Expression FA L L 2 0 0 6
THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF EMERSON COLLEGE
The Maestro of Emerson College Scott Wheeler’s musical compositions are garnering international acclaim
Download a good book lately? The next generation of books will be electronic
Relocation of campus to Theatre District completed
Expression
THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF EMERSON COLLEGE
FA L L 2 0 0 6
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Memory Lane
Athletics through the ages
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Campus Digest
High definition comes to WERS radio, College awarded funds for historic facades
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Download a Good Book Lately?
The next generation of books will be electronic
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The Maestro of Emerson College
Composer and faculty member Scott Wheeler’s star is rising in the international music world
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Piano Row complex opens
New building on campus encompasses a gymnasium – the College’s first! – and residence hall
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Notable Expressions
A compendium of accomplishments by alumni
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Alumni Digest
Read about Alumni Weekend and a new scholarship that alumni are funding
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Class Notes
Read the news about your classmates
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Profile
Melanie Gideon ’86 crafts ambitious young adult novels
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My Turn
A young actor taps other Emersonians for career advice
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, Vice President) in conjunction with the Department of Institutional Advancement 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
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REACHING HIS GOAL Junior Chris Mathias pummels the ball during a match at Boston’s Rotch Field, Emerson College’s home soccer field.
Expression Executive Editor David Rosen Editor Rhea Becker Writer Christopher Hennessy Editorial Assistant Catherine Sheffield
Expression Fall 2006
Office Of Alumni Relations alumni@emerson.edu 800-255-4259 617-824-8535 fax 617-824-7807
Copyright © 2006 Emerson College 120 Boylston St. Boston, Massachusetts 02116-4624
Memory Lane
Campus Digest
In This Issue
Getty Foundation supports study of College’s historic facades
Athletics through the ages Emerson made history this fall when it opened its first gymnasium in the College’s history. The milestone prompted Expression to flip through some old photos in search of a few other historic moments in Emerson athletics. In 1931, the young women of Emerson’s Recreation Club, seen below in a photo from the Emerson College
News of that year, practice for the first series of intramural games ever played at Emerson. An anonymous donor provided the ball and net, said the paper, and games were held in the gym between class teams of 24 players each “so as to enable as large a number as possible to participate.” Less than two decades later, Emerson had its first competitive sports squad. The young men smiling for this 1948 yearbook photo are part of Emerson’s first basketball team. The Emersonian wrote: “A year ago the Emerson basketball team was only fantasy. But last September we bought uniforms, obtained a court, and our squad was a reality!” And now in 2006, the gleaming new gymnasium in Emerson’s campus center signals the brightest era in Emerson’s athletics program yet.
There’s a buzz in the air. It’s a new era at Emerson, beginning this fall. The College opened its new Piano Row building, a major milestone in Emerson’s transformation to the College on the Common. The College’s first gymnasium ever is part of the new structure. Learn more about the building, its place in campus history, and view some stunning photos in this issue’s cover story. Next, we offer a candid look at an Emerson faculty member with a special place on campus and a growing national reputation in his field. Composer Scott Wheeler has been teaching Emersonians the art of music for 25 years, and in 2005 he celebrated a career milestone with the premiere of his new opera, Democracy, which was championed by famed tenor Plácido Domingo. We also explore what many in the publishing industry see as a coming revolution in books – the electronic, or eBook. As a bonus, we’ve published prose and poetry from two alumni, originally published in electronic format. As always, be sure to browse through the ever—growing Class Notes section, which is bursting with news and announcements from your classmates.
Emerson College has received a $200,000 Campus Heritage Grant from the Getty Foundation of Los Angeles to assess the physical condition of eight historic campus buildings in Boston’s Theatre District and to develop a plan to maintain the facades. The properties covered by the grant are the Cutler Majestic Theatre, the Ansin Building (the former Boston Edison Company Building), 216 Tremont St. (the former Union Savings Bank Building), the Little Building, the Colonial Building, the Walker Building, the Paramount Theatre and the Arcade Building (located next to the Paramount). All of the
Expression Fall 2006
High-definition comes to WERS
Ellis named vice president for administration and finance
–Rhea Becker, editor
Expression welcomes short letters to the editor on topics covered in the magazine. The editor will select a representative sample of letters to publish and reserves the right to edit copy for style and length. Send letters to: Editor, Expression, Office of Public Affairs, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston MA 02116-4624; public_affairs@emerson.edu.
buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Two of the buildings – the Cutler Majestic and Paramount theaters – are Boston Historic Landmarks. Built between 1858 and 1932 for a variety of commercial purposes, the buildings include outstanding examples of Beaux Arts, Gothic, Renaissance Revival, Art Deco and Moderne architectural styles. The College’s restoration of the Majestic in 2003 won several prestigious prizes, including a Preservation Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
David Ellis
David Ellis, former president of Newbury College in Brookline, Mass., has been named Emerson College’s new vice president for administration and finance. As president of Newbury since 2001, Ellis had overseen a 42 percent increase in enrollment after years of decline. He previously served as executive vice president and treasurer of Newbury and as vice president for business and financial affairs and assistant treasurer at Pine Manor Col-
lege, associate vice president for business and financial affairs at Babson College, and dean of students at Babson College. He also taught graduate and undergraduate courses in risk management, investments and corporate finance strategy.
Emerson radio station WERS (88.9 FM) will join the ranks of the most cutting-edge radio stations by broadcasting in high definition (HD). “Our broadcast will be CD-quality audio for listeners with an HD receiver,” said WERS General Manager Jack Casey. “Listeners will be able to hear sound quality as good as satellite radio can deliver but without a subscription cost.” There are other advantages as well for both listeners and the Emerson students who work at the station. “We also see the opportunity for more programming diversity, because HD allows for a second and third, and eventually up to six or eight additional channels,” explains Casey.
Expression Fall 2006
Download a good book lately? By Christopher Hennessy
The next generation of books will be electronic
A
revolution in reading and publishing may be just around the corner – a fundamental shift that will change reading and publishing forever. It’s called the eBook, or electronic book. Readers of everything from fiction to self-help to the Bible are already able to download eBooks instantaneously, often at low prices and sometimes for free. EBooks are digital versions of books that can be read a.) on a computer screen b.) on new handheld, lightweight devices called readers, c.) or saved as a document and printed out. Six years ago, analysts predicted a billion-dollar market for eBooks, but it failed to materialize. Now, however, experts believe that a profitable (albeit not multi-billion-dollar) and user-friendly eBook industry is on the horizon. BusinessWeek proclaimed earlier this year, “Many experts are convinced that digital books, after plenty of false starts, are finally ready for takeoff.” Take, for example, the surprising results of last summer’s online World eBook Fair. During the fair, in which people downloaded free digital books, more than 1.5 million books were downloaded in less than one week. Then, Google announced that it would commit to digitizing 20 million public domain titles, including thousands of classic books, from the collections of major libraries. “Our goal is to create a comprehensive, fulltext index of all the world’s books,” said Google Book Search group business product manager Adam Smith. Several Emerson-affiliated writers already have books available in eBook format. Writer-in-Residence Maria Flook’s best-selling book Invisible Eden is available as an eBook, and novels from faculty members Brian Malloy (The Year of Ice), Mako Yoshikawa (Once Removed) and alum Gary Grossman ’70 (Executive Actions) are as well. Associate Professor and prolific poet Bill Knott has declared on his blog that he is publishing on the web every poem he has ever written. What do writers and publishers think about the possibilities – and potential problems – of eBooks? Emerson faculty as well as alumni working at major publishing houses or consulting for major ePublishing companies weigh in.
In August Google announced it would make available thousands of classic books free on the Internet. “Our goal is to create a comprehensive, full-text index of all the world’s books,” said Google’s Adam Smith.
Expression Fall 2006
Courtship By Olen Steinhauer, MFA ’99
According to the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), eBook publishers reported a 23% increase in eBook revenues over 2004.
The fall and rise of the eBook In 2000, something remarkable happened that had the publishing world abuzz. Horror master Stephen King published a 60-page story called “Riding the Bullet” exclusively as an eBook on the web. What may have seemed like an experiment in publishing quickly proved otherwise. King’s story sold nearly half a million copies in 48 hours, shocking industry analysts who long thought readers would stick with paper books. That same year, recalls ePublishing consultant and author Bill Trippe, MA ’86, New York City was the site of two conferences on the eBook and Oprah listed the Rocket eBook (a device that stores and displays eBooks) on her famous “O List,” a move that can mean a product will disappear from the shelves. The eBook was hot. But then…the bubble deflated. Says Emerson instructor and ePublishing consultant Doug Bolin, “The technology wasn’t there to support the eBooks, nor was the desire or the demand in the general marketplace.” Bolin, an adjunct professor who has taught Emerson’s ePublishing course for about five years, has worked with digital content for about 30 years. Fast forward to today. According to the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), eBook publishers reported a 23% increase in eBook revenues over 2004. The numbers of eBook titles published increased 20% over 2004. While revenues are far from the wild predictions of 2000, the group reports that in 2005 eBooks brought in well over $11 million in the revenue. A total of 18 publishers contributed to the four IDPF quarterly 2005 reports, including traditional publishers such as
Houghton Mifflin, Random House, Simon & Schuster and Time Warner Book Group. The IDPF even produces a bestsellers list. For 2005, top eBooks included Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, several of Dan Brown’s books, including The Da Vinci Code, popular nonfiction titles like Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, as well as the Bible and Webster’s Dictionary. Trippe, who is president of Boston’s New Millennium Publishing, an author on digital rights management and a regular contributor to the magazine Econtent, is cautious about the future but upbeat about the current climate. “Publishers have found that there really is some business there. No one’s retiring [from the profits], but it’s nothing to sneeze at.” Jennifer Cande Pieroni ’01, who edits the print literary journal Quick Fiction, conducted a reader survey for the journal this summer. Of those readers who were interested in purchasing back issues, 27% indicated they would buy a digital download of the magazine for a discounted price; however, 73% said that they would prefer to purchase the print issue at full price. “As a publisher, this tells me that there is certainly money to be made in digital downloads but that the majority of readers still prefer a good, oldfashioned book,” she said. ePossibilites Claire Israel ’90, director of digital content and business development for Simon & Schuster Digital, believes reading on a screen “will be second nature for the next generation.” Trippe agrees. “[In a few years], I think
This story was originally offered online by Amazon.com, which published it as part of its innovative Shorts program in which never-before-seen short-form literature from top authors is available exclusively on Amazon.com for just 49 cents. Stories can be downloaded instantaneously. (“Courtship” is reprinted here with the author’s permission.) Steinhauer’s first novel, The Bridge of Sighs, has been nominated for five awards.
Most evenings, after taking the subway back from the magazine offices and climbing the stairs to the city’s surface, Dennis imagined being struck by a car: He steps into the street, and from the left feels the fender press against the side of his knee. The noise of the engine is like an endlessly clearing throat. The pressure builds, pushing, until something in his knee snaps and burns. Gasoline saturates the atmosphere; a horn blows. Then he falls toward the car. An outstretched hand impacts the hot hood and the rest of his body follows, collapsing. Sometimes the dream varied, tossing him loosely beneath a high truck that was still low enough to burn his shoulder or the side of his head as it passed. Sometimes even a limb became caught in the machine’s burning intestines, and he was dragged along some distance. Yet for all this, Dennis never died in his visions. He was dragged and mangled and broken, but never fully snuffed. He would often wonder about these visions, but he knew why he had them: Dennis wanted his life to change, and he didn’t care how. So that evening when he and his wife were walking home from the grocery store and he fainted, Dennis experienced that instant of anticipation, as if the moment of change had arrived. Red points of light crowded his vision, darkening the street, and his scalp tingled. As the plastic bags, heavy with vegetables, slipped from his slackened fists and he followed them to the sidewalk, he was sure that the moment had finally come. When he woke again a few seconds later, the back of his skull throbbed and he stared into the washed-out night sky. Then the sky was obscured by Teresa’s confused face. He interpreted her confusion as compassion, and smiled when she helped him up. They drove to an all-night clinic, and the doctor shone a small flashlight into Dennis’s eyes. He performed a battery of minor tests, but when nothing appeared irregular he suggested that Dennis was under stress, and Dennis nodded sullenly. The doctor advised a week of bed rest. After Teresa left the examining room to drive their car around front, he helped Dennis with his coat and asked if there was anything other than his job that could have caused the stress. Dennis gave a sharp, tight smile. “My wife is leaving me, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” he said, shrugging. “I can’t even sleep.”
