograph was like currency, she thought, because she could show her siblings that she met Welk. “Would you do me the honor of signing this?” she asked, handing over a fresh Kleenex and a ballpoint pen. He signed. Like a pro, he wrote his name and something beneath it without tearing the Kleenex. He spoke when he handed it back. “I guess people, they don’t see too many blacksmiths around no more,” he said. “I’m sort of a museum piece, I guess. What they call a dangered species. But it does me honor, ma’am.” When Gertie looked at the signature, her face fell. And then her ears slowly flushed to the vivid color of cooked-lobster. Not wanting to look stupid, she tried to mask her disappointment. “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know when’s the last time I saw someone pounding on steel.” “Iron,” he corrected. Gertie steadied herself. She felt on the verge of tears. “I know it sounds funny,” she said, “but you look like . . .” “Like Lawrence Welk,” he blurted. “I know. Some people, they say that. I suppose it’s because our mothers, they were sisters. And our fathers, they were first cousins. So Lawrence and me is practically brothers. But I’m not like him. Not at all. I don’t know nothing about music.” Gertie held the Kleenex to her nose but then thought the better of it. “Then, you know Lawrence Welk?” “Oh yes. Me and him, we grew up together. My father, he ran the general store in Strasburg and we was always out here for one thing or another, helping with harvest and all like that. Those were the days.” A good deal of chatter became audible from outside the forge. Across the lawn, Mrs. Lingenfelser and Mrs. Schreifels were evidently ushering Agatha Goetz to the car.

“Oh, I knew it,”

Gertie said, shaking her camera. “I knew you’d be here.” She spoke to a round-faced man in a pair of overalls.

“We have those watermelon pickles in the trunk, in our picnic basket,” Mrs. Lingenfelser was saying in a voice that pierced the afternoon, “and you take a piece of chicken and some salad. You have to eat up, girl, or you’ll blow away.” Mrs. Schreifels picked up from there. “If you have no appetite for her pickles, then try my oatmeal bread. I win blue ribbons with it all the time. Where’s Gertie? Gertie!” she yelled. “Gertie, where are you?” The trunk of the Studebaker squeaked open while Mrs. Lingenfelser spoke. “Here’s the pickles,” she said, “and we’ll make up a little lunch just for you. We’d love to eat here, but we’ll stick to our schedule. We plan to have our picnic at the Whitestone Battlefield Historic Site.” “That is, if we can find Gertie,” Mrs. Schreifels added. “We might have to leave her behind.” Hearing all this from the forge, Gertie looked again at Lawrence Welk’s cousin. She had never seen such beautiful eyes. Not a word was exchanged while they gazed at each other—not wanting to give themselves away—and suddenly, in a fresh impulse of the moment, as though someone had flipped a switch, they beamed. His smile, she thought, was even better than Welk’s. “Gosh,” he said, lowering his eyes after a second. “I forget myself. I’m a married man.” As he spoke, a rash grew up the side of his neck. “At home, there’s four halfgrown children with the Mrs. I just come over today to fix this here part from my windrow and say hello to Agatha out there. Agatha, she’s my niece. I didn’t mean you no harm, ma’am, by looking at you.” Mrs. Lingenfelser honked the horn of the Studebaker while Mrs. Schreifels yelled Gertie’s name. The man looked up again. “They want you,” he said. “Better go on before they drive off and leave.” “I guess,” Gertie said. “Thank you for the autograph.” Slowly, she backed away until she ran up against the wall. “I shall treasure it,” she said, still facing him. Gertie shuffled sideways until she stood within the frame of the doorway. “Bye,” she said. “Bye,” he said, smiling again. She reluctantly turned away. A wide stretch of lawn stood before her now, with Mrs. Schreifels at the end of it waving a hand. Next to her, Agatha Goetz held a jar of pickles that she didn’t know what to do with, and lunch wrapped in a wad of

paper napkins. The Studebaker horn honked. All these things Gertie saw and heard, but they did not seem real. Because her heart pitched. Within a second—a hiccup of a pulse—sounds became thin, and the world was nothing more than paper. She felt free to step out and away. The yard came at her from another angle, as though she observed from neither inside nor outside her body. In that same instant, she decided to stay. Because of a smile, she decided to stay. Her breath came back in a gulp. A feeling of euphoria washed over her as she got going again, walking across the lawn. YEARS AFTERWARD, the Kleenex with the autograph on

it was tucked in the Webster’s Dictionary in Gertie’s room. None of her siblings ever saw this souvenir. And until each of them died, Mildred, Arlan, Woody, Dorothy and Chester urged Gertie to take that trip to Hollywood to see Loretta Young. But Gertie was no longer interested. She explained that if she really wanted an autograph, she could get a signed black & white through the fan club. Old rumors in Gillville had it that Gertie’s parents made each of the children swear never to marry, or they would be cut out of the will. Mrs. Lingenfelser asked Gertie if this was true. “My mother and father?” Gertie asked. “Forcing us to stay home? Why no. My parents weren’t the forcing kind.” But because Mrs. Lingenfelser asked about it more than once, as if the life of the unmarried was like running on empty or traveling down a dead-end road, Gertie had to think carefully about who her allies had been. Heart, curiosity, will: had her parents encouraged her in these things? No. Not really. They loved her, she knew, but never encouraged independence, and certainly never told her she was pretty. Neither had her brothers or sisters. Neither had anyone in Gillville. That was not their way. For goodness sake, they accepted her as one of their own. They did not think of themselves as independent or particularly beautiful. That was what the Lawrence Welk show was for. Television provided Gillville with all the heart, curiosity, will and beauty it needed. “And thank goodness I have no cable,” Gertie said to herself. “No cable, no reruns,” because she knew she held no candle to Norma Zimmer or the Lennon Sisters. n FA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

Where have all the

speeches

gone? nearly half of college-age students and twenty-somethings reported that they often used latenight talk and comedy shows as a source of political news, according to a study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. More than a quarter of all adults admitted to the same. Many commentators and social critics have sounded an alarm concerning the poor quality of civic discourse. When Emerson College was founded in the late 19th century, speechmaking and debate were common forms of education, deliberation and entertainment. Thousands of citizens regularly turned out to hear speakers such as William Jennings Bryan and Russell Conwell. The atmosphere was communal and stimulating and the audience absorbed information firsthand. Today, oral communication is rarely experienced live; rather, it is most often electronically mediated by means of television, the Internet and other new media forms. As a

IN THE LAST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION,

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A look back at the golden age of oratory and forward to todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s revival of live platform arts By John Anderson

BRIAN SMITH

performance studies scholar, I am fascinated by the effect these changes in the technology of the word have on culture and even on our consciousness. Historically, a series of revolutions have taken place in human communication. Media theorist Walter J. Ong observes: first, there was the “primary orality” of preliterate cultures, followed by literacy and printed matter, and today there is “secondary orality,” or “electronic orality.” Each new technology builds upon its predecessor and transforms the way humans think, giving way to new modes of social interaction. For example, electronic media, while allowing us to communicate across great distances, isolate us physically from our immediate communities. Electronic orality triggers “the rise of the image, the fall of the word,” as Mitchell Stephens of New York University titled his 1998 book. Stephens focuses on the loss of “our beloved books,” but what about the loss of the spoken word? While electronic orality presents opportunities for new kinds of eloquence to evolve, it has undoubtedly contributed to the decay of traditional oratory. But looking at the history of American oral culture reveals some reassuring continuities. WHAT’S A CHAUTAUQUA?

BREATHING LIFE INTO HISTORY. John Anderson, associate professor of communication at Emerson College, portrays 19th-century author Henry James.