The doctor wrote out a prescription for sleeping pills and walked him to the door, where Teresa pulled up in their car, and idled. Dennis estimated that his wife had been leaving him for the last two years, slowly withdrawing into the silence he had drawn her out of during their courtship. He could even spot the moment where her withdrawal began: that day when, after five years of marriage, he raised seriously the question of children. It was something he’d been wanting, he explained, and it couldn’t be avoided forever. Her answer had been to stare at her intertwined hands and go mute. She started taking painkillers on a regular basis, moving from aspirin to vodka tonics to Valium. That was how her leaving began. And
Dennis never died in his visions. He was dragged and mangled and broken, but never fully snuffed. although he couldn’t have known it at the time, he could now see that his question had staked a point-of-no-return for her – a point, after which, she had to either throw herself completely into their marriage, or begin her escape. The day after the fainting, while she was at work, Dennis lay in bed with the television remote. On the bedside table was a book he was expected to review, but he opted instead for tenminute bursts of afternoon soap operas. He didn’t even try to hold onto their names; he only peered into the world of these beautiful people who spent their days slapping and kissing one another, holding desperately onto secrets until precisely the right moment. He noticed that children rarely made an appearance on these shows, and when they did they were silently shuffled on and off camera, or lingered only so they might smile sweetly and be adored; but whenever he saw one of their rather stupid smiles, Dennis felt that parental longing swell inside himself again. He knew that the feeling was deepened by having fainted the night before, because when he had sunk to the pavement and blinked at the rising street lights, behind the thrill of possible
continued on page 10 Expression Fall 2006
Expression Fall 2006
change, he had felt the urgent pull of mortality. When his vision went to red and then black, he feared, for the length of time it took the thought to be born and recognized, that he was about to die. On the show, a woman with deep brown eyes and a thick coat of mascara was crying; and Dennis, when he felt the same impulse twitch like a bug inside his own throat, turned off the television. He slept sporadically for most of the day, using the doctor’s prognosis as an excuse to avoid any concrete thinking, and when in the early evening he heard the rhythmic striking of Teresa’s heels in their hallway, he shook off his grogginess and slipped into a robe. She came to the bedroom and asked how he was, touching him only to check By the time he woke, Teresa had already left. The closet door was open, and he noticed that it was emptier, though he couldn’t tell what exactly was missing.
the warmth of his forehead with the back of her smooth hand. He said he felt all right, but tired. “So why don’t you take those sleeping pills?” she asked. Dennis pulled on some slippers. “Because I don’t look for excuses to take drugs.” Then he wondered why he had said that. He watched a vague surprise bleed into Teresa’s face, and then followed her with his eyes as she left the room. She had brought home boxes of Chinese food that she spilled out onto plates. After a few glasses of wine, her face became set and she told him that although she could sympathize with his condition, it would have no bearing on what she had been planning, what had been agreed on. Tonight she would pack a bag and tomorrow, after work, she would not come home. She would stay with him, the other man. Dennis poked his rice with a chopstick and nodded—yes, he had heard all these plans before, had even argued against them. She said she had thought about it all day, and she wasn’t going to get sucked back into this marriage, not on his life. She would stay this night, and then she would be gone. This time, he did not argue.
Expression Fall 2006
At two a.m. Dennis wondered if sympathy made her sleep in the same bed with him, rather than in the guestroom, where she had slept the last week. He listened to her breathing, broken every now and then by the congested remnants of a cold she had been unable to shake for weeks, and wondered what the other man thought when he heard her labored breaths. She had been with this man for just over a half year, so Dennis suspected that by now the man cared deeply for Teresa and worried about her health, perhaps even to the degree that Dennis did. By four, he considered taking a sleeping pill, because his mind was traversing the same paths it had stomped mercilessly for months now, ever since he came across a letter she had written to that other man. He had found it on the dresser, out in the open, and had been struck by how many times she written the word “love.” Dennis still believed she had meant for him to find the letter, but after reading it, he had returned it to the dresser and waited for it to disappear. Only a week ago had she gathered the resolve to admit she was leaving him, that she loved another man. Though he never admitted that he already knew, she must have seen right through his numb dissatisfaction. He held the pill between his forefinger and thumb and rolled it back and forth before finally swallowing it. By the time he woke, Teresa had already left. The closet door was open, and he noticed that it was emptier, though he couldn’t tell what exactly was missing. He showered and made coffee. The apartment smelled different, almost sterile, and he had the sense when he closed his eyes that he was back in the clinic, telling a man he had never met before that his wife was leaving him. He recalled the doctor’s face, the stolid features broken by a flash of understanding, or attempted understanding. Dennis had been only a quirk in the doctor’s otherwise ordinary night, but when the doctor went home to his own wife, if he had one, then maybe he would look at her a little differently. On the couch, he tried to read the book he was supposed to review, but each line carried a double meaning that reflected on his own life, and he couldn’t read more than half a page without evoking Teresa’s face and voice. He closed his eyes and remembered their courtship, eight years ago. They had not known each other as friends before the courting began, though they were introduced by a mutual friend. Dennis could
barely remember that meeting, but both Teresa and the friend backed it up. He believed that when they met he had thought her pretty, but that was a detail he could have added later. Their second encounter was at the same place, the health-food restaurant where he worked while going to school, and she came to the counter in the guise of a customer. He still had no recollection of her ordering a sandwich from him, and she teased him about it for a long time, accused him of not recognizing his future betrothed. It was the third meeting that Dennis remembered. At the restaurant, Teresa had been hired to work in the kitchen, and the manager introduced her around. Dennis saw her then as if for the first time, Teresa’s icy beauty, her shock of short white hair, her grim, embarrassed smile. Their courtship came to him clearly, if only because it had been a source of so many jokes. Dennis coveted her at the restaurant, zealously helping with minor chores to the point of annoyance, and when he finally built up the courage to ask her out for a drink, she quickly accepted. For weeks they drank almost nightly, sometimes in the afternoon, and they always drank until they were numb. Looking back on it eight years later, Dennis knew Teresa’s quiet reserve and continual thirst had been her extreme self-consciousness, but it astounded him how unclear it had all been to him at the time. It had seemed to Dennis that she was descended from Olympus, with her cool gaze, her rare and invaluable smile, and her cutting intelligence. When she spoke it came out as metalanguage, each word filled with interpretive possibility, and she listened to his poor Pidgin English only as a courtesy, perhaps out of sympathy. To imagine kissing her was heresy, and to engage her sexually would be beyond the scope of natural law. When they did begin sleeping together, Dennis remained in a state of perpetual surprise, waiting for his luck to run out. And then she asked if he wanted to get married. He had expected none of this. When they met, he had been unable to envision kissing her; after a few months she was asking for his hand in matrimony. His lack of foresight was staggering. He had never imagined any of this: the marriage, the childlessness, the other man, not even her leaving, at least not this way.
Dennis set the unread book aside and looked around the living room, at the furniture they had collected over the years, the coffee table and chairs and bookshelves that had become his daily life and would now soon be gone. He tried to see it, the apartment stripped bare of Teresa’s possessions, him left with only what he could not live without, and it frightened him how easily he could evoke the scene. For a few minutes he stared at the book on the coffee table, its cover a blurred black-and-white photo of a woman’s face shifting to the side, as if leaving. He picked up the phone and dialed her office. A woman told him that Teresa was out to lunch, but could she take a message? “Yes,” It had seemed to Dennis that she was descended from Olympus, with her cool gaze, her rare and invaluable smile, and her cutting intelligence.
Dennis said. He chose his words carefully: “Could you tell her I’ve run out of sleeping pills?” After he hung up, he unplugged the phone and took the pills from the bedroom to the bathroom, where he poured them into the toilet. It took three flushes to get rid of them all. He returned to bed and set the empty, tinted bottle on the bedside table. He propped three pillows against the headboard, crossed his legs at the ankle, and waited. He listened to the dull rumble of traffic, hoarse shouts in the street, and the squeals of cars that came too quickly to a stop; he closed his eyes. The noise of the engine is like an endlessly clearing throat. Something snaps and burns. Gasoline saturates the atmosphere. He’s falling. And when he heard her loud footsteps in the hallway moving hurriedly toward him, he was overwhelmed by the amnesia and thrill of his anticipation. E
Expression Fall 2006
A Digital Library Grows Online Those who need to access a great deal of specific information quickly and in a portable format will be interested in digitized documents.
Here are some important names and numbers behind the world’s swelling electronic library:
continued from page 6 a lot of college curriculum will be increasingly electronic,” he says. In fact, says Bolin, one example of the promise ePublishing holds can be seen in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare project, which aims to make the course materials used in the teaching of virtually all of M.I.T.’s courses available on the Web, free of charge to anyone around the world. “You could never conceive of doing that in a text/print world,” he says. Medical and law professionals are using eBooks and digital downloads more than any other group, say experts. “Medical journal articles are absolutely white hot,” says Trippe. “It’s an
enormous market.” Those who need to access a great deal of specific information quickly and in a portable format will be interested in digitized documents, Trippe and others believe. Is digital better? The big question for publishers and authors alike is whether general audience readers will take to reading on a screen. Israel understands her competition: “You’re up against the fact that the paper book is pretty much perfect technology, unless you drop it in the bathtub. It works perfectly.” Israel is also on the board of directors for the IDPF and was director of business development for the Rocket eBook in 1998.
Peter Jay Shippy ’84 Poems from Alphaville
Alphaville, an abecedarian suite written by Peter Jay Shippy ’84, an Emerson adjunct professor in writing, literature and publishing, was published by BlazeVOX Books as an eBook in 2006. (These poems are republished here with the author’s permission.) Alphaville won the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Poetry. Shippy’s first book, Thieves’ Latin (University of Iowa Press), won the 2002 Iowa Poetry Prize. His work has been published in numerous journals, and he has been awarded writing fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
10 Expression Fall 2006
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Veins ululate. The ship rides
Passages of new moonlight
A beach— Caribou Dunes—
qualmless. plaintless. One
lick kudzu jiggers. I hear glass
each face generates
night, magpies lilting
fish, erasing downriver, coal
hindsight. I just keep
Kansascity jazz in high-hat
black, aswarm. A blackbird calls
longing. Muskies
Glaswegian fada emporiums
duskward, etching frangible glitches.
nuzzle off platform
drank Chenin Blanc
Hanging in jackets, kestrels lynch
quays. Rib-caged sterns
and a beatific cord dead ends.
mice, noosing on parabolas.
turn unaccountably violet.
The eBook does have its advantages. On alum Trippe’s blog, he writes, “There’s the lower publication costs point…. There’s the faster time to market due to virtual distribution across the Web…” He goes on to note that digital books have “usability improvements such as the ability to cut and paste, annotate, and customize dynamic documents” that print books do not. He notes that updating, integrating, navigating, and disseminating information “are all part of the ‘digital is better’ formation.” Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, believes the rise of eBooks will get more people to read. “It is not about replacing books,” he told the Guardian earlier this year. “EBooks offer features that traditional books cannot….If I want a new book, I can download it instantly online, even if it is two in the morning.” Emerson Associate Professor of Writing, Literature and Publishing Douglas Whynott has been listening to what his students have to say about eBooks. “Though I think we’ll always be printing paper books, the oncoming generations, judging by what I’m hearing, are going to read [eBooks] and use them, especially as the technology improves.” Some writers with eBooks, like Emerson’s Flook (Invisible Eden), confess they prefer the traditional book. “What about the tactile pleasure of holding a book, the grain of its pages, wrestling with its moody desire to slap shut?” asks Flook. “It’s a relationship thing,” she explains. Flook does admit that her son’s generation (he’s 20) has a similar relationship to the screen. EPublishing consultant Doug Bolin points out that eBooks and projects like Google’s digital library “have serious copyright, creative control and intellectual property implications” that must be worked out before the industry can be secure.
It’s the technology, stupid! Bolin sees the eBook as just now “starting to make a comeback. And I think one of the things that’s going to make them more prevalent is the emergence of new technology,” he says. One such advancement is called E Ink. EBook readers that use E Ink will offer a more paper-like, ‘high contrast’ reading experience but use ‘ultra-low’ power consumption and enable readers to come in even less bulky forms, according to the company’s website. “E Ink is going to change the world,” enthuses Israel. She notes that prolonged battery life, clearer screens, and more comfortable interfaces will also contribute to more readers picking up eBooks. Sony has announced an exclusive deal with Borders Books in which 300 stories will carry the new Sony Reader, which uses E ink. The Reader is about the size of a slim paperback, is reportedly lightweight, easy to read from, can store hundreds of titles simultaneously as well as being able to download new titles from the Internet. The Guardian notes that some wonder if the Sony device will do what the iPod did for music. The paper notes this “will mark the first time that an eBook reader will have the backing of such a big book retailer.” Simon & Schuster’s Israel finds this an encouraging sign that the eBook market is “way back on the upswing.” In fact, Sony has worked out agreements with many of the world’s leading publishers to sell book downloads online at the Sony Connect store (akin to the iTunes music store). Israel already owns her own Sony Reader. “The first book I bought was by my old writing teacher at Emerson, Jack Gantos,” she says. “Talk about full circle!” Israel sees a future with eBooks as “inevitable.” Of course, only time well tell and, like a good book’s surprise ending, many will be guessing how the tale of the eBook turns out. E
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Project Gutenberg, the first and largest single collection of free eBooks, in September had at least 19,000 books on its site. Readers download 2 million eBooks every month from the site. Google will digitally scan the books of five major research libraries: Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library. Companies NetLibrary and ebrary now offer thousands of eBooks and innovative resources to libraries, publishers, and corporations. Conceived in 2005 by Yahoo! and The Internet Archive, Open Content Alliance will digitize collections from: European Archive, Internet Archive, National Archives (UK), O’Reilly Media, Prelinger Archives, University of California, and University of Toronto. Sony’s eBookstore launched with over 10,000 titles available from publishers Random House, Penguin, and Harper Collins, among others. Sony is discounting the books by 20 percent of the eBook list price initially. Random House is digitizing 25,000 of its titles; HarperCollins announced it will digitize all holdings. Springer Science+Business Media, the world’s largest science, technology and medical book publisher, announced the launch of a new initiative that will allow students and researchers electronic access to more than 10,000 books. The popular site Mobipocket.com offers free eBooks and sells others; top downloaded books include The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Homer’s The Odyssey, and The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. Amazon.com has a huge library of short fiction (see alumnus Olen Steinhauer’s short story on page 7) readers can download, part of their “aggressive” move into selling digital versions of many of their titles. –C.H.
11 Expression Fall 2006
The Maestro of Emerson College Scott Wheeler’s musical compositions are garnering international acclaim by Christopher Hennessy
Photos by Rick Friedman
L
ast January, composer Scott Wheeler had the night of his life. Today, sitting in his office on campus, the Emerson associate professor reclines in his chair and sighs as he recalls the evening with a dreamy smile on his face. The place was Washington, D.C. The occasion was the premiere of Wheeler’s opera Democracy: An American Comedy, commissioned by the Washington National Opera under the general direction of world-famous tenor Plácido Domingo. Wheeler’s memory of the night is clearly reflected in his bright eyes: “A full evening devoted to my work, an orchestra of 35, a cast of nine principals and 12 chorus members, three stage managers, a set designer, director, a huge house, an entire evening in a full hall! And Plácido giving me flowers and an autographed score.” Wheeler, a composer whose star has been rising over the past several years, has taught at Emerson full time since 1978 and is now an associate professor of performing arts. His roster of courses includes Music Analysis, Musical Theater Studio, and Poetry and Song. He has served as musical director for more than 20 Emerson main stage productions.
A major player Wheeler plays a song he wrote – the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay set to his original composition. With its blend of modern and classical themes, the song sounds unfamiliar and yet utterly natural, lyrical and even haunting. Wheeler looks up from the keyboard in his office on Emerson’s campus, and his eyes are twinkling with a child-like thrill. He runs his hands absent-mindedly over his distinguished-looking baldpate. As he describes the origins of the Millay piece and how he envisions the music responding to the poet’s verse, his voice slips into its own musical cadences. He begins effortlessly to recite her poetry by heart and comes to a line that makes him laugh – a machine-gun-like laugh that is surprising coming from a man as slight and unassuming as Wheeler.
But don’t let this man’s stature fool you. Wheeler is a major player in modern American music. He counts among his friends the late legendary American composer and music critic Virgil Thomson, as well as a dozen or so Pulitzer-winning composers, singers such as Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming, and musical theater composers Stephen Sondheim, Tom Lehrer and Jason Robert Brown. And since 1975, he has been artistic director of the Bostonbased Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, which the professional association Chamber Music America honored with its “Adventurous Programming” award. Fanfare Magazine calls Wheeler “a distinctive voice of true integrity…[who writes] challenging music that rewards on first listening – no mean feat.” Wheeler has composed and arranged nearly 100 pieces, including symphonies, chamber music, songs and, of course, operas. He has won major awards, fellowships and prestigious commissions (see sidebar on p. 15). And yet he shyly shuffles his scores (written in pencil – “I’m old fashioned,” he shrugs) into an unadorned folder and slides it out of sight. In addition to his concert music, Wheeler has written music for films, plays and dance, and his CDs have been released by GM Recordings and Northeastern Records. Unlike some modern composers, Wheeler’s music is seldom programmed by new-music ensembles but often by standard repertory groups such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which premiered his piano trio Camera Dances at New York’s Alice Tully Hall in 2000, in a program with Beethoven and Brahms that sold out two performances to crowds of 1,500 people.
Shadow Man, Music Man Wheeler’s office is dominated by an electric piano along one wall; the adjacent wall is lined with bookshelves containing dozens of boxed scores. (He keeps hundreds more at home, he says.) Posters from past performances, postcards and original artwork from friends adorn the rest of the office.
Résumé of an American original A vivid and arresting Impressionist painting hangs on the back wall. An Emerson colleague, now professor emerita Carol Korty, commissioned Wheeler to write a piece for her husband, painter Dale Macurdy, for his 60th birthday, and the painting served as part of his fee. The song Wheeler wrote responds to a “surrealistic Wallace Stevens’ poem with a bit of musical time travel that quotes from Mozart and Kurt Weill.” Wheeler says he gets his “biggest kick” from writing settings for poetry. How does Wheeler describe the kind of music he writes? “I write for trained classical musicians, but it’s not classical music. It’s modern music for the classical instrument and player.” If that doesn’t make sense, he might ask the questioner, “Have you heard of Stravinsky?” Wheeler’s music is typically included in concert programs with Beethoven, Mozart or Brahms. “I try in every piece to rethink what a piece of music is, to make something as fresh as I can make it, but I hope I do it in a way that anyone used to listening to Beethoven or Brahms can respond to.” Anthony Tommasini, writing in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, says, “Wheeler’s compositions remain tonally grounded, although polychordal harmonies and elements of modified serialism often run through his works. His writing is also characterized by strong rhythms and lucid textures. His vocal works are distinguished by clear, natural text settings, refined expressivity and wit. The dramatic cantata The Construction of Boston (1988) reveals a sure theatrical sensibility.” Where does Wheeler seek his inspiration? “I’ve never written a piece about the mountains or the ocean or my trip to Arizona. All my music has to do with shadows.” His latest chamber symphony is called City of Shadows; earlier titles include Shadow Bands, Shadow Dream and Shadow Box. “A shadow in music,” he says, “is effectively a memory, and all of music is about time and memory.” His ‘shadowy’ pieces evoke a psychological landscape; the listener’s emotions and perceptions shift with the music’s slinking, then soaring, fluid movements.
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Composing a composer aria of the names of other “twentiethBorn in Washington, D.C., in 1952, century masters and oddballs.” Wheeler lived in a household where But Wheeler was also listening a lot music was cherished as a part of to country singer Bonnie Raitt and rock everyday life. “My mom used to sing – group The Band. “Some jazz people she even had a show on the radio when were in my sights as well,” he says. she was a teenager.” He explains she Suddenly – sitting bolt upright, never learned to read music but is a animated – he exclaims, “Oh! And Miles remarkable vocalist nonetheless. “Her [Davis]! The ‘electric’ Miles! Bitches Brew: pitch is impeccable.” I knew that album by heart at the time.” His mother even jots down songs His early musical experiences were she thinks up and then tape records varied. As a freshman in college, them in her own voice and sends the cas- Wheeler was musical director of a “rock settes to Wheeler, asking him to send farce” called Pig at New York City’s back printed copies, an easy task for her famous La MaMa Theater. As a young son. “I know exactly what harmony’s assistant professor at Emerson, he was going on in her mind, because we in a touring production of an offlistened to Ella Fitzgerald together all my Broadway revue called Scrambled Feet, life.” where he sang, performed in skits and Wheeler’s father – who still played piano. consults for IBM, the company for Wheeler’s formative musical which he has worked most of his life – is experiences, however, remain “still very a devoted church choir tenor. Wheeler much part of what’s in back of what I enjoys singing hymns with him in the write.” He explains, “I think it’s church pew on Sundays when he is important to be in touch with the music visiting his parents’ home in Newport, that first got you going.” He admits, R.I. though, that while “one would not Wheeler began piano lessons in always hear these influences,” reviewers sixth grade. “Too late to become a often find jazz elements in his work. virtuoso,” he says, but early enough to “Music is mostly about other become an accomplished player. music, to me,” he says. “Every piece is In high school, he played keyboard about the tradition of other pieces. Even and filled in on bass guitar for a rock the fact that I’m writing for the viola, band, The Sleepless Knights. “We here” – he gestures to some work on his performed a lot of ‘blue-eyed soul’ – desk – “I’m aware of what else has been songs like “Devil in a Blue Dress,” music written for the viola and how it relates.” from bands like Mitch Ryder and the Wheeler admits the way he views Detroit Wheels and the Young Rascals,” composition is deeply philosophical. “It’s he says. “We tried to do real soul, but we about the nature of time, of a chord. were white kids in Connecticut,” he How do I feel about B flat?” he asks and laughs. He would go on to play with lets out a big, self-conscious laugh. “It’s bands up through graduate school. terribly abstract. Like a painter saying his When Wheeler went off to painting is about the color blue.” Amherst College in Massachusetts, his As for his favorites – Wagner, Verdi, parents hoped he would become a doctor, and Puccini, and Benjamin Britten – and he in fact took two years of pre-med. they all make Wheeler’s hair stand up. But the pull of music was too powerful. “And I can’t get away from Stravinsky,” he He leans back in his office chair, adds. laces his hands together and puts them behind his head, staring into space, a Friends and teachers smile broadening on his face. “I His own musical history isn’t the only remember listening on my record player thing Wheeler draws on when writing. “I in my college dorm to Edgar Varèse, talk to my former teachers in my head a Stefan Wolpe.” And he begins a veritable lot,” he says. “I ask them questions, and I listen to what they might have said. I consult Virgil [Thomson] a lot.”