Two movements provided a forum for oratory in 19th-century America: the lyceum and the chautauqua. The lyceum movement grew from modest beginnings in Millbury, Mass., in 1826 into an extensive network of lecture circuits, the most famous of which was the Boston-based Redpath Lyceum Bureau. The chautauqua movement, originating in western New York State in 1874, rapidly evolved from secular tent meetings into a widespread social movement of edifying lectures, performances and study groups throughout the nation. It was the continuing adult education of its day, reaching thousands of small communities by way of traveling tent (or circuit) chautauquas. In his book The Chautauqua Movement, historian Joseph E. Gould documents the far-reaching effects of chautauqua: In “many of the 8,000 communities that sponsored circuit Chautauqua, more than half the residents bought season tick-

ets. This meant that ideas presented during Chautauqua Week were argued and discussed in these communities a hundred times in the ensuing year. People went to a Chautauqua to be stimulated. They saw their neighbors there.… Everyone went to Chautauqua.” Both the lyceum and the chautauqua movements resulted in “the establishment of schools of oratory [such as Emerson], in part to serve both ministers and those who lectured on the Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits,” according to A Century of Eloquence: The History of Emerson College, 1880-1980 (1982) by Emerson Associate Professor John Coffee and Richard Wentworth ’79. The original Chautauqua Institution in New York, which is, remarkably, still going strong, led to a series of independFA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

The chautauqua movement peaked in its fiftieth year, reaching almost 30 million people in more than 12,000 towns in 1924. It had grown into a vast enterprise that included lyceum speakers who were managed by booking agencies. In the two years before he became president of Emerson College, Henry Lawrence Southwick, represented by the Dickson Lyceum Bureau, toured his “Lectures and Shakespearean Recitals” on the Chautauqua circuit in Ohio. An editorial from Chautauqua Ideal magazine in the early 1900s asked, “What other man could hold a fickle Chautauqua audience surfeited by three full programs a day, and interest them and thrill them and make them see Caesar slain and To deepen the sense of dialogue in modern, or ‘neo-’, chautauqua, I have exAntony conquering the mob—cerperimented with colleagues in presenting “conversations” between two figtainly no other in America in our ures, inspired in part by Steve Allen’s 1970s public television series Meeting day at least has approached Dean of Minds, which was constructed in a talk show format but featured “guests” Southwick in this marvelous powsuch as Marie Antoinette, Charles Darwin and Socrates. My colleague Lynn er. We were not surprised that the Miller of the University of Texas at Austin performs the writers Edith Wharcultured people appreciated to the ton as well as Gertrude Stein and Katherine Anne Porter. (She presented full the wonderful genius of Dean Wharton at a Southwick Recital at Emerson in 1996.) Since Edith Wharton Southwick, but we were not at all and Henry James were close friends and correspondents, we decided to meld prepared to see the unread multiour presentations at a performance festival in Illinois. The venture was so retude captured and held spellwarding that we have gone on to present this program in Texas, Oklahoma, bound by an interpretation of a Kentucky and recently at the Modern Language Association conference in classic!” New Orleans. As the performance has evolved, we have enjoyed recreating Unfortunately, the high stantheir “literary rough-and-tumbles,” as they called their incisive critiques of dards achieved by presenters such each other’s writing. Since they occasionally hosted one another at their reas Southwick were not maintained spective homes in Lenox, Mass., and Rye, England, the performance takes on by all circuit chautauqua perthe quality of a literary salon in which the audience participates. formers. Over time, the original In the summer of 2000, Dorothy Prince ’70, MA ’79, and I put Zora Neale mix of education and entertainHurston and William Faulkner together on chautauqua platforms in North and ment shifted, and low-brow fare South Carolina. Unlike Wharton and James, however, Hurston and Faulkner such as yodelers and bell ringers never met, although they were almost exact contemporaries and were both predominated. Rhetoric scholars celebrated Southern writers. (Faulkner, however, did write to Eudora Welty in Frederick J. Antczak and Edith the 1940s to congratulate her for having written a story “The Gilded SixSiemers explain that “an oratorical Bits,” which was actually authored by Hurston.) culture that had always ‘balanced The challenge with Hurston and Faulkner became to extrapolate from docuin’ a measure of lighter material mented statements how they might have responded to one another across now tilted dramatically in that dithe barriers of race and gender. By juxtaposing certain of their respective rection,” prompting Sinclair Lewis essays and public statements, we were able to create a semblance of dialogue in his novel Main Street to write between them and to model a kind of civic — and civil — discourse about that circuit chautauqua “seemed issues that are often divisive. Faulkner eloquently eulogizes Mammy Caroline to be a combination of vaudeville Barr, his family’s devoted servant, and Hurston pointedly responds that he performances, YMCA lectures, seems to be describing a “pet Negro,” “someone whom a particular white and graduation exercises of an eloperson wants to have and to do all the things forbidden to other Negroes. cution class.” In 1932, the last tent And mind you, the Negroes have their pet whites.” While acknowledging chautauqua folded, the victim of the racist structure of their society, “Faulkner” and “Hurston” also affirm increasingly insipid programming the real bonds of love and compassion, pity and pride that can unite blacks and competition from new comand whites. —J.A. munication technologies.

ent permanent chautauquas across the country before evolving into the circuit of traveling tent chautauquas. The word became a generic term for any “series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer,” according to Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig couched his work of pop philosophy as a chautauqua in this generic sense.

Chautauqua times two

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John Anderson as writer William Faulkner and Dorothy Prince ’70, MA ’79, as writer Zora Neale Hurston at a chautauqua in Greenville, South Carolina.

TAKING IT ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Today, the chautauqua concept has re-emerged in a “neo-chautauqua” movement, a contemporary version in which scholars impersonate great speakers of the past through “living history” performances. While adopting some of the interactive characteristics of secondary (or electronic) orality, the neo-chautauqua movement demonstrates that a residue of primary orality continues to thrive. After the 1974 centennial of the first chautauqua, humanities scholars in North Dakota revived the concept of a traveling tent chautauqua. The National Endowment for the Humanities began to sponsor public humanities programs based on the model, and the neo-chautauqua movement took off. In this revised form, scholars impersonating historical and literary figures not only lecture “in character” but remain so while answering questions from the audience. This playful, participatory element provides a serious forum for public discourse about humanities issues such as ethics, historical and literary interpretation, and social policy. These events usually take place in tents, evoking the atmosphere of the old-time tent chautauquas that some older folks still remember. More importantly, though, contemporary neo-chautauquas provide a communal experience that balances the isolation of electronic orality.

Jim Cooke, MA ’73, as President Calvin Coolidge in Boston’s Theatre District last year.

I became a neo-chautauqua performer in 1994 in Tulsa, Okla., portraying the novelist Henry James. Tulsa had been the host for the five-state Great Plains Chautauqua a few times and launched its own version in 1992. The theme in 1994 was “The Civil War: A Crisis of Conscience.” I applied, auditioned, and was given a grant by the Tulsa Arts and Humanities Council to present Henry James’s noncombatant perspective on the Civil War, along with other scholars who presented Confederate General James Longstreet, Union General William T. Sherman, and writers Harriet Beecher Stowe and Walt Whitman. Although Henry James at first glance seemed an unusual choice to include in a Civil War chautauqua, he raised an important question: the choice not to fight in the Civil War. James’s situation was even more fraught because his younger brother, Wilky, was a Union officer. He fought with the black FA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

Finding Oratory Online 54th Massachusetts regiment and was severely wounded in the attack on Fort Wagner. The purpose of public humanities programs is to foster reflection, discussion, and civic debate about ideas. Neo-chautauqua programs achieve these goals by entertaining while educating. The scholar/performers are chosen for both their performance skills and their ability to do the in-depth research required to answer questions extemporaneously and knowledgeably. In 1995, I returned to Tulsa as William Faulkner and was joined by Emersonian Dorothy Prince ’70, MA ’79, as writer Zora Neale Hurston in a chautauqua on the 1930s. In recent years, I’ve returned as the writers Washington Irving and Robert Frost, and Dorothy has subsequently presented antilynching activist Ida Wells Barnett, poets Phillis Wheatley and Gwendolyn Brooks, and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Neo-chautauquas have sprung up all over the country. The Great Plains Chautauqua covers the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. In the early ’90s, the Rocky Mountain Chautauqua traveled throughout Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. Illinois and Missouri have joined forces to support the Heartland Chautauqua. In the northeast, New Hampshire has sponsored an annual chautauqua since 1996 in Portsmouth and other locales. In summer 2001 I was one of more than 3,000 people in New Hampshire for a Emersonian Henry Lawrence two-week-long exploration of Southwick was renowned for his America’s environmental one-man performances of Shakehistory. spearean and other classics. Following in the lyceum tradition are performers such as Jim Cooke, MA ’73, a former Emerson instructor in theater education who has performed as President Calvin (‘Silent Cal’) Coolidge since 1985. He has been featured at the Coolidge Homestead in Plymouth, Vt., and throughout the country at the Library of Congress, presidential libraries, and museums and historic sites. Although its reach is limited, live oratory still has its appeal. What accounts for this? Scholar Richard Bello, in his study of a Louisiana neo-chautauqua, concluded that “consumers of mass electronic media are having a superficial, non-participative experience of performance . . . so that they desire the more personal experience of performance in a social setting that is truly interactive, non-electronic, and unmediated.” 20

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For information on the original circuit chautauqua and current neo-chautauqua movements, visit the following websites: http://www.ciweb.org/ The website of the Chautauqua Institution of New York State http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/iauhtml/ tccchome.html A digital collection of nearly 8,000 publicity brochures, promotional advertisements and talent circulars for some 4,546 performers who were part of the Chautauqua circuit. These brochures are drawn from the records of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau and are held by the University of Iowa Libraries. http://www.unr.edu/nhc/chautauqua/great_basin_cha utauqua.htm Information on the Great Basin Chautauqua in Nevada http://www.prairie.org/chacha/hartcha.asp Information on the Heartland Chautauqua in Illinois and Missouri http://www.nhhc.org/chautauqua/index.htm #CHT2001 Information on the New Hampshire Humanities Council chautauqua http://members.aol.com/AlphaChautauquan/ scholars.html An alphabetical list of many neo-chautauqua scholars

Neo-chautauquas can’t compete with electronic orality, but they can complement it. Programs in the spirit of neo-chautauquas can stimulate engaging and ongoing public discussion of issues. Such robust civic dialogue is an essential element of participatory democracy. Emerson’s niche as a college of communication and the performing arts responded to a 19th-century demand for oratorical excellence that still exists, although the form and context have changed dramatically with the advent of electronic orality. Expression is necessary to evolution, but expression evolves, too, just as chautauqua has morphed into a revised form in which scholars resurrect the great speakers of the past to generate civic dialogue. n John Anderson is associate professor of communication at Emerson College. A performance studies scholar, he specializes in the history of performance as popular culture and the relation between narrative theory and performance.

THE POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCEOF COMMENCEMENT 2002 the campus on the common was bustling with activity on Monday, May 20, 2002, as students, families, faculty and administrators gathered to celebrate Emerson College’s 122nd Commencement. About 900 baccalaureate and graduate degrees were awarded during back-to-back ceremonies at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston. At the late-morning undergraduate ceremony, the College presented honorary degrees to Commencement Speaker Sherry Lansing, chairman and chief executive officer of Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group, and Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of the Shubert Organization. At the graduate ceremony, which followed in the afternoon, honorary degrees went to Graduate Commencement speaker Ed Eskandarian, chief executive officer of the Arnold Worldwide Partners advertising agency, and Walter V. Robinson, editor of The Boston Globe’s investigative Spotlight Team, which was responsible for the coverage of allegations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. In the remarks she delivered before the conferral of degrees, President Jacqueline Liebergott acknowledged senior accomplishments throughout the year. The president also announced the Senior Class gift, an unprecedented Leadership Scholarship that will be awarded to a first-year student who is dedicated to community service. President Liebergott also spoke to the graduates about their roles in today’s world. Communications and the arts, she said, “take on a new urgency in the post-9/11 era. The need for timely, accurate, responsible and culturally sensitive reporting of news and information has never been greater.” Art and enter-

A newly minted graduate is swept off her feet during a reception on Boston Common following the 122nd Emerson College Commencement.

Salutatorian Elizabeth Blocker delivers her talk.

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tainment, she added, “have the potential to unite people of divergent backgrounds and beliefs by tapping the human emotions and aspirations that all of us share.” Salutatorian Elizabeth Blocker, who graduated from the B.F.A. program in acting, delivered the student address. Class Valedictorian and a student in Communication Sciences and Disorders Heather Fortier was also commended for exemplary scholarship and dedication to helping others. Fortier earned a 3.98 grade point average and served as president of Emerson’s chapter of the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association. In the student address for the graduate ceremony, Meta Wagner, graduating with a master of fine arts degree in writing, spoke of “the joy in figuring out what you want and pursuing that goal.” Wagner, a nontraditional student and mother of a son, changed careers from public relations to writing when she enrolled at Emerson. She’s taught undergraduate writing courses at local colleges and is on her way to working as a columnist. Two Emerson faculty were also honored during the graduate ceremony when they received Professor Emeritus status. They were Professor Joan Brigham, visual and media arts, and Professor Henry Stonie, social sciences. Brigham taught for 31 years and is a renowned environmental artist; Stonie taught for 45 years and is a scholar of the sociology of the family. n 22

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1 New grads outside the Wang Center share the exciting news on their cellular telephones. 2 Sherry Lansing, Commencement speaker and president and chairman of Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group, and Gerald Schoenfeld, honorary degree recipient and chairman of the Shubert Organization, share a moment backstage. 3 Randi Frances Beckman ’02 with her mother, Rachelle Beckman, at pre-Commencement activities on Boston Common.

5 4 The Boston Globeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Walter Robinson receives his honorary degree. 5 Professor Emeritus Henry Stonie (left) passes the baton to Associate Professor John Coffee. 6 President Jacqueline Liebergott (left) with College Trustee Marillyn Zacharis and Board Chair Ted Benard Cutler â&#x20AC;&#x2122;51 in the newly dedicated John Zacharis Room on the second floor of the Walker Building. 7 Twins and graduates Theresa Zeitz (left) and Katherina Zeitz (right) with their mother, Anzelica, who traveled from Germany for the ceremony.

8 Edward Eskandarian, chairman and CEO of the Arnold Worldwide Partners advertising agency, delivered the Graduate Commencement address. He is joined by President Liebergott. 9 A pensive graduate listens to speakers during the ceremony.

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book shelf Works by members of the Emerson community Carol Amato ’63

Flora González Mandri

Backyard Pets: Activities for Exploring Wildlife Close to Home with illustrator Cheryl Kirk Noll (John Wiley, 2002) mato, a nature science educator, language-learning specialist and nature writer, explores questions such as “What do toads like to eat?,” “Why do crickets sing?” and “Which flowers do the birds visit most often?” in her new book for children ages 9 to 12. She covers caterpillars, fireflies, toads, hummingbirds, butterflies, earthworms and other creatures that can be found in one’s very own backyard and offers instructions for fun and simple activities such as how to make a bird feeder from a detergent bottle or milk carton. — rhea becker

In the Vortex of the Cyclone: Selected Poems by Excilia Saldaña with translator Rosamond Rosenmeier, edited by González Mandri (University Press of Florida, 2002) merson writing, literature and publishing Associate Professor González edits this first-ever bilingual anthology of award-winning Afro-Cuban poet Excilia Saldaña. Saldaña, who died in 1999, was also an essayist, translator and professor. In Vortex, González presents an impressive array of shimmering poems and poetic prose: lullabies, an erotic letter, pieces that revel in Afro-Cuban rituals, and reflections on family and a native island: Night floats sleeping on the waters – weary like an innocent bird about which much is ignored that does not die because of its wing. The joyful island watches her. — c.h.

William Donoghue

Enlightenment Fiction in England, France, and America (University Press of Florida, 2002) onoghue, an assistant professor of writing, literature and publishing, has produced a new study, aptly billed as “a book about why we read novels.” He aims to link the current “tenacity of literary realism” to the intense skepticism of the 18th century. Utilizing philosophy, literary theory and an impressive knowledge of the period’s writer-thinkers, Donoghue offers an important – and relevant – look into why readers respond to the novel’s artifice and unpredictability (among other characteristics) during times of doubt and anxiety. His analysis includes new approaches to Samuel Richardson’s novels, insight into the work of philosopher Denis Diderot, and other fresh readings of familiar and salient texts. — christopher hennessy

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Michael Lee, MFA ’94

Paradise Dance (Leapfrog Press, 2002) ith glowing commendations from Norman Mailer, Andre Dubus III (“stunningly crafted”) and James Carroll, Michael Lee’s debut story collection, Paradise Dance, has a lot to live up to. Simply put, it does. Lee spins emotionally rich but authentically rendered stories, set in an old mill town in Massachusetts, about writing teachers, Vietnam vets, baseball fanatic teenagers, and others – most trudging through life uphill. In one story, a son thinks of his father, “Except for me, [he] had buried everyone he loved in his life and still faced the morning like it was a gift.” Lee’s crisp, calm prose packs an eloquent poignancy throughout. — c.h.