Wheeler met Thomson in 1976 electric keyboard with his headphones and later studied with him briefly. The on. “I don’t like the family to listen, two became friends when Wheeler especially since my revision process conducted an “all-Thomson” concert involves so many play-throughs it would with the Emerson College Chorus in the drive anyone crazy.” spring of 1980. After Wheeler conducted For more than 20 years, Wheeler Thomson’s opera The Mother of Us All at has been married to Christen FrothingEmerson in 1981, the famed composer ham, an Episcopal priest and the couple invited Wheeler to study with him. has raised two daughters, Margaret and Thomson taught at his home, a Lizzie, ages 20 and 15. Of his family, he suite in the Chelsea Hotel in New York says modestly, “I don’t ask them to love City. “Virgil taught in the old school way,” [my music]; if they do love it, if they’re Wheeler recalls. “He actually took his interested, that’s great. But our relationpencil and eraser and changed what I ship has to be about other things.” had written.” Suddenly adopting a A break from the work – a nap, a hunched posture and taking on Thomshower, a jog – is essential, he says. son’s high and nasal voice, Wheeler Wheeler finds a nap is a great to way “to imitates, “Well, this is no good. That get some distance” from the work, shouldn’t be an F. It should be an A flat.” falling asleep with the music he is Through a friendship that lasted 13 working on still “playing” in his head. years, until Thomson’s death, the “I’ll often wake up with an idea or composer “got me started in casual solution,” he says. “[You] get close to the ways,” says Wheeler. For example, piece, in great detail, note by note, beat Thomson hired him to do orchestrations by beat. Then, everybody needs a of his work and introduced Wheeler to breathing space – backing off and important contacts and orchestras. “And looking at it, just the same as a painter Virgil’s parties were always chances to walking close to and then far from his meet all sorts of people!” beams Wheeler. painting.” (He admits he loves to attend parties Wheeler admits he works as much where he’ll have “a half sip of wine” and as possible. “I don’t take vacations. To spend the night talking to everyone from write music is like a vacation. What else artists and doctors to lawyers and would I prefer doing?” He does enjoy a scientists.) few games of tennis, but says that is It was through Thomson that something he saves for the afternoons. Wheeler became friends with another great American composer, Ned Rorem A Turning Point and other distinguished New York Wheeler had a stellar year in 2005 when musical figures, all friends of Thomson, his opera Democracy: An American who invited Wheeler to join them on the Comedy – commissioned by the Washboard of directors for the Virgil Thomington National Opera – premiered at son Foundation in New York. George Washington University. For Wheeler, it was the most memorable Tea, ‘breathing space’ and tennis evening of his career thus far. On the days Wheeler writes new work Democracy is based on a libretto by (weekends as well as the days he is not Romulus Linney, which in turn is based teaching), he gets out of bed, makes a on two century-old novels by Henry cup of tea (“Always!”), and heads to his Adams. Set in the nation’s capital in 1875, studio at home, where he writes from 6 the opera’s tale swirls around two love a.m. into the early afternoon. stories that intertwine: a socialite widow When it comes time to write, he falls in love with a powerful widower says, “I just sit quietly. I play,” he says, senator, and a young photographer falls the slightest shrug of the shoulders. “But for a charismatic Episcopal priest. The I listen in my head, and I go over it. I senator is discovered to be corrupt and listen to what I’ve jotted down.” Wheeler the preacher is more concerned with first composes in pencil, playing at an power; both women leave them “and laugh about it in the end,” says Wheeler.
Scott Wheeler studied at Amherst College, New England Conservatory, Brandeis University (where he earned his doctorate in 1984) as well as Tanglewood Music Center and the Dartington School. Wheeler’s awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Tanglewood, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and the Stoeger Award from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His works have been performed by the orchestras of Detroit, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Houston and Indianapolis, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the New England Composers Orchestra, and the New York City Opera. His opera Democracy: An American Comedy was commissioned by the Washington National Opera and premiered by them in January 2005. Wheeler has received two commissions from the prestigious Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress, the first for his symphony Northern Lights, the second for Wakefield Doubles, celebrating the New England String Ensemble’s tenth anniversary. A CD of Scott Wheeler’s works featuring the Gramercy Trio and friends is a recent release on the Newport Classic label. His work can also be heard on GM Recordings, Northeastern Records, Palexa and Koch International. In 1975 he co-founded Dinosaur Annex, a chamber ensemble devoted to the performance of contemporary music. The ensemble has given the Boston and U.S. premieres of many important works. As a conductor, Wheeler has premiered more than 100 new works with Dinosaur Annex. His guest conducting appearances include Deutsches Symphonie-orchester Berlin, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and the Wellesley Composers Conference; his conducted recordings of recent works appear on the CRI, Capstone and Newport Classic labels.
“[Democracy] is going to call ization is my favorite thing to do.” attention across the entire country,” To illustrate how Wheeler uses Domingo told The Washington Post prior music to convey the opera’s characters to its D.C. premiere. The Post called and story, he begins describing the last Wheeler a “prolific” and “gifted Ameriscene of Democracy. The corrupt senator can composer,” praised his “melodic, is revealing to his fiancée his ‘triumph’ rhythmic, and colorful score” and in implicating his political opponent, declared, “Our town has never been so President Ulysses S. Grant, in a scandal. deftly captured in an opera.” “To me the most evocative thing would be Adds Edgar Vincent, who introto give [the senator’s music] a kind of duced Wheeler to Domingo, “It was a twisted version of ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ a hell of a good evening at the opera house. kind of ragtime, folk dance that indiI don’t say that often.” Vincent enumercated the vaudeville style of a charming ates what encouraged him to commend liar.” the opera to Domingo’s attention. “I When the conversation turns to think it’s a very good libretto, because Plácido Domingo, Wheeler beams. it’s a very good comedy of manners, in During rehearsals, Wheeler says, when the American sense. And I think Scott’s only the principal performers were music reflected not only his own time, present, Domingo would sight-sing the meaning the musical language of the chorus’s musical line. “Plácido really current century, but also had a sense of cared about [the opera], watched closely, the time it takes place – the era of cast it very carefully. It was tremendous!” President Grant.” He reveals that Domingo’s praise Writing opera gives Wheeler a was instrumental in securing him a chance to do all the things he most commission for a new opera at The enjoys, he says. “But musical characterMetropolitan Opera in New York City. The commission is part of a new program from the Met and Lincoln Center Theater to foster the creation of new works from renowned composers
Artists, friends and students have something to say about Scott Wheeler
Maureen Shea, chair of Performing Arts, Emerson College: “Scott is the kind of artist/ teacher/scholar most people would say would be impossible to find in the professional and/or educational theater worlds. Professionally, he is a worldclass composer and conductor of new operas, pieces for chamber and symphony orchestras. “He is in charge of all music programs in our department, a position which includes his leadership role as the ‘Music Man’ in our Musical Theater program, leader of our Applied Music programs, and of our
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and playwrights/librettists. Other recipients include Michael John LaChiusa, Wynton Marsalis, Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner and Rufus Wainwright. The new work for the Met will take a few years, but in April 2007, Wheeler’s earlier one-act opera The Construction of Boston will be performed in concert by Boston Cecilia, conducted by Donald Teeters, at the New England Conservatory. Wheeler’s most recent piece, City of Shadows, commissioned by Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and conducted by Kent Nagano, will premiere in a portrait concert of Wheeler’s music Jan. 5, 2007, at the Kammermusiksaal in Berlin. Wheeler himself will conduct his Wakefield Doubles and The Palace at 4AM. The concert is co-sponsored by the American Academy in Berlin, which will host Wheeler as Distinguished Visitor for four weeks beginning in late December.
General Education offerings in music. He is a wonderful musical director for musical theater, a fine composer/ conductor and a great teacher of music who is equally at home with the literatures of classical and popular music. “Beyond serving as musical director for our BFA Musical Theater Studio and for musicals ranging from Weill to Bernstein and Sondheim, Scott teaches courses and has mentored a number of young composers here at Emerson who have gone on to graduate school as hopeful creators of new works and new forms for the theater. His impact on musical theater majors is immeasurable.”
Edgar Vincent, of Vincent and Farrell Associates, talks about introducing Scott Wheeler to Vincent’s client, famed tenor Plácido Domingo: “The first time I heard Scott Wheeler’s music was during a program at the New York City Opera in which exceptional new compositions were being performed for an invited audience for people in the music industry. I was there and happened to hear excerpts from Scott’s opera Democracy, and I was so taken by it that I recommended it to Plácido Domingo. What immediately impressed me about Scott’s music is that he has a language all his own. So many
Loving Life at Emerson Wheeler has been teaching full time at Emerson for more than 25 years. He says he loves teaching Emerson students, who come to his courses with all levels of musical understanding – from the novice to the highly accomplished. He motions to his computer screen, explaining that he just received an e-mail from a student who is in New York City working on her music. Wheeler has asked her to send recordings so he can hear what she is working on. He is proud not only of Emerson’s many alumni who are performing professionals but of a handful who have studied musical theater writing at the graduate level. “Every class I teach at Emerson is directly concerned with what excites me most as a composer,” Wheeler says. “When I teach a musical theater song, we focus on how the character tries to get what he or she wants through the song, how the phrases and stanzas are built into a scene. When I teach Poetry and Song, we listen to how different settings of the same words change how we hear those words. And conducting musicals in the Cutler Majestic [Theatre] has been
people think they are important composers, but in essence they are more or less copies. Scott is not!” Gerry Bergstein, distinguished artist on the faculty of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, talks about spending time with Scott Wheeler when the two met as Bogliasco Fellows in Italy earlier this year: “Scott was a congenial and stimulating housemate at Bogliasco. He is an understated and considerate person who, in his unassuming way, made this group better. We talked about our work continuously. He gave me a recording of some
the greatest education an opera composer could ever want – I’ve learned about sensing audience timings, cueing singers, covering set changes with music, and every sort of detail about lights, costumes and sets.” Rob Morrison ’05 recalls his music analysis class in which Wheeler helped students connect the intricacies of music to their acting. “We would look at the score of a show and look at every piece of instrumentation and orchestration and how it can really paint a scene for your character.” Adds Morrison, “They’re not just pretty little melodies. They can inform you of your physical action in a scene…. Scott’s teaching provided me with a launching pad [to excel]. That was such a great experience.” One of the keys to teaching music, Wheeler believes, is showing a student how music can affect the emotions. “It’s comparable to showing how the light board works backstage,” he says of teaching. “You didn’t realize that somebody pushed a button to change
your mood. That’s what can happen when you change G-sharp to G-natural.” He adds that when students understand the connection between a listener’s emotional response and a musician’s technique, “they’re on their way to being professionals.” He pauses, looks out into space, and muses on how much he’d enjoy writing a book on teaching musical theater. Someday. In between composing his next opera and a game of tennis, perhaps. E
of his music, which I found beautiful and witty, and he came to my studio several times and offered supportive and helpful comments. Meeting people like Scott is what makes residencies worth doing.”
class, imagining him surfing on a quarter note through traffic. You can tell he’s clothed in music. He’s so passionate about music; you could see it on his face during class. That’s a great quality for a professor to have.”
Rob Morrison, Emerson Class of 2005, talks about studying under Scott Wheeler:
Donald Teeters Music Director, The Boston Cecilia:
“Scott was my favorite professor at Emerson. I took two years of BFA Musical Theater, as well as Musicianship, Music Analysis, Poetry and Song, and an independent study on songwriting with Scott. We used to joke that Scott would surf on a music note to get to
“Scott Wheeler is that rare genius in the modern musical world who knows the subject inside out, from top to bottom, and from every other conceivable angle. As a composer, his aesthetic lies directly at the heart of the best trends in that field today. He is conversant with all the
methods of his predecessors and his contemporaries, and, due to his intense curiosity about all things, probably also with those who are yet to emerge on the scene – maybe not even yet born! Overriding and informing all these qualities, however, is Scott Wheeler, the Communicator. In his compositions and performances, and I’m sure in his teaching, he demonstrates this over and over again: he wants you to ‘get it’. And he is unflagging in his determination to see that you get there. A rare genius indeed!”
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Relocation of campus to Theatre District completed
E Photos by Rick Friedman
merson College has a new center for from the Back Bay to the Theatre District. college life, a simple but elegant Indiana As a result, Emerson has a comprehensive limestone and glass structure at 150 and contiguous campus for the first time in Boylston Street that rises 14 stories above its 126-year history. The building will be ground and descends three levels below officially dedicated on Oct. 20. grade. Located in the city’s Piano Row Piano Row has three components – a Historical District, the facility houses 560 residence hall, a basketball court and the students, a tournament-sized basketball Max Mutchnick Campus Center. The “Max,” court, space for student activities and orga- as it is affectionately known, is named for nizations, rooms for small group rehearsals Emerson Trustee Max Mutchnick ’87, coand informal gatherings, facilities for offcreator of the Will & Grace sitcom, who campus students and the offices of the made a major gift to support the project. Dean of Students and his staff. More than a dozen other alumni and friends The opening of the Piano Row building of the College have also contributed to the at the start of the 2006-2007 school year Piano Row building fund (see list on p. 23). marked a milestone in the history of the College, the completion of the relocation of continued on page 23 all academic and student support facilities 19 Expression Fall 2006
Home Field Advantage By Christopher Hennessy
The College’s first athletics facilities ever open amid high spirits
When Emerson’s new Piano Row building opened this fall, for the first time in the College’s history Emerson athletes had their own on-campus athletics facilities.
The men’s and women’s varsity or team, the feeling and concept new student center and athletic basketball teams and the of home field is truly important,” facility is an incredible addition women’s volleyball team will use Dawkins explains. “Not only do that gives the students another the court. The volleyball season you feel comfortable in your own outlet and provides our athletes started in mid-September, and surroundings, but a wonderful with fantastic facilities.” Santelli basketball practice begins in mid- gym and supportive fans is a played men’s golf and ice hockey, October. Both basketball and great defensive tactic against The spacious and pristine and he even went to the playoffs volleyball teams are part of the opposing teams.” facilities include an NCAA in ice hockey three times and Great Northeast Athletic tournament-sized basketball was part of the team that won court, a suite of staff offices on a Conference, and for the first time Chase agrees. “Every team needs the New England Small College mezzanine overlooking the court, ever Emerson will be able to host a home court,” he says, and the Championship in 1992 in that court the team used at Pine a glass-enclosed viewing ‘skybox’, league games on campus. sport. Manor College “just didn’t feel a state-of-the art weight room, Athletes involved in outdoor like home, and so many other four locker rooms, a large Of course, Keeling’s staff is sports will also be able to use the groups used it – literally about “ecstatic” about the new space, court on a limited basis for ten other groups using it in the the athletics director said. training sessions. winter months.” Chase says the Having a centralized suite of “home court advantage [means office spaces all on the same that] you’re ready to play. You The court measures 94 x 50, the floor “will bring the department don’t want to let anybody beat office suites 35 x 55, the weight closer together.” room 12 x 55 and the skybox 34 x you there.” 20.
A new era for athletics
meeting room, and training, equipment and storage rooms. And one more thing the Lions have been missing: their school colors. “I love the fact that we are bringing our colors back, with the huge purple sidewall,” says Basketball Co-Captain Will Dawkins. Dawkins, a junior, is impressed by the top-notch floor, hoops and rims, too, he says. “I can’t wait to break them in ASAP.” Athletics staff moved in officially Sept. 1, and players got their first chance to compete on the court Sept. 12. The women’s volleyball team took on Wentworth Institute but lost 3-2.
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Dawkins even recalls that the team had to go over pre-game information in a boiler room.
With the addition of dedicated space for athletes and a regulation court, Emerson enters Keeling believes students and coaches alike will “really take a new era for its teams, the staff ownership” of their new locker says. “Now we are as rooms and gymnasium. competitive as anyone else,” “Coaches will probably post says Athletics Director Rudy names on lockers and really Keeling. “It puts Emerson into a personalize the space [for their new stratosphere in terms of teams],” explains Keeling. “I who we can play and how we can think the kids will feel good play, how prepared we [can be]” about coming in to practice.” and may lead to other teams in the league looking at Emerson Alumni are excited about the new differently. era in Emerson athletics as well. Paul Santelli ’91, a former Most exciting for Keeling, Emerson athlete and member of however, is the fact that athletes the Emerson alumni group called will now have a space to call the Athletic Trust Fund, said, their own. “More than anything “Emerson has made great strides it will give the athletes a sense of in the past five years to raise the having a home,” he says. awareness of the College. The Basketball team co-captains Dawkins and junior Ben Chase both say the teams are excited to have a ‘home’. “For any athlete
Close to home and open to all Another plus for the space is its central location on-campus. “Hopefully, that will help the teams build a following with the students,” says Keeling. With residence halls just above the playing arena, Keeling hopes the teams will get students to come down from their rooms to watch the games and root for their fellow Emersonians. Dawkins is looking forward to “packed stands of raving fans.” Co-captain Chase adds, “Since I’ve been here Emerson students have just been getting more excited about sports. Having a home court, particularly in the winter in Boston, it’s going to be something for people to do.” Having on-campus facilities will help significantly with practice and training, say coaches and players.
Keeling recalls a time last year when the men’s basketball team left campus, during the height of a snowstorm, for a practice at the court at nearby Pine Manor College. Due to the harsh driving conditions, the team van took several hours to reach the practice location. All Emerson students, staff and faculty will be able to enjoy the new facilities through intramural activities, says Keeling. “This new space will allow the entire student body, staff, faculty – anyone who’s interested – to come in and play in a basketball league, a volleyball league, or whatever we come up with,” Keeling said. In fact, Keeling predicts the new gym will help intramural sports at Emerson
thrive. “Even more than the athletes, I think the students will really like [having the new gym].”
the Athletics Department. Thanks to an innovative public/ private partnership between Emerson and the Boston Parks In addition to intramurals like and Recreation Department, basketball, the new space will Rotch Park in Boston’s South allow the Athletics Department End, minutes from campus, has to investigate the possibility of a been renovated and Emerson fencing program, which students soccer, lacrosse, and softball have shown interest in, said teams now play there. The park Keeling. “Now that students can is now a sparkling new sports see that there’s serious athletics facility with newly installed at Emerson, they’ll come with artificial turf and night lighting more ideas. The activities that we and a new field house. In can feasibly do, we’ll try as club addition, Emerson will now have sports first,” he says. Wrestling a varsity golf team that will play may be one possibility, he added. at Franklin Park, a women’s indoor track team that will train The new gymnasium and at the Reggie Lewis Center in accompanying facilities are part Boston, and the baseball of recent growth experienced by program has been reinstated as a varsity sport after two years as a club sport.
ABOVE: Athletics Department Director Rudy Keeling is flanked by Assistant Director/Recruiter Stan Nance and Associate Director Kristin Parnell.
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Alumni Support Piano Row Project continued from page 19 “This is the final piece in our campus relocation,” said President Jacqueline Liebergott, and “we will forever be grateful to the many individuals of vision who have helped transform our dream of a new campus into a reality. “We especially thank two former chairs of the Board of Trustees – James Coppersmith and the late Charles Beard – and the current chair, Ted Cutler ’51, former Vice President for Administration and Finance Robert Silverman and Mayor Thomas Menino, who has supported us at every step along the way. We acknowledge as well the significant contributions of Trustees Marillyn Zacharis, Terry Semel, Max Mutchnick and Vin Di Bona.” “Piano Row is a signature building for Emerson College and a new focal point for College life,” said Trustee Chair Cutler. “Emerson College has come a long way since I graduated in 1951. We now have a physical campus with academic and student life facilities that are second to none. The next step is to create a truly residential campus, one that will house 70 percent of our undergraduates and create an environment that will support continuous learning and individual growth both inside and outside the classroom.” Two major projects on the drawing boards will help the College achieve this goal, he added. The first is the Paramount Center performing arts and residence complex, which will provide multiple performance and rehearsal venues, a film screening room, a residence hall for 260 students, classrooms, offices and other facilities. The other is the planned conversion of the upper floors of the Colonial Building for use as a residence hall. The College purchased the Colonial building over the summer. Dean of Students Ronald Ludman said the Piano Row building “not only completes the relocation of the ‘College on the Common,’ it creates a ‘Commons within the College.’ The Max 22 Expression Fall 2006
Mutchnick Center is the new venue for programmed as well as un-programmed activities, providing space for students, faculty, staff and alumni to congregate, collaborate, create, celebrate or just plain hang out.” The 185,000-sq.-ft. Piano Row building was designed by The Stubbins Associates architectural firm and constructed by Macomber Builders. The gymnasium, Athletic Department offices and training facilities are located on the two lowest below-grade levels (L2 and L3). Level L1 houses offices for the program coordinator and student organizations. It also provides storage cabinets and mailboxes for student organizations and has a student organization support desk. The ground floor includes a multilevel space. A grand staircase connects Level L1 to a café on the second floor. The ground floor also has a courtyard surrounded by student lounges, a meeting room, a multi-purpose room and offices, including that of the office of the director of the center. There is also an information kiosk. A suite of offices that houses the Dean of Students, Student Life, Multicultural Student Affairs, Orientation and Off-Campus Student Support Services is located on the second floor, along with a quiet lounge. Lockers for commuting students are situated in several locations. The residence hall portion of the building, which encompasses levels 314, has a separate entrance, lobby and mailroom. The student rooms are all configured in suites for four or six students. Many offer striking panoramic views of Boston Common and beyond. Construction began in March 2004. It was halted briefly in the spring of 2006 after a construction accident claimed the lives of two workers and a motorist passing by the building. A plaque honoring the memories of the three men – Robert Beane, Romildo Silva and Michael Ty, M.D. – will be permanently affixed to the building.
More than a dozen individuals and organizations have made contributions to support the construction of the facilities in the Piano Row building. In addition to Max Mutchnick ’87, these include the Emerson College Alumni Association, the Class of 1981, Jeff Arch ’76, Bonnie Comley, MA ’94, Vin Di Bona ’66, Jeff (’68) and Jan Greenhawt ’69, Gary Grossman ’70, Doug (’81) and Noreen Herzog ’81, Evelyn Horowitz ’68, Al Jaffe ’68, Howard Liberman ’68, Robert Rudnick ’77 and Linda Schwartz ’67. In addition, a meeting room will be named in memory of the late Board of Trustees Chair Charles Beard, and the training room in the gym will be named for former athletic director Jim Peckham.
Piano Row is a LEEDS-certified building, which means it utilizes stateof-the-art strategies for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system provides a national standard for developing high performing sustainable buildings. The decision to build a so-called ‘green’ building “reflects the College’s ongoing commitment to conserve energy and protect the environment,” President Liebergott said. E
23 Expression Fall 2006
Notable Expressions FILM Several alumni helped produce the Sundance Film Festival entry Quinceanera: producer Anne Clements ’98, first assistant director Ted Campbell ’97, line producer Shaun Young ’99 and gaffer Eric Forand ’03. The
feature film won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, the first year in the 22-year history of the Festival that this feat has occurred. Quinceanera is the story of a teenage girl who discovers she is pregnant, is kicked out of her house, and finds
a new family with her great-grand uncle and a gay cousin. The Big Bad Swim, a film written and executive-produced by Daniel Schechter ’05, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last spring. The film, about a group of people all afraid of the water who join an adult swim group, proved to be so popular that the Tribeca organizers added an additional screening. Mike Doto ’97 made his directorial debut with Peace, starring Kurtwood Smith (That ’70s Show) and Nancy Lenehan (Catch Me if You Can, Pleasantville). The film has screened at about a dozen festivals and won the Columbine Award at the 2006 Moondance Film Festival. The movie captures the marital discord of characters Howard and Betty, focusing on the couple’s bumpy relationship after Howard retires.
Eric Brun-Sanglard ’84, star of A&E’s Designing Blind
A short film by Andrea Janakas ’98 called Gypsies, Tramps, & Thieves has screened at numerous recent festivals, including the Seattle International Festival, Frameline’s 30th Annual San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival and L.A.’s Outfest Film Festival. The short film explores a teenage girl’s struggle to find her identity in a small town.
A scene from the film Quinceanera.
Daniel Schechter ’05 (right) wrote and produced The Big Bad Swim, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
TELEVISION Eric Brun-Sanglard ’84 stars in the A&E Network’s new “home-makeover series with a twist,” called Designing Blind. The series will follow Brun-Sanglard, a noted designer and creative director who lost his sight in 1995. Brun-Sanglard “will employ modern technology, including talking tape measures and a voice-operated laptop to make his assessments.” The Emerson alum has designed the homes of many of Hollywood’s elite. Michelle Landry ’94 was one of just four young women profiled on a new reality show called How to Get the Guy (ABC). The show followed single women as they search for love in and around San Francisco. Landry, who is also a lawyer, is labeled “the career girl” in the six-episode series from Emmy Award-winning producers David Collins and David Metzler. Elizabeth Ann Bonner ’04 recently competed as a contestant for SOAPNet’s I Wanna Be a Soapstar, where budding actors attempt to win a 13-week contract on
Elizabeth Ann Bonner ’04 competed on TV’s I Wanna Be a Soapstar.