Kira Salak ’93

Cornelia Maude Spelman ’68

The Four Corners: One Woman’s Solo Journey: Into the Heart of New Guinea (Basic Books, 2001) he four corners is a riveting chronicle of young Salak’s solitary journey across Papua New Guinea, a trek that is also a journey of personal growth. Her narrative details the physical challenges and dangers she faced, describes her encounters with native tribal peoples and her interaction with “Pastor Carl,” the leader of a guerrilla band fighting the Indonesian takeover of Western New Guinea. Salak’s insight, sharp attention to surroundings and punch-packing prose build her story — a harrowing journey across the jungle island where she confronts her own thirst for risk and exploration. — c.h.

When I Care About Others and When I Feel Scared with illustrator Kathy Parkinson (Albert Whitman & Company, 2002) uthor and social worker Cornelia Spelman has published two more books in her educational “The Way I Feel” series, which are designed to help children (ages 3-6) understand and manage their feelings. Spelman writes with straightforward but comforting language, and each book is full of vibrant illustrations, by Kathy Parkinson, that resemble a child’s watercolors. A helpful section for adults called “Promoting Empathy” appears at the end of When I Care About Others. Spelman’s other books have dealt with life lessons such as dying and divorce. — c.h.

Eric Shapiro ’00

William G. Tapply

Short of a Picnic (Be-Mused Publications, 2002) wo years out of college and Eric Shapiro has published his first book, Short of a Picnic, a collection of 12 short stories. Each tale provides an intimate look into the lives of people with mental disorders: the schizophrenia of an urban lost soul, the drug addiction of two twenty-somethings whose friend has overdosed, an obsessive-compulsive who brushes his teeth until they bleed, and an anorexic woman whose own birthday cake stirs her revulsion. Thankfully, Shapiro’s characters are more than just their disorders as he carefully renders authentic, subtly layered individuals. At turns thoughtful and electrified, his prose evokes sympathy without milking the disorders for melodrama. — c.h.

First Light: The First Ever Brady Coyne/ J.W. Jackson Mystery with Philip Craig (Scribner, 2001) rolific author Tapply collaborates with fellow mystery writer Craig to create a book in which alternating chapters center on their respective crime-fighting characters, Boston lawyer Brady Coyne and former cop J.W. Jackson. Martha’s Vineyard at off-season is the backdrop for a story involving the search for two missing women. Tapply, an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing, has co-written a book filled with “lively banter and a narrative brimming with mischief [which] make this maiden voyage entertaining from start to stop,” writes Kirkus Reviews. — r.b.

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alumni digest Alumni Weekend 2002 Features Comedy Celebration, Awards and More

ith a theme of “Please Come to Boston in the Springtime,” the College’s Alumni Weekend 2002, held June 7-9, featured a comedy extravaganza and celebrations of the 100th anniversaries of Kappa Gamma Chi and Phi Alpha Tau, as well as many other activities. Some highlights: The comedy show marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Emerson Comedy Workshop. Eddie Brill ’80, Leslie (Rickert) Pennick ’80 and Jack Powers-Young ’80 were on hand to take part in the performance. The 2002 Alumni Awards went to Susan Batson, Neil Davin, Morton (Dean) Dubitsky, Ira Goldstone, Jan Jacobs Greenhawt and Tobie Stein. A room in the Walker Building was dedicated to the late Professor Haig der Marderosian, with about 50 people in attendance. The 2002 Alumni Achievement Awards went to (from left): Neil Davin ’72, Tobie Stein ’79, Ira Goldstone ’71, Susan Batson ’64, Morton (Dean) Dubitsky ’57; not pictured: Jan Jacobs Greenhawt ’69.

Members of the Class of 1952 gather at President Liebergott’s luncheon. They are (from left, standing) Gordon Benett ’52 and Dorothy Marge; (from left, sitting) Agnes Doody ’52, Gerry McCarthy ’52, Nanette Clark ’50, Michael Marge ’52 and Anne McCarthy.

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Alums gather at the Hampshire House restaurant for a reunion lunch. They are (from left) Susan Tribe ’67, Gina Di Bona ’67, Vin Di Bona ’66, Lance Tribe ’67, Stephen Smoller ’67 and John Rigrod ’66.

Alumni weekend 2002 President Jacqueline Liebergott (center) joins Kelly Blakeslee ’73 and former faculty member Leslie McAllister ’52 at the Faculty/Alumni Brunch.

Members of the Class of 1992 and friends enjoy lunch at a Boston restaurant. They are: Liz Hollendoner ’92, Bonnie Buckley ’92, Anne-Marie Boucher ’92, Lisa Davis ’88, Wiesia Sadowski ’93 and Scott Laliberte ’92.

Attending the President’s Luncheon are (from left) Marguerite Broman Morgan ’37, Virginia Goulding ’41 and Phyllis Mayer ’37. Kappa Gamma Chi celebrated 100 years of sisterhood with a Kappa tea on Saturday afternoon.

Taking in a Red Sox game before going to a party at Crossroads are (from left) Wayne Laribee ’77, Rob Rudnick ’77, Mark Stewart ’77 and Professor Walter Littlefield. Kappas together: April Milek ’97, Amy Labonte-Antunovic ’96 and Stephanie Baxendale ’96.

Enjoying the Faculty/Alumni Brunch are Professor Philip Amato ’60, MA ’61, and Myra Gutin ’70, MA ’71.

Generations of Phi Alpha Tau fraternity members celebrated 100 years of brotherhood. A group of revelers, including a pint-sized companion, were on hand at festivities held at the Museum of Fine Arts. FA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

alumni digest

A Scholar of Comedy They include: Mike Bent ’85, Anthony comedy force on campus and, later, in at a student award ceremony held Clarke ’86, David Cross, Lisa RosenNew York, before succumbing to canduring Commencement Weekend thal Gregorian ’84, MA ’86, Howard cer in 1995. His close friends, former 2002, Emerson President Jacqueline Horvath ’85, Gerry Izzo ’82, Liebergott congratulated John Ring, Laura graduating senior Joe RanKightlinger ’86 and Anne dazzo as the recipient of the Kenny ’85. first-ever Joe Murphy ComeThose interested in infordy Award. The award was a mation about how to apply, dream come true for family may contact Mike Bent, lecand close friends of the late turer in Emerson’s Writing, Joe Murphy ’85 who sought Literature and Publishing to commemorate Joe’s exDepartment. For those who ceptional life through the want to contribute, please creation of the $5,000 comcontact Anne Kenny at edy award that will be preFUNNY MAN. Mike Bent ’85 (left) and Anne Kenny ’85 flank amkenny@aol.com. sented each year to a graduJoe Randazzo ’02, winner of the first Joe Murphy Comedy Kenny and Kightlinger ating student who excels in Award, which will be presented each year to a graduating stuare making plans to hold a comedy. dent who excels in the field of comedy. comedy benefit performJoe Murphy was a foundance in Los Angeles next spring with members of This is Pathetic, created ing member of the campus-based This proceeds earmarked for the comedy the scholarship and contributed their is Pathetic comedy troupe back in award fund. money, time and talent to the project. 1981. He was known as a tremendous

Left: Carla Lewis ’86 and her fiance James Fleming II, and Bart Phillips ’86 in New York.

New York EVVYS At Penang, on New York City’s Upper West Side, New York-area alumni held a post-EVVY party the day after the May 2002 event in Boston. The EVVY Awards tape was played for the crowd.