ABC’s One Life to Live soap opera. Bonner made it to the top three but did not win. SOAPNet’s website proclaims, “This beauty also has the brains as she knows sign language and can play the violin….” Paul Morra ’95 and his company Swift River Productions produced and created a new 20-week series for the Independent Film Channel (IFC) called The Henry Rollins Show. Rollins is an outspoken rocker, author and performer who is front man for the Rollins Band. The show includes various hot musical acts and celebrity guests as well as Rollins’ own irreverent take on the talk-show monologue, and other original segments on pop culture and politics.
THEATER Michael Boothroyd ’87 adapted and directed Stars in My Eyes, a show that captures some of “the stories (and excesses) of Hollywood’s Golden Age” through the poems of poet Edward Field. The show was produced at New York City’s WorkShop Theater as part of the Seventh Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival. Paul Kreppel ’69 and Bonnie Comley, MA ’94, are producing top ventriloquist Jay Johnson’s new live show The Two and Only!, a solo play about Johnson’s relationship with the ancient art of ventriloquism. Kreppel is co-conceiver/director/producer. Comley is co-producer. The pre-Broadway run began last summer at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. Danny O’Connor ’04 produced and staged his own one-man comedy show
called ZERO, which ran at the Addison Theater Center and the Hub Theater in Dallas as well as at the Breadline Theater in Chicago this month. ZERO, O’Connor says, takes the audience through the day and night of an unemployed actor. The Dallas Observer says, “O’Connor, who resembles a young Jim Belushi, has a sharp ear for profane manspeak.”
RADIO The Boston Globe recently published a profile on Cherry Martinez ’97, a deejay at a hip-hop station in New York City who, the Globe says, is “heating up N.Y. radio.” Martinez now hosts the Power After Hours program, airing weekdays from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Power 105.1 FM. She has
also hosted the 6-10 p.m. show, the number one evening program in the city among listeners 12 and older.
MUSIC Up-and-coming musical talent Jen Murdza ’96 was profiled in the Boston Herald, which described her as “a confident, sultry yet powerful singer [whose] songwriting is mature and rife with emotional conflict…. Murdza has started her own company and produced her debut, Things Untold, a fivesong EP.
NEW MEDIA Jamie Silberhartz ’04 is starring as Rachel Blake in Internet episodes that “fill in story lines” from the hugely successful ABC drama Lost, reports the Boston Globe. The episodes “are part of a digital alternate reality game called ‘The Lost Experience’ and have developed a large, devoted following in cyberspace,” reports the Globe.
Alumni Digest A message from the president of the Alumni Association
Peter Loge ’87
The College’s new campus center is a reflection of where Emerson is as well as where it came from and where it is going. The new buildings, new faculty and new opportunities are reflections of us, the alumni. Many of us are entrepreneurs, and the Emerson Experience in Entrepreneurship program is helping prepare the next generation of independent business leaders. Emerson alumni are driving changes in the entertainment industry, and the new facilities are preparing students for the new media world. Emerson alumni are engaging and improving our
civic life, and the faculty at Emerson is preparing current students to be agents of social change. That our facilities bear the names of alumni is important. We tell current students that their success is built on the commitment and success of their predecessors. The plaques and marquees tell students that they are not moments in time, but rather part of the larger story of Emerson College. It says that ours is a College that is constantly pushing and challenging – and that we do so from a point of history, from a foundation of ideas, and from a commitment to communication. The names around campus also remind us,
Comedy Showcase marked 30 years of Emerson comedy the alumni, that we are connected to each other. We celebrate each other’s successes; we connect and reconnect in new cities, and find ways to help each other out. This connection has been made easier by the online community at www. EmersonAlumni.com. On this website we can post jobs, share news and promote our projects. If you haven’t already signed up, go ahead. Bookmark the page, take some time to tell us where you are and what you’re doing, and find out what classmates are up to. And stay a part of the Emerson story. — Peter Loge ’87, president, Emerson College Alumni Association
A comedy show presented in September at the College’s Cutler Majestic Theatre celebrated 30 years of comedy at Emerson College with performances by renowned alumni comics. Clockwise from top left are: current senior Elisha Yaffe, comedian Steven Wright ’78, audience members actress Andrea Martin ’69 and Friends producer Kevin Bright ’76, and comedian Bill Dana ’50. Other performers were Denis Leary ’79, Anthony Clark ’86, Tom Shillue ’89, Bill Burr ’93 and Eddie Brill ’80. Doug Herzog ’81, president and CEO of Comedy Central, introduced the show.
Alumni Association creates Scholarship Endowment Fund At its March 2006 meeting, the Emerson College Alumni Association Board of Directors committed $25,000 toward the establishment of an Alumni Association Scholarship Endowment Fund. The fund provides financial support for undergraduate and graduate students. To supplement the Association’s initial endowment gift, the Board hosted the College’s 125th Anniversary Alumni Weekend Purple and Gold Ball and gala auction during this past
June’s reunion weekend. The auction generated an additional $50,000 for the scholarship fund, bringing the total to $75,000. “This is an undeniably powerful message that the Alumni Association is sending to the entire Emerson community,” stated Peter Loge ’87, president of the Alumni Association. “Our board is committed to providing students with the
CONNECTICUT financial resources that will allow them to benefit from the full range of experiences that Emerson has to offer.” The Emerson College Alumni Association Scholarship Endowment Fund will present a minimum annual grant in the amount of $2,500 to full-time undergraduate and full-time graduate students who meet the financial aid criteria set by the College’s Financial Services Office. However, it is the objective of the Alumni Association Board to support students for their
full four-year undergraduate or two-year graduate term. The board will continue to contribute to the endowment with the intention of providing multiple scholarships each year to deserving students. President Jacqueline Liebergott said the scholarship fund will make a significant difference in the lives of many students. “This act of generosity addresses a core need and will benefit stu-
dents for years to come. We look forward to announcing the inaugural recipients of the scholarship and supporting the Alumni Association’s campaign to increase the fund and encourage its future growth.” To learn more about the Emerson College Alumni Association Scholarship Endowment Fund or to find out how you can contribute to the Fund directly, please contact Barbara Rutberg, director of Alumni Relations, at (617) 824-8275 or barbara_rutberg@emerson. edu.
Connecticut Alumni Chapter presidents Camilla Ross ’89 and Sharon Lefkin Jacobson ’74 hosted an Emerson Comedy Showcase in Hartford in July, featuring some of Emerson’s upand-coming comedians.
Welcome to Emerson’s Career Connection!
Alumni Weekend 2006
“Experience...Emerson’s Career Connection” is the name of Career Services’ new way to connect alumni and students with internships, jobs and career resources. Employers post opportunities for Emerson students and alumni directly on the Experience Network, and thousands of additional opportunities are available via Experience. In the future, users will be able to use Experience to view the Career Services calendar, to RSVP for events, and find alumni career advisors and mentors – or volunteer to be one. Signing up is easy. To create an Experience account, users must have an Emerson e-mail address. Users without an Emerson e-mail account should visit the Emerson College Online Alumni Community at www. emersonalumni.com (click on Forward for Life on the left side of the page) to sign up for free e-mail forwarding for life. Once this e- mail account is established, the user may contact Career Services at (617) 824-8586 for a temporary password. The Emerson e-mail address serves as a username. Alumni who are also employers may post internship and job opportunities free of charge. Visit www.emerson. edu or call (617) 824-8586 for more information about Experience.
More than 500 alumni, guests and friends attended Emerson College’s Alumni Weekend, June 2-4, 2006, which concluded with the Purple and Gold gala on Saturday night. The gala marked the College’s 125th anniversary and included silent and live celebrity auctions, which raised scholarship funds (see p. 26), a presentation of Alumni Achievement Awards, din-
ner and dancing. The weekend also highlighted a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Kasteel Well, Emerson’s European study program, with executive director Dulcia Meijers.
Boston Pops Orchestra; the second annual presentation of the Walt Littlefield Distinguished Speaker, and “Coffee with Coffee,” a chance to chat with retired Associate Professor John Coffee.
Also part of the Alumni Weekend events were a presentation by comic Bill Dana ’50 and Robert Fleming, the College’s archivist on The American Comedy Archives at Emerson College; a performance at the
Alumni awards and recognition presentations were made to honor a number of people whose professional accomplishments and positive contributions have been a tribute to Emerson College.
Andrew Kline ’87 (center), was the recipient of the Walt Littlefield Distinguished Speaker award, which was presented by Walt Littlefield (right). Stuart Sigman, dean of the School of Communication, looks on. The award highlights the work of an alumnus/a who has excelled in an area of communication practice dear to Littlefield. Kline will return to campus this fall to participate in one or more events over the course of a day.
President Liebergott with Tory Johnson ’92, founder and CEO of Women for Hire, and Peter Loge ’87, president of the Alumni Association.
Entertainers Eddie Brill ’80 and Henry Winkler ’67 at the celebrity auction.
Sam Presti ’00 (center), assistant general manager of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team, received the Young Alumni Achievement award from President Liebergott and Peter Loge.
Adele Jonah Warner ’56, Mike Tienken ’56, Chuck Abert ’57 and Ron Hall ’56. Adele and Mike became re-acquainted over Alumni Weekend, resulting in their engagement to be married.
Chet Brewster ’86, Paul Tetreault ’84, President Liebergott, Marc Douthit ’86 and Bart Phillips ’86
From left are Sara Karwacki ’00, Donald Cowan ’96, Andrew Dadekian ’96, Kristi (Taylor) Dadekian ’96, Melissa Jubinville ’96, Elina Kotlyar ’96, MSSp ’98, and Myrna Toledo ’96.
President Liebergott with Paul Tetreault ’84, producing director of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and Peter Loge.
Members of the Class of 1981.
Joan Cutler, Emerson board chair Ted Cutler ’51 (winner of the Issachar Hoopes Eldridge Award), President Liebergott, Rob Silverman, and Peter Loge. A special presentation was made to Silverman, outgoing vice president for administration and finance for the College. “He stabilized the College’s finances, built an endowment, created a wellfunctioning administrative structure for the school and together with President Liebergott created a campus on the common,” said Peter Loge.
President Liebergott with Terry Nance ’73, assistant vice president of multicultural affairs and an associate professor at Villanova University, and Peter Loge.
From left: Betty Hughes Morris ’35, President Liebergott and Mary Dentler O’Keefe ’36
Class Notes
Seven New Alumni Join Alumni Association Board Today’s alumni association serves more than 26,000 alumni from around the world with regional chapters in Greater Boston, New York, South Florida, Southern California, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Denver and Connecticut. The board of directors acts as a governing body and manages the affairs of the Association. The Board consists of members of the executive committee, members-at-large, and presidents of all regional chapters. Association board members are selected through a nomination and election process that takes place every March. Each year the Alumni Board works in cooperation with the Alumni Relations Office to set an agenda and develop programs, events and initiatives. The seven newly elected board members are: Dan Bigman ’92, Mariae Caballero, MA ’00, Max Felder ’82, Maura Tighe Gattuso ’81, Jon Iarrobino ’98, Glenn Jones ’99 and Susan Strassberg ’78. Dan Bigman ’92 is managing editor of Forbes.com, where he oversees the day-to-day editorial operations of the site, leading a 60-person newsroom in New York as well as bureaus
in Hong Kong, London, Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and Mumbai, India. Bigman was formerly with NYTimes. com, where he spent more than six years, running the site’s coverage of the war in Iraq, the 2004 elections and many other events. Max Felder ’82 is director of the cause-related marketing division of The Leverage Group in New York City. Prior to joining TLG, Felder orchestrated the marketing and public relations efforts at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, a New York-based nonprofit organization. Felder lives with his wife, Kate Ryan ’82, and their two teenagers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Jon D. Iarrobino ’98 is assistant vice president for university advancement & director of organizational development and human capital management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He earned his doctoral degree from Boston University in administration, leadership & policy studies. While earning his doctorate, he worked in institutional advancement at Emerson College and then at Boston University’s School of Management. Iarrobino lives in Pittsburgh with his partner, Justin Croteau.