Above: Tony Greenberg ’98 and wife Anne attend the EVVY event in Manhattan. Above: Doug Holloway ’76, Linda Coombs ’77, Robin Taylor ’75, the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook ’76, C. Jill Brooker ’78 and Michelle Richardson ’77 in New York.

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A H A N A GAT H E R I N G Doug Holloway ’76, College trustee and past president of EBONI, hosted a gathering of New York City-area AHANA (African, Hispanic, Asian and Native American) alumni last spring at the City Athletic Club in Manhattan, where he announced the establishment of a new scholarship fund in honor of playwright and educator Mary Burrill, Class of 1904, the earliest known Emerson graduate of color. The Mary Burrill Scholarship Fund is receiving donations to augment Holloway’s leadership gift and to endow a permanent fund to help students of color attend Emerson. President Jacqueline Liebergott and Stuart Sigman, Dean of the School of Communication, spoke at the reception, affirming Emerson’s commitment to an inclusive campus and outlining the College’s new Initiative for Diversity in the Communication Industries.

alumni digest

Mark your Calendar ALUMNI WEEKEND

May 30, 31, June 1, 2003 class reunions for the classes of: ’38, ‘43, ’48, ’53, ’58, ’63, ’68, ’73, ’78, ’83, ’88,’93 and ’98. we will also be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Emerson Majestic Theatre and the 50th anniversary of the Robbins Speech and Hearing Clinic. Watch for details. Call the Alumni Relations office at 800-255-4259 or 617-824-8535. BOSTON

Wednesday, Nov. 6 “an evening with dulcia.” Meet Dulcia Meijers, director of Emerson’s Castle Well, the Netherlands. At the Emerson campus. Lecture and reception. CHICAGO

Thursday, Nov. 7 meet fellow emersonians at the Adobe Grill, followed by a talk by Dean Stuart Sigman and a Second City show. WASHINGTON, D.C.

Saturday, Nov. 16 come to the ebony reception at Henley’s restaurant, hosted by Debra Jervay-Pendergrass ’73.

Class Giving Record alumni/ae reunion-ers raised more than $80,000 this year to benefit current and future Emerson students. More than 400 graduates from class years ending in 2 and 7, along with members of Phi Alpha Tau and Kappa Gamma Chi, contributed toward scholarships, facilities and the Annual Fund. The classes of 1967, 1972, and 1997 focused their fundraising efforts on scholarships for students who will enter Emerson College in 2003. The Class of 1982 asked classmates to support a scholarship in memory of Rena Shapiro ’81. The Class of 1957, which began raising money after the Reunion, is also contributing toward a scholarship. The 50th Reunion Class (1952) is asking classmates to donate toward cosponsorship of the reopening of the Emerson Majestic Theatre, which is currently undergoing restoration in preparation for its centennial celebration in 2003. The Class of 1977 has set a $25,000 goal to name a room in honor of their class advisor, Professor Walter Littlefield. Both classes are still

accepting contributions. Both the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity and the Kappa Gamma Chi sorority celebrated their 100th anniversaries with special fundraising appeals. The Tau brothers have contributed more than $5,300 toward a satellite downlink for student media, and the Kappa sisters have raised $4,455 for a scholarship for a young woman who embodies the Kappa ideals. Each year, the College recognizes those reunion classes that raise the largest amount of money and those with the highest percentage of classmates making gifts. The Class of 1972 took top honors in the dollars raised category by donating more than $20,000. The Class of 1967 placed second with nearly $16,000, and the Class of 1977 has contributed more than $12,000. In the highest percentage of support category, the Class of 1937 placed first with 50% of its classmates participating; the Class of 1952 came in second with nearly 40%, and the Class of 1947 placed third with almost 30% of classmates contributing funds.

IN MEMORIAM 1925 SALLY VERA (COULTER) MILLS of Columbia, Md. 1926 RUTH (DAY) SAWYER of Derry, N.H. 1930 MARJORIE THAXTER (GOULD) GRAFF of Windsor, Conn. 1939 ALBERT E. WILMARTH of Plainville, Mass. 1949 ELIZABETH (PHILLIPS) MOORE of Old Saybrook, Conn.

Join Emerson’s Alumni Online Community www.emersonalumni.com

1951 CLIFFORD BATCHELDER REEVES JR. of Pelham, N.Y.

Search for friends or update your personal information. To take advantage of the online community, visit the website and proceed through the registration process to establish a User ID and password. The site includes Class Notes posting capabilities, a message board, an events calendar and news updates.

1958 BARBARA A. (ROSENTHAL) FRIEDMAN of Brookline, Mass.

1953 MICHAEL MARK LAYNE of East Longmeadow, Mass. 1953 ALFRED F. SULLIVAN of Bedford, N.H. 1960 MICHAEL A. BRUDER of New York, N.Y. 1962 EDWARD C. MELLO of Naples, Fla. 1965 CAROLYN A. (BENNEY) DALLESSANDRO of Altoona, Pa. 1967 PAMELA GREENWAY HUESTED of Newburyport, Mass. 1970 MARC WERBOFF of Safety Harbor, Fla.

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class notes Expression welcomes Class Notes submissions. We reserve the right to edit copy and regret that we may have to withhold some items due to space limitations. Send news items and nonreturnable photos to Barbara Rutberg, Office of Alumni Relations, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 021164624 or e-mail Barbara_ Rutberg@emerson.edu. Please include information on how we can contact you.

1947

sic, drama and the spoken word” that he still enjoys today. MARTHA

(HOLDEN)

SON-

has been an actor and a board member for the past two years with the Hunterdon Radio Theater (N.J.). Volunteers produce original, contemporary audio theater that is broadcast, webcast and sold in CD format. Martha is looking forward to her 50th reunion (“Is it possible?!”). She and PEGGY (MINEHAN) RYAN expect to be present and hope others will be coming, too. Martha is at kurts2281923@aol. com. NEBORN

NORMA (BACIGALUPO) ANGELOTTI invented “Mr. Big Mouth,” a teaching tool for the deaf, blind and speech impaired, and it is still being used today.

1953 50th Reunion

is looking forward to his 50th reunion. In June, he was asked by the American Cancer Society to do a reading of the Gettysburg Address during the Society’s annual Relay for Life. He writes that he “will be forever grateful to Emerson for opening the door to a world of fine arts, muJOHN MEUNIER

1955 is retired and has recently been honored by two organizations. He received a Distinguished Service Award as a trustee of the Lowell General Hospital and the Service Above Self Award for 35 years of outstanding service as a charter member and past president of the Chelmsford Rotary Club.

DANIEL GILLETTE

DIANE (GANZEL) PURDY-THERI-

has led more than 3,000 youngsters through her Children’s Theater Workshop in Quincy, Mass., over the past 32 AULT

CLASS REUNIONS For information regarding your Class Reunion in 2003, contact one of the following people: 1938, 1943, 1948, 1953, 1958, 1958: Carolyn_Vandervelden@emerson.edu 1963, 1988: Bethel_Nathan@emerson.edu 1968: Barbara_Rutberg@emerson.edu 1973, 1978: Bethel_Nathan@emerson.edu 1983, 1998: Elizabeth_Baker@emerson.edu 1993: Jon_Iarrobino@emerson.edu Call 1-800-255-4259 to speak to any of the above.

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ALEXIS SHARON (GOODMAN) ROLNICK, MSSp ’70, has started her own business as a professional speaker, utilizing the skills gleaned during her years at Emerson. She offers one-on-one coaching and group workshops.

years. Hundreds who have gone through her program have gone on to succeed in drama programs and one is now a permanent cast member of a weekly Nickelodeon Network show. She has written more than 40 plays and every production she stages is her own.

with between 1993 and 1996 in which an unusual partnership between a Jesuit university and a state university resulted in 33 Palestinians (most from refugee camps) being trained to help more than 30,000 communicativelyhandicapped children in Gaza.

1958

1968

45th Reunion

35th Reunion

cently welcomed their first grandson, Kamran Saul, courtesy of their daughter and sonin-law. Bonnie was fortunate to be in the delivery room and see him make his entrance. She is celebrating her 45th reunion this year and welcomes e-mails at bonmort@attbi.com.

novel Red has been released in the U.S. It has already been released in England and translated into Japanese and Greek. Dallas, who writes under the name Jack Ketchum, will publish his third collection of short fiction, Peaceable Kingdom, in September.

1960

1969

FRANKLIN SILVERMAN’s most re-

GLENN ALTERMAN has published two new books. An Actor’s Guide: Making it in New York City (Allworth Press) and More 2 Minutes & Under: Character Monologues for Actors (Smith & Kraus) are his 13th and 14th published works. All of his books have been Doubleday Book Club Selections. Also, Glenn’s play Solace ran offBroadway and there are now

BONNIE and MORT GLOVIN ’57 re-

cent book, with Robert Moulton, The Impact of a Unique Cooperative American University USAID Funded SpeechLanguage Pathologist, Audiologist, and Deaf Educator B.S. Degree Program in the Gaza Strip, was published in June (Edwin Mellen Press, Wales, UK). It documents a program that Franklin was involved

DALLAS MAYR’s

CHAPIN CUTLER ’70, president of Boston Light & Sound, Inc., was technical director for the 20th anniversary, redcarpet premiere of E.T.: The Extraterrestrial at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. The restored feature was accompanied by a full symphony orchestra conducted by John Williams. This was the first major live-action motion picture to be premiered with its score performed live since the advent of sound.

productions in Munich, Berlin and Amsterdam; it will be filmed for television. JANICE (NIEDERMAN) KENT is currently an acting coach and actress living in Los Angeles. She has been on many television shows since graduating from Emerson, including The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, Frasier, Days of Our Lives and The New Leave It To Beaver (five seasons playing Tony Dow’s wife). She teaches a seminar on sitcoms. Janice is married and has a 12-year-old daughter. Visiting the college recently was “a very happy emotional experience” for her. Janice can be reached at janicekb@hotmail.com.

1972 RHONI EPSTEIN has opened a spa hotel in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., near Palm Springs. Sagewater Spa was featured on the cover of the hotels issue of Travel & Leisure magazine and will soon be included in the book The Best Designed Wellness Hotels in North and South America. Rhoni says that the spa is a weekend retreat for many television and film writers, directors, producers and agents.

1975 GEORGE ANDERSON, a former assistant director of admissions

at Emerson, is now living in Clinton, Maine, breeding champion Jack Russell terriers. George has been working with this breed for 10 years and his terriers have placed at the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America’s National Trial and at the Canadian Club’s National Trial. After leaving the Emerson staff, George held positions at Babson College, Trinity University (San Antonio, Texas) and Bradford College.

1 976 SUZAN JOHNSON COOK is an author, motivational speaker and pastor in N.Y.C. Her two most recent books, Too Blessed to be Stressed: Words of Wisdom for Women on the Move (Nelson) and A New Dating Attitude (Zondervan), are doing well. In addition “Sujay” just became the first female president of the 10,000-member Hampton University Ministers Conference, the largest AfricanAmerican clergy conference in the world.

1978

He keeps active on TV, working on several local programs a week. He is also busy establishing a memorial garden in honor of his military organization, the 541st Parachute Infantry Regiment. Since graduating, BECKY JOHNSON has had photographs published regularly in bluegrass music magazines and newsletters. In 1998 she published her first book, Inside Bluegrass: 20 Years of Bluegrass Photography (Empire Publishing). This past winter, Becky had photos published in an academic book, Don’t Get Above Your Raisin: Country Music and the Southern Working Class (University of Illinois Press).

1980 ELI SHERER and wife Ann have a daughter, Abigail Rose, born in June 2001. The family has moved to Madison, Conn., where they are “midway between Boston and New York when is it time for a getaway.” Eli is working for a consulting company focusing on “intelligent transportation systems.” Classmates and others may reach him at eli@tiac.net.

1981

1983 20th Reunion ANN (MARQUIS) PERROTT, of Bev-

erly, Mass., publishes The Larcom Review, a journal of the arts and literature of New England. She and partner Susan Oleksiw recently marked their fourth year in business. The Review comes out twice a year and contains short fiction, essays, poetry and black and white photography from all over the region. Last year, they launched the Larcom Mystery Series, publishing mystery novels by New Englanders.

1985 MICHAEL BRUNELLE is making a documentary film about Sweet Pie, a boogie-woogie pianist

CLAIRE DUQUETTE, editor of The

Daily Press in Ashland, Wisc., completed a year-long term as president of the Wisconsin Associated Press Managing Editors Association. She continues to sit on the Association’s executive board.

25th Reunion

After retiring from Voice of America in 1994 and after more than 20 years with the Armed Forces Radio and TV, DEAN M. CORSE and wife Robyn moved to the Good Samaritan Retirement Village in Florida.

TERRI MCGRAW, otherwise known as Mrs. Fixit, is the creator, executive producer and talent for a nationally syndicated news segment called “Mrs. Fixit’s Easy Home Repair.” The show has been seen in over 65 markets across the U.S. and Canada on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX affiliates. Her first book, Mrs. Fixit Easy Home Repair, was published in 2001 (Simon and Schuster Pocket Books).

1982 JOANNE LEITNER lives in Berlin,

Germany, and recently published a bilingual collection of poetry, Out of the Picture— Aus Der Begegnung Heraus (Otanes-Verlag, Berlin).

ROBBIN BEAUCHAMP ’84 has been named director of career services at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I.

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class notes

1988 15th Reunion

and husband Todd are thrilled to announce the birth of their son, William Kennedy Mason, on April 11, 2002. Suzanne continues to work as a reporter at WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. SUZANNE KENNEDY MASON

1989 After a long and productive career in advertising account management at several New York agencies, VICTORIA BUNDONIS, MA ’89, returned to her “first love,” musical theater. She is currently touring as a “pick-a-little” lady in the national tour of The Music Man. In March, she met backstage with MAUREEN BOYLAN STIEBRIS, MA ’89, and ARVIDS STIEBRIS,

MA ’89, and their two children, Nicky and Bridget.

1991 JESSICA (LEFTWICH) NOWAK and her husband, Sebastian, along with their 3-year-old daughter, Lucienne, recently purchased their first home. She is working in the communications department of an investment company in Philadelphia as a desktop publisher and project coordinator.

1992 is editor-in-chief of Campus Circle, a biweekly entertainment magazine that is read on 43 college campuses and more than 400 retail locations across Southern California. He is also music editor of Worldly Remains (www.worldlyremains.com), a quarterly pop culture review. He and his fiancée, screenwriter Elena Tropp, are planning an October wedding. PAUL GAITA

1994 AL EDMOND

has an 8-year-old

DEB GUSTON ’84 has been elected president of the Board of Directors of the newly formed Western Massachusetts Theatre Education Institute, Inc. The corporation operates the Pioneer Valley Summer Theatre, which will launch its first full season in June 2003 on the Williston Northampton School campus in Easthampton, Mass.

daughter, Sarah. He was married to Sharon Ryder in April 2002 and in February he had his first exhibition of his collage art at the AS 220 in Providence, R.I. MICHELLE GERARD is engaged to Gregg Arst and will be married in the spring of 2003. The couple met in graduate school at N.Y.U. Michelle is an agent at DGRW Talent Agency in New York, and Gregg is the assistant company manager for the new Broadway musical Dance of the Vampires. NANCY KAYE a.k.a. “Rosey” is signed to Island Records and

WHERE ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Please use the form below to submit news that you would like to share with your fellow Emersonians. Or, if you prefer, e-mail your news to Barbara_Rutberg@emerson.edu. New job? Recently engaged or married? New baby? Moving? Recently ran into an old classmate? Received an award? Let us know. NAME

ORIGINAL LAST NAME

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Mail to: Class Notes, Emerson College, Office of Alumni Relations, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624

E X P R E S S I O N FA L L 2 0 0 2

recently appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Her CD, Dirty Child, was released in June and she is currently on tour with Melissa Etheridge. JENIPHIR

TAYLOR-MCINTIRE

and husband Tim McIntire welcomed their first child on Jeniphir’s birthday, May 9, 2001. Their son, Jude Bradford McIntire, is “a true joy.” Jeniphir is a work-at-home mama and co-owns an online boutique that sells fun and funky wigs, hairpieces and accessories. She would love to hear from old friends from Hands-On Experience. She can be reached at penny@tartblossom.com.