Glenn Jones ’99 is a general assignment TV reporter, most recently for FOX25 News in Boston. Prior to that Jones was the weekend anchor for the NBC affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla. While there, he covered the 2000 Florida election recount and numerous launches from the Kennedy Space Center. He is an active supporter of ABCD, Boston’s anti-poverty organization. Susan Strassberg ’78 is a jewelry maker in the Princeton, N.J., area. After graduating from Emerson, she moved to New York City, working on Good Morning America and subsequently at EUE Screen Gems. She subsequently studied at the National Arts Academy. Strassberg and her family moved in 1990 to New Jersey, where she raises her two teenage daughters. Maura Tighe Gattuso ’81 owns one of the most well-established casting businesses in the Northeast. She specializes in New York and Boston casting, working with local clients as well as producers in New York and Los Angeles. She lives in Scituate, Mass., with her husband, Paul Gattuso ’79, and two daughters. Mariae Caballero, MA ’00, is also newly elected to the board.
John Ring, Picture Perfect Studios, Newport, R.I.
Comedy Gathering
SEND YOUR NEWS TO US! New job? Received an award? Recently engaged or married? New baby? Moving? Write to barbara_rutberg@emerson.edu or mail the form on page 36.
1950 Nanette (Andre) Clark is still writing for the Small Farmers Journal as well as doing yoga and playing dominoes. She is a member of the Hilltown Task Force To End Domestic Violence and speaks out to spread awareness of domestic violence. Nan sends hugs to all in Zeta.
1958 The husband of June August Zorn, Jay Zorn, died July 31, 2006. He was an educator, conductor, musician and author as well as a past president of the California Music Educators Association and a recipient in 2003 of the Ramo Music Faculty Award from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
1959 The Joe Murphy ’85 Comedy Award reception, held on campus in the spring, was attended by (front row, from left): Matt Cohen ’05 and Joe Randazzo ’03; (back row, from left): Mike Bent ’82, Alexander Barrett ’06, Justin Walcroft ’04, Gerry Izzo ’82, Anne Kenny ’85; not shown is Erin McGhee’03. The award is given each year by family members, alumni and friends in honor of Joe’s memory to a graduating senior entering the comedy field. Nearly all of the past award recipients attended this year’s reception, including the founders of the award, Kenny and Izzo.
Raymond Dempsey writes: “Emerson College has a James Bond connection.” Raymond contributed an essay to a new book called James Bond in the 21st Century: Why We Still Need 007 (Benbella Books).
1961 Linda (Greenbaum) Green is now retired and is enjoying her nine grandchildren. She often visits Israel to see some of them. She remembers her Emerson years fondly: “My Emerson years were some of the best years of my life.”
1963 Edward Darna is now fully retired and enjoying a new home in the mountains of Maine ski country. His first great-grandchild was born in March 2006. Edward and his wife marked their 39th wedding anniversary in August.
1968 Diane (Vagramian) Austin will be an invited guest lecturer at the First International Creative Arts Therapy Conference, to be held in Tokyo in November. She will also teach a music psychotherapy workshop in Korea. Diane is on the music therapy faculty at New York University, where she received her doctorate. Ralph Maffongelli was selected as one of the “45 People Who Have Made a Difference in Sheboygan (Wis.) County” by the Sheboygan Press. Ralph is director of the Sheboygan Theatre Company. The paper reports that his work with the theater for the past 25 seasons “brings quality theater to the area.”
NO ONE KNEW EVERYONE, BUT EVERYONE KNEW SOMEONE. A feisty group of Emerson women got together for dinner in New York in August. From left are Marion Cantone ’66, Tracy Goss ’67, Nancy Hintlian ’66, Iris Groman Burnett ’68, MSSp ’70, Susie Harris Zweig ’68, Rhoda Cutler ’66 (standing), Karen Blumenthal North ’68, MSSp ’77, and Sheila Tessler Trichter ’66 (standing). They represented careers in theater, political and corporate communications, technology, real estate, banking, teaching, TV production, leadership development, human resources management, business, process planning, training and development, art marketing, blog writing, and business and political campaign strategy.
John Meunier ’53 is a lector in his church – “a talent fine-tuned by my Emerson College education.” He also writes poetry and short stories and has collected them in his self-published Free To Be. He says, “Emerson College grads can be an important addition to any community in which they live.”
1969 Paul Kreppel has remained involved in theater and television for his entire career. He is currently co-conceiver/director/producer of Jay Johnson: The Two and Only!, which opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre in September. Bonnie Comley, MA
’94, is also a producer of the show. Paul has two children: Will, 20, a music technology major at CalArts, and Molly, 18, a photography major at Vancouver’s Emily Carr Institute.
In Memoriam 1935 Esther M. Doyle of Huntington, Pa. 1944 Mary F. White of Keene, N.H. 1951 Anita Travaglia White of Olean, N.Y. 1953 Kenneth C. Roman of Westbrook, Conn. 1959 Richard P. Johnson of Scarborough, Maine 1963 Patricia (Cross) Taetsch of Hartford, Conn. 1972 Patricio Saavedra of Richmond, Va. 1984 Paul Cook of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 1994 Jason Edward LaRosa of New York, N.Y. 1997 (M.A.) Jane L. Skober from Riverdale, N.Y. 1998 Andre V.T. Dec of Butler, Pa. 1998 Rob Meunier
1970
1972
Andrea Liftman has retired after 36 years of teaching in the Swampscott Public School System. Family, friends and colleagues honored her in June. She was recently elected president of the Omega Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma. She is also planning to relax and travel. She would love to hear from friends at acliftman@yahoo.com.
Marsha Gitkind Partington said it was great fun to be “on the boards” again, stage managing her daughter Cara’s high school production of Fame.
1971 Fritz Szabo recently designed Suddenly, Last Summer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I. This winter he will collaborate on Adrian Hall’s premiere of Christians, Savages and other Homo Sapiens. Szabo teaches at the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program, where he is principal scenic designer.
1973 David Glasofer owns a commercial photography studio in Metuchen, N.J. He does photo restoration, retouching and image manipulation.
1974 Nan Gilbert recently accepted the position of managing director at Jeanne Ruddy Dance in Philadelphia. Prior to the new position she was assistant director at the University of the Arts’ School of Theater Arts. William Pacer is proud of his daughter, Kerry Pacer, and other students who “fought valiantly for their rights” by pushing for the creation of a gay-straight alliance at their high school in Gainesville, Ga. Kerry was named “Person of the Year” in 2005 by Advocate magazine.
Donna (Copman) Speers recently published a book of poetry, The Darkness will Hide Me (Ice Cube Press). She writes: “I am very excited. I’ve been working on it a long time.”
1976 The Rev. Suzan (Johnson) Cook has written a new book, Live Like You’re Blessed, which has gone into its third printing at Doubleday. She is a motivational speaker and minister and received an Emerson Distinguished Alumni Award in 1992. George McRae is playing a supporting role in a film with John Ratzenberger of Cheers fame (lots of memories of the Bull and Finch!). He is also very active in SAG/AFTRA union work. He has been married for 11 years to Heidi Rand, a staff attorney for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They live in El Cerrito, Calif. “I still have most of my hair! Best to all from those days.”
1975
1979
1984
Brenda Greenberg recently accepted a position at Blueprint Entertainment, located in Toronto and Los Angeles, as vice president of creative affairs.
Kenneth Arnold recently underwent a kidney transplant after two and a half years of kidney dialysis. Miraculously, he says, his wife was a match and the donor. They are both recovering nicely in Arizona. Ken is enjoying retirement and trying to keep busy.
Jon Boroshok lives in Groton, Mass., with wife Caren, daughter Stephanie and son Tyler. He has been running his own public relations firm, TechMarcom, since 1999. He is also working as a journalist with articles in The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Christian Science Monitor and other media. He is an adjunct instructor of marketing communications at Emerson and would love to hear from old friends and former students at jb@ Techmarcom.com.
Ann (Lebowitz) Monsky is a speech and language pathologist living near her hometown in Pennsylvania. She and her husband have two teenage sons, Jeremy and Scott. She says she’s still very close to Fern ’75, Fran ’75 and Jane ’74.
Zelda Gordon is co-owner and managing editor of Amador Publishers LLC in Albuquerque, N.M.
1977
1981
John Glynn’s revision of his Commentary and Reference Survey (Grand Rapids: Kregel) will be published later this year.
Byron Cameron is senior vice president of Thirdeye Design Group, which designs television brand identity packages.
Chester Marcus, owner of Tryon Park Records, has released a new world music album, El Angel Mexaton. Chet, known at Emerson as Lee, started producing music while at Emerson and had a show on WERS.
James Schpeiser and Patty are proud to announce the birth of their baby girl, Olivia, on May 9, 2005, in Newton, Mass.
Eric Brun-Sanglard ’84 stars in A&E Network’s new “homemakeover series with a twist” called Designing Blind. The series will follow Eric, a noted designer and creative director who lost his sight in 1995. Eric has designed the homes of many of Hollywood’s elite.
1983
1985
Richard Kassirer is celebrating his second anniversary publishing his free online music magazine, Modern Acoustic. He writes, edits and designs all the material in each issue and built the website.
Juanita Rodrigues performed in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot with Company One in Boston this summer.
Television producers Vin Di Bona ’66 and Erica Gerard married July 1 in Beverly Hills, Calif., in a lavish ceremony and reception. Their on-again, off-again courtship was signified by distributing keepsake crystal orb clocks bearing the legend “It’s About Time” as party gifts. Vin is a four-time Emmy winner and is producer of America’s Funniest Home Videos – at 17 years the longest running television series in ABC Television history.
Michelle Solomon is news editor and writer for Celebrity Week: Where Hollywood meets the Las Vegas Strip. Her syndicated Celebrity Chatter is heard on radio station WGY-AM in Albany, N.Y., and in print in Woman’s Lifestyle Detroit magazine.
1986 Marianne Gellert-Jones married Thomas Andrew Jones in October 2005. She has worked as a speech-language pathologist for the past 15 years and focuses on the areas of AAC, dysphagia, and respiratory dysfunction with the pediatric neurologically impaired population.
Carole (Chavanne) VerEecke ’68 is happy to announce that, in addition to her degree from Emerson earned in 1968, this year she received a B.F.A. in creative writing from Brooklyn College. She is working on a memoir that includes her days at Emerson. She and husband Jim have two daughters – Helene, 23, and Simone, 19.
Francesca Vanegas ’78 started three companies in the last 11 years and is now director of Yes To Yoga in southwest Florida. She has advanced certifications in both Forrest and Kripalu yoga. She writes: “Emersonians! Come visit Florida when it gets too cold wherever you are!”
James Humphrey was named director of media relationsadvertising for Gourmet magazine (Conde Nast). He also oversees Conde Nast’s Intranet Online Pressroom for all 26 of their consumer titles, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Vogue, Architectural Digest, and GQ.
James hosted several Emerson students during Emerson’s 2006 “New York Connection,” where current students meet alumni in various fields.
Robert Stafford is proud to announce the birth of his daughter, Leah Rose Stafford, on June 13, 2006.
1987 Sheryl H. Abrams is owner of PTI Talent Agency in Sherman Oaks, Calif. Peter Loge and Zoë Beckerman were married May 14 at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Robert Toombs moved to Los Angeles a few years ago and is an executive producer on Zen Noir, an independent feature film in limited release. The movie was written and directed by Marc Rosenbush ’88 and one of the co-producers is Ellen Groves ’87.
1988
1993
Mark O’Toole is senior vice president for TravMedia an international travel news service for journalists, in addition to his role at The Castle Group, Inc., a Boston-based PR firm. Mark encourages any Emersonians working in marketing for travel companies to contact him.
Darcie (Medas) Fisher recently won a New England Regional Emmy Award in the Health and Science category for her reporting at WLVI-TV in Boston. Darcie has been employed there since 1993 and became the station’s health reporter in 2000.