1995 SUE BRODY,

MFA, works for a design college in Boston but spends much of her time as a member of the ImprovBoston community. She is active on stage and behind the scenes as a director, performer, writer, editor of the monthly enewsletter and public relations coordinator. Sue also won a scholarship to the Chicago Improv Festival in April 2002. CHRISTINA DEJOHN is back in Massachusetts after having taught in Maine for the past two years. She is living in New-

who performed throughout the Northeast in the late ’60s and early ’70s. He would like to hear from fellow alumni who might be interested in the project at mbrunelle@statestreetconsultants.com.

class notes ton and teaching kindergarten near Concord. She loves that she’s back and can be reached at christinadejohn@hotmail. com. WENDE GEIKIE was married to David Crowley in 2000. She recently served as music supervisor for the TV shows Undeclared on Fox and Freaks and Geeks on NBC. Wende also worked as music coordinator on Mr. Deeds, Big Daddy, Little Nicky, The Waterboy and the upcoming films Anger Management and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. She would love to hear from old friends and can be reached at wetege@aol.com. RISA MILLER, MFA, has sold the book that began as her thesis. Welcome to Heavenly Heights will be published by St. Martin’s Press in January 2003. She also received the PEN New England Discovery Award for Fiction in 1999. DAVID WADE has been named

permanent co-anchor of Boston’s Fox affiliate WFXTTV Channel 25’s 10 p.m. newscast. He joined WFXT as a reporter in 1998.

1996 lives in New York City and recently was named deputy director of communications for the Speaker of the New York City Council. DAVID MORWICK wrote his first movie screenplay a few years ago and formed his own film company, Three Stone Pictures. His movie, Little Erin Merriweather, which he also produced and acts in, was premiered last summer at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. The movie focuses on a young woman who was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and consequently seeks revenge on those who resemble her abuser. FRED BALDASSARO

sociate producer for a nationally syndicated reality dating show called ElimiDate.

mouth, Mass. They will wed in May 2003. ANTHONY SILVA’s avant-garde film, animal mechanique, which he completed during his senior year, has been getting quite a bit of attention lately. It has appeared in the New York International Film Festival, Artsfest, Flicker and won an award at the Silverlake Film Festival.

1999

2000

DANIEL LACKAYE has launched a

TIM BRENNAN is a stand-up comic living and working in New York. He is also a writer for the TV show I Bet You Will, which airs on MTV. ERIC SHAPIRO signed his first book contract shortly after finishing at Emerson. The book, Short of a Picnic (Be-Mused Publications), is a fictional examination of people living with mental disorders and is receiving early critical praise.

1998 5th Reunion HEATHER CHIGAS works as an as-

SPENCER WATSON JR. ’95 was married to Nancy Ferguson on the beach in Bradenton, Fla. He is “doing the singersongwriter circuits in L.A.” and continues to look for work in the music production business. Spencer is currently a bassist for the band With Out in Los Angeles.

JOSHUA FISHER ’92 married Jennifer Klein last summer. Among those in attendance were (from left): JOHN LEUBA ’92, Elie Klein, STEVEN WELCH ’92, Jeana Klein, Jennifer Klein, Josh Fisher, Anna Klein and Ben Slack. Josh lives in Los Angeles and just started a new job as vice president of creative affairs for Santoro Entertainment, a London-based merchandising and licensing firm that is creating a division in Los Angeles to develop and produce animation for kids and teens.

weekly half-hour comedy website along with Travis Searle. The weekly audio program is called The Pirate Ship and is a new version of a program that they developed at Emerson’s WECB. MICHELLE ANN NEVES has been promoted to vice president of resource development at the United Way of Greater New Bedford (Mass.). She manages the annual fundraising campaign, which raises nearly $2 million. Michelle was recently engaged to Jason Hantman of North Dart-

2001 is playing the lead character of Wendy in Company One’s production of

MEDINA MAHFUZ

Peter Pan in Boston. Two days after LARA ZEISES graduated from Emerson’s M.F.A. program, she sold her first novel, Bringing Up the Bones (Delacorte Press). The book, which was named the Honor Book in the Delacorte Press Prize for a First Young Adult Novel, is due out in October. The book focuses on one young woman’s journey of self-discovery after her longtime best friend-turned-reluctant-boyfriend is killed in a traffic accident. Lara’s second novel, Contents Under Pressure, was sold in November 2001 and is slated for publication in fall 2003.

2002 ANDREW VAN DEN HOUTEN’s directed-study short film project Inherent Darkness and Enlightenment was accepted into the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Andrew is beginning to raise finances for his first feature film. His film was screened at the Emerson student film festival in 2002. FA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

profiles R E A DY FO R M Y C L O S E U P For filmmaker Randy Barbato ’82, there’s a human face under media’s bright lights

WORLD OF WONDER

an Emmy award, among randy barbato ’82 is a self-deother honors, when it aired scribed “champion of the misunderin 1998-99. stood.” Think: Monica Lewinsky, TamThe feature film will star my Faye Bakker, Ellen DeGeneres, all Seth Green, Chloë Sevigny, of whom Barbato has captured on tape. Dylan McDermott and Barbato’s films (which he produces Macaulay Culkin. Barbato with his business and life partner Fenrecalls a moment on the set ton Bailey) seek to “defy expectations, when he realized how “surto look for the story behind the story,” real” it was to be working Barbato explains. “It’s not that we both with Culkin [from think we know the truth,” he says. “It’s Home Alone] and iconoclasjust that we think the truth is more tic shock-rocker Marilyn complicated than everyone else Manson, who also stars. thinks.” “Moments like that are so Since the award-winning filmmakexciting: discovering how ers formed the “fiercely independent” much two people like that World of Wonder Productions in 1991, have in common and bringthey have directed and produced nuing them together.” merous films (many on conFILMMAKER RANDY BARBATO ’82 (RIGHT) Barbato one day hopes to troversial and outré subWITH PARTNER FENTON BAILEY create a new network, World jects) for HBO, BBC, VH1, ductions, Barbato says, seeks “to show- of Wonder TV, a television haven for PBS, Cinemax, Showtime, Bravo, “pop culture, the people on the fringes case the humanity in those marginalCourt TV and other outlets. The Eyes of of society who actually represent who ized by our ‘media society.’ ” Tammy Faye, about the rise and fall of we really are.” Furthering their pop In Monica in Black and White, their Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner (ex-wife culture reach is their monthly eof the scandal-ridden televangelist Rev. HBO special on Lewinsky which appeared this year in March, Barbato and newsletter The Wow Report Jim Bakker), has won several best doc(http://www.worldofwonder.net/wowre Bailey’s work sought to give the faumentary awards. Other widely seen port.htm) that is sent to 9,000 “indusmous intern’s side of the story. Called and buzzed-about films include The try tastemakers.” “absorbing and well-crafted” by a SaReal Ellen Story, about comedian-acBarbato hasn’t always been on the tress Ellen DeGeneres, and a biopic on lon.com writer, the documentary goes cutting edge. While at Emerson, he beyond the scandal. “She was just a William Haines, a 1930s movie star “made a couple of horrific, really preyoung, naïve girl who fell in love (she whose gay lifestyle led to his Hollytentious films.” After a year of gradugenuinely fell in love!) and found herwood downfall. ate study at New York University’s film self surrounded by these ShakespeareWhat draws Barbato to these perschool, however, Barbato departed, rean characters — Linda Tripp, Kenneth sonalities? “The more the media spotalizing his experience at Emerson had Starr, Bill Clinton,” the filmmaker arlight burns on them, the less we unalready afforded him the technical acugues. derstand what’s there,” declares men and business savvy (for example, One of the duo’s numerous current Barbato. For a documentary filmmak“the need to hustle”) he needed. He projects is also their first feature film, er, this is a fertile paradox. “The media announces proudly, “Hollywood is an Party Monster, based on the New York has told us everything we think we Emerson town and this business is an club-promoter-turned-murderer, know about these people, and yet the Emerson business.” Michael Alig. Their own original docureality is they haven’t told us any— Christopher Hennessy mentary on the gruesome story won thing,” he says. World of Wonder Pro34

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FEELING THE SPIRIT Moonyene Jackson-Amis ’69 is into history, including making a little of her own she’s been a speech pathologist, a lawyer and a nonprofit leader and most recently she’s become a local politician. But Moonyene Jackson-Amis ’69 is most energized when she inhabits the persona of her historical “she-ro” Harriet Tubman, something she’s done through her original, one-woman performances on nearly 100 occasions, in four states and abroad. For 25 years and running, raconteur Jackson has brought history alive with tales about Tubman. “Her life is instructive for all of us,” Jackson says of Tubman, who led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the famed Underground Railroad. Tubman is a shining example of someone who fought passionately for social justice, who “had grown past fear,” Jackson believes. Jackson’s narrative is threaded with original songs and informed by extensive research. She “becomes” Tubman in performances that can last up to 90 minutes. She’s also written a two-hour play on Tubman which has been produced twice. “I believe we are kindred spirits, if I can be so bold,” she offers. And the shows are “part of my own growth,” she explains. “A good performance can really revive me.” Jackson performs primarily for schools, historical societies and churches, and even once in Nigeria. She’s also performed in the Maryland General Assembly and has been commissioned for major events like the National Underground Railroad Millennium Celebration. In addition, she was recently in the recording studio producing a new version of her CD Gone North On a Secret Road, original tunes based on Tubman’s life and legacy. One of her other original songs was the official New Jersey campaign song for Jesse Jackson’s 1984 bid for the presidency. Speaking of politics, Jackson is currently serving a four-year term as a city

council member for the town of Easton, Md., where she lives. Her county’s branch of the NAACP has saluted Jackson for her “historic and pioneering achievement as the first African-American female elected to the Town Council, and for providing hope, inspiration and motivation to the African-American Community as well as the community at large.” She is founder and director of the Kwanzaa JACKSON-AMIS IS MOST ENERGIZED WHEN SHE Foundation, a INHABITS THE PERSONA OF HER HISTORICAL nonprofit or‘SHE-RO’ HARRIET TUBMAN. ganization profoundly deaf, and thus unable to based in Easton. The Foundation’s sohear the instructions she supposedly cial causes include: programs for special-needs children; poetry slams and a wasn’t following. Angered by obvious negligence on the part of the school, book club for local youth; voter regisJackson decided to stand up for the tration drives; development of a sports marginalized, so she set out for Seton and cultural youth center; and KwanHall University Law School in 1972. zaa awareness events. After graduating and passing the bar Jackson seems always to be helping in 1976, she went on to practice law others. Whether as speech pathologist for 25 years, often accepting pro bono (with a B.S. from Emerson and a maswork and discrimination cases. ter’s degree from Syracuse University) Even while at Emerson, Jackson or as a lawyer, she has a record of putwas looking out for others, for examting her clients first. ple, using her skills to test the hearing In fact, her study of speech and of young children and their families in hearing disorders led her to study law. Roxbury, Mass., the predominantly As a speech pathologist in the early 1970s, she came upon a young mother African-American section of Boston. Jackson singles out professors Edna crying on the streets of Newark, N.J., and learned that the woman’s daughter Ward, Kenneth Crannell, Amy Bricker Harris and the late Peter Corea for was about to be expelled from her their instruction and generosity. She school for ‘behavior problems.’ Jackmade Emerson history, too – founding son met the little girl and made a starthe first African-American student ortling diagnosis that no one had bothganization, EBONI. ered to consider: the girl was FA L L 2 0 0 2 E X P R E S S I O N

my turn

Majestic Obsession Michael A. Wilder ’95 waxes poetic on the restoration of a beloved campus landmark by michael a. wilder

ne of my favorite things to do is turn off all the work lights, leaving on only the amber house lights, lie down on the apron of the stage, and marvel at this place we call the Majestic. As I write these words, the restoration of the Emerson Majestic Theatre is fully underway. The College purchased the theater in 1983 and is now performing a top-to-bottom, muchneeded historic restoration. When I was a student at Emerson back in the early ’90s, my friends and I would often sit in the empty house with Theatre Manager Brooks Russell and Technical Director Brian Richardson as they told us stories of the theater’s past and pointed out particular elements of the architecture. During these impromptu lessons, we all dreamed of the day the Majestic would be fully restored to her original grandeur. It was out of these discussions that my love for the space was born. Today I am technical director of the Majestic, and every time I walk around the building I find something new, a small detail I hadn’t noticed before. For example, the plaster moldings that surround the box seats are etched with a motif of roses and acorns. Until you get really close to them, or until they are revealed using fresh paint and tint, they remain hidden beneath layers of dust and coats of old paint. I am always amazed by the way the original architect, John Galen Howard, used space, color and line. Those of us who work in and use the theater have accepted it the way we have seen it for

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the past 12 years since Emerson first opened it for public performances — a mish-mash of colors, from walls to carpeting to chairs. The original color scheme of the Majestic — as described in Boston Globe articles from 1903 – is being restored and will be on view when the theater reopens in 2003. This continues to be an amazing journey and a dream come true for me — the chance to combine my theatrical background with my carpentry experience. I have been exposed to both construction and the arts my entire life. My grandfather started with boat building and then moved to house

construction. He then trained my father, who, in turn, trained me. As craftsmen, they both instilled in me a sense of pride and attention to detail. My mother is an artist who works with fabric and paint, and from her I gained an understanding of color and balance. Later, I studied technical theater at Emerson. After spending some time away after graduation, I found myself back in Boston, coming full circle with a new job at the theater. I eagerly await the reopening of the building, when it will once again be filled with artists, patrons and technical staff in this place we call the Majestic. n Michael A. Wilder ’95 graduated from Emerson with a B.F.A. in technical theater. He is technical director at the Emerson Majestic Theatre, which is located in Boston’s Theatre District.

Why Emerson College? Because the need for scholarships has never been greater So say Larry Lowe and Neil Davin, copresidents of the Class of 1972, which funded

Lowe, drama coach at

a scholarship as its collective gift to the

English High School in

College at last spring’s Alumni Weekend.

Lynn, Mass., notes that

“I came to Emerson on a scholarship,” says Davin, manager of technology support services

NEIL DAVIN

Emersonians to excel.”

when he was an undergraduate, Emerson

in the College’s Information

broke the $1,000 level

Technology Department. “Since

for tuition. “Attending a

then, the cost of an Emerson

private college used to

education has increased faster

be like buying a car,” he

than inflation. Without financial

adds. “Now it’s like

aid, many talented students

buying a house.”

LARRY LOWE

simply can’t afford to come here.

Like Davin, Lowe also has a master’s degree

We wanted to change that for at

in speech. He’s used his education in a variety

least one individual.”

of positions, including teaching speech,

Davin, who holds a master’s

English, and English as a second language.

as well as a bachelor’s degree in

He’s also worked in the theater industry and

speech from Emerson, has held

held administrative positions.

several positions at the College and in private

“Emerson prepared me well for whatever

industry. He’s seen many changes over the

challenges I faced,” says Lowe. “I learned as

years but observes that, “While today’s

much about writing from Professor Crannell as

students seem more studious and focused than

I did about speaking. The faculty at Emerson

the students were in my day, they still have the

are special. That’s what makes the place

creative spark that has always driven

unique.”

To learn more about how you can help support Emerson College, contact Jon Iarrobino ’98, Office of Institutional Advancement, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624; (617) 824-8561.

Time Capsule

Emerson College 120 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116-4624

DURING ALUMNI WEEKEND 2002 ,

two alumnae donated personal memorabilia to the College Archives, including the items shown here. In the photo, Marion (Kennedy) Sweeney busily types a paper on the subject of stuttering. She went on to graduate with a master’s degree in speech therapy in 1942, making her one of the College’s first graduate-degree recipients. The Steinert piano store advertisement and the Steuben Restaurant business card were donated by Virginia (Richardson) Goulding, who graduated in 1941 with a B.L.I. degree in speech drama. Steinert Hall is the site of the College’s first Southwick Recital, and the Steuben was located in the Walker Building, which today houses Emerson classrooms, faculty offices, library and other facilities.

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