1989
Josh Knauer ’87 married Tracy on Sept. 17 in Montpelier, Vt. Josh is the on-air personality at WORK-FM (101.7) in Barre and can be reached at knauernvr@charter.net. From left are: Kathi Schaeffer ’87, Jen Cattin ’85, Ellen Bosch (Dolgins) ’86, Tracy, Jo
Melissa Clark’s first novel, Swimming Upstream Slowly, will be published this fall by Broadway Books/Random House.
Julie (Hallowell) Vulpescu ’90 celebrated her 14th wedding anniversary with husband Constantin. She is currently studying for the New York and Connecticut bar exams. Her children, Alex, 13, and Nicky, 10, are members of the New York City Opera Children’s Chorus.
1990
1991
Brenda Brien and husband Jason are the proud parents of a baby boy, Steven Alexander Brien, born June 22, 2006, in Providence, R.I.
Marc Dube and wife Eileen have a new daughter, Evelyn Elise, born March 20. Marc is a writer/producer for CSI: Miami. Karen Moroney and Anthony Tito had a baby, Olivia Maureen, in May. Karen has been working at Forbes magazine for the past 11 years managing the events department and was recently named executive director of hospitality and operations. Friends can reach Karen at ktito@forbes.com. Michael Smith’s second book, Generation Oscar: 50 Modern Movie Classics (iUniverse), has been released. Michael uses the pen name Randolph Michaels.
Keith Markinson ’91 is directing and producing the stage production of A Kids Life!, which is aimed at preschoolers. The show is going on national tour in 2007.
Evelyn (Berman) Wright and Mark Wright are proud to announce the birth of a boy, Hayden, on Dec. 27, 2005, in Atlanta. “Wanted to let friends that I’ve lost touch with know
Suzi Sims Fletcher, MA ’93, was selected for a fellowship to go to Mugla University in Turkey to teach speech for 10 months.
that I got married, had a kid, and am still doing the puppet thing.”
Ted Griffith won a Gerald Loeb award as part of team coverage of the sale of credit card giant MBNA for The News Journal in Delaware, where Ted is a reporter.
1992
1994
Mark Kanegis has opened the Kanegis Gallery of Fine Art Photography in Rockport, Massachusetts (formerly on Newbury Street in Boston for over 30 years).
Michelle (Gerard) Arst has a new job at Peter Strain & Associates Talent Agency as a talent agent for actors in New York and Los Angeles. She and her husband live in Manhattan and will soon celebrate the first birthday of daughter Samantha.
Marj Kleinman has a website on her travels to Japan (mosaicmarj.com). She writes: “Missing Emerson and thinking of the Avenue Q song, ‘I wish I could go back to college’.” Carmen Wolf is program director for Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants Inc. in Sun Valley, a nonprofit retail California native plant nursery, book and seed store and education center. She has a blog and does freelance writing about native plants. In 2001 she married Mike Bauman. They live in Los Feliz with four pets. Carmen is at nativeharmony@mac.com.
Karen Block and Darren Shepard were married on July 13, 2003. They live in Richmond, Calif. Alumni Dina (Johnson) Rogers and Rachel (Smith) Dubuque attended, along with Linda Thompson, formerly of the Performing Arts department at Emerson. Karen worked in children’s theater for years and then changed careers. She is a researcher in university relations at University of California, Berkeley, and has started Blockworks Children’s Theatre. Michelle Landry ’94 says she ended up on the TV show How to Get The Guy “by some bizarre twist of fate.” The show, which aired for six weeks last summer, is the latest project from the Queer Eye For The Straight Guy people. Matt Michnovetz has penned several episodes of the Emmynominated Fox series 24, now starting its sixth season. Matt is married and lives in Los Angeles.
Eric Bruno Borgman ’92 recently released his Revolutionary War comedy, The Deserter, on DVD. Eric wrote, directed and produced the film, which was inspired by the high rates of desertion in the British Army during the American Revolution.
Jeff Jamison ’93 and wife Alissa Lee Edmunds Jamison had their first child, Harper T. Jamison, in February 2006. Jeff recently graduated from Harvard Law School and was the recipient of the David Westfall Memorial Dean’s Award for Community Leadership. Jeff and his family will be relocating to Chicago, where he will be working for the law firm of Katten Muchin Rosenman.
1995 Kate Worthington Poitras and husband Brian are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Eleanor Grace, in October 2005. She has a big sister, Madeleine, who is 3 years old.
1996 Stephanie Baxendale sold her first screenplay. The TV movie, Christmas in Boston, aired on ABC Family Channel during the 2005 holiday season. Friends can get in touch with her at stbaxendale@ yahoo.com.
Joshua Finn writes, “Having a wedding six months after Katrina hit New Orleans was stressful but we felt we had to do our part to bring people back. With its music, culture and food it turned out to be the perfect place! If you have a chance to go, definitely pay a visit. [New Orleans] still needs all the help it can get.” Keith Wagner, MFA ’96, and Julie Wolf, MFA ’99, are happy to announce the birth of their third child, Lila Allegra Wolf-Wagner, in Boston on June 18. She joins Rachel, 5, and Benjamin, 2. The family lives in Framingham.
A first novel by Mori Ponsowy ’99, Los Colores de Inmaculada, has just been published in Spain. She wrote the first chapters of the novel in Christopher Tilghman’s workshop, but finished writing it a few years after graduating from Emerson. In Spain the book won the Diputacion de Caceres Novel Prize.
1997 Christopher Dea, MA ’97, is using some of the skills he acquired at Emerson teaching theater in Hong Kong. After setting up the first deaf/ blind program in the state, Brooke Kaplan left Alabama and is now a nationally certified American Sign Language interpreter working in Ventura, Calif. She’s looking for any classmates in the area. Irene Melo is set to self-publish her first novel, How Far Would You Go?
1998 Andrew Bodenrader has been promoted to associate academic dean at Manhattanville College, where he is also starting his seventh year as a faculty member in the English/writing department. Giovanna Galligani was recently promoted to producer for the show The Bachelor on ABC. Brent Vallee is pursuing a counseling degree at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Fla.
1999 Charles Alpert and wife Lara welcomed the arrival of their new daughter, Annabelle, this year.
Mary Ann Cicala ’99 and Rebecca Dornin ’00 are happy to announce their engagement. The wedding ceremony will take place in late summer of 2007. Mary Ann took part in the Harbor to the Bay Ride: 126 miles from Boston to Provincetown in September to benefit local AIDS and HIV organizations. Danielle Ledesma was recently commissioned by Natural History New Zealand, owned by Fox Television Studios in conjunction with Disney Networks, to develop and create a documentary multi-part series on people who have been close to getting murdered and have lived to tell their story. She most recently worked on a BBC pilot for The Learning Channel and will now be heading West for this new venture. Melissa (Eaton) Lynch and Ryan Lynch ’98 are the proud parents of an “amazing” little girl, Sally, born Feb. 11, 2006, in Burbank, Calif. Jace Mortensen is writing an organic gardening column for Drweil.com, the popular Dr. Andrew Weil website. Amanda Nichols has been writing for Chunklet magazine since 2002. The magazine recently published a book called Chunklet Presents the Overrated Book: The Only Book You’ll Ever Need. She writes: “If you’re an obsessive music fan with a sense of humor, seek out Overrated.”
in Taiwan in November were Jojo Chang ’03, Jenny Chen, Chi-Yuan Ning ’03, Elain Tsao, Liza Chien ’03, Joo-Hyun Oh ’03 and June Wei ’03.
Alisa Libby ’99 has released her first young adult novel, The Blood Confession (Dutton Children’s Books), a gothic horror novel based on the legend of the 16th-century Hungarian Countess Bathory.
2000 Amy Haffner recently became a motion picture costumer Local 705 member. Since then she has worked on many projects, including Day Break, an NBC series that premiered this fall. Michelle Ziomek has been selected to serve a two-year ambassadorship with the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network’s Celebration on the Hill in Washington, D.C., to promote cancer awareness.
2001 Terry Chang ’01 and wife Cheri celebrate the birth of their first baby boy, Baron Ray. The Changs live in Santa Rosa, Calif.
Dave Constine has started a new high-end production house called Digital Geek Productions in Kansas City, Mo., with Chris Silvey. Prior to this, Dave was working as director of photography and senior production specialist for a top production house. Rich Overton is the force behind RJO Artist Relations and Management in New York. He started his career as the first male radio host of Women in Music on WERS, interviewing artists such as Cyndi Lauper, Patti Larkin and Ferron. Later he worked for Virgin Records and other companies.
Alexis Clements ’02 had the world premiere of her play, The Interview, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this past summer. The Interview, she says, explores a world where “the government controls our choices in order to keep us safe and healthy.” Jeff Daniels directed a Food Network docu-reality series called Ace of Cakes starring celebrity chef Duff Goldman. The show will air throughout the fall. Emerson alumni and cameraman Matt Carr ’03 and camera assistant Justin Gunari ’05 also worked on the production. Jason Grossman is coordinating producer of Laughing Liberally, a political comedy show, which included Emerson alums Julie Goldman and Dean Obeidallah when the show ran in Boston over the summer.
Annie Schreiber is excited to begin a year of service with the Catholic Charities in Minneapolis as a volunteer specialist in the Volunteer Resources department. She’d love to hear from old friends at LdyAnne25@aol.com. Talia Whyte will travel to South Africa this fall with a delegation of women and men from all over the United States, Canada and Africa to learn firsthand about the issues affecting people there.
2003 Tom O’Connor recently relocated to New York and is working in the marketing department of Manhattan Theatre Club. Prior to moving, Tom was with Boston’s Huntington Theatre Co. Alums can contact him at oconnor.tf@gmail.com. Cori Mykoff ’03 recently spent a month in Bay St. Louis, Miss., volunteering in homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Cori was joined by Krista Gundersen ’04.
2002 Ming-Yi Chang, MA ’02, and Tung-Kang (Jack) Lee were married Sept. 3, 2005, in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Alumni who attended the ceremony in the U.S. were Jill Su and Buffy Chang. Alumni who attended the second reception
Shira Lazar ’04 was recently hired as a correspondent on Court TV’s weekly entertainment show Hollywood Heat.
Lauren Berliner, MA ’05, and Abigail Bahret, MA ’05, recently won first prizes in the Westchester International Film Festival for work they did while students at Emerson. Lauren won best student film for a resident and Abigail won best student film for a nonresident. Lauren’s documentary has been picked up by Fanlight Productions.
2004 Elisa Capron has been an agent with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency in Southern California since December 2003. The first novel she has agented, The IHOP Papers by Ali Liebegott, will come out in November. Jayk Gallagher has begun a development partnership with Current TV, a youth-oriented station started a year ago by Al Gore, viewable on TimeWarner Cable, Comcast and DirecTV. The network commissioned five comedic shorts from Gallagher. Since moving to L.A., Gallagher has appeared in shows for the E! network, MTV, and national commercials.
Liz Macneil and Steven Guibault were married on June 24. Liz is working at Marianapolis Preparatory School in Thompson, Conn., as an associate director of counseling and a dorm parent. Kimberly Mooney ’04 and Caitlyn Duncan ’04 were married May 27 in the wine cellar of the Federalist, XV Beacon. Fellow alumni and the couple’s dearest friends Haley Thompson and Jamie Silberhartz were in attendance and provided the champagne toast. Christopher Moore and Christina Smith were married on May 20, 2006. The couple currently reside in Providence, R.I. Christopher handles regional broker and product marketing for UnitedHealthcare Northeast and Christina is director of membership services for the North Central Chamber of Commerce in Johnston, R.I.
Profile Tambra Stevenson ’04 traveled to the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi with more than 105 students and alumni from Tufts University to work with volunteers to rebuild homes. Through her experience she created postcardsfromkatrina.com.
Beth Bonner ’04 was a contestant on I Want to be a Soap Star 3. She sends her best to everyone at Emerson. She writes, “I loved that school more than anything!”
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2005 Gayle Anonuevo married Shawn Farley, MA ’04. Blake Metler officiated. She says they all still live in the Boston area.
Brittainy Roberts is the comedy casting assistant at CBS Casting. She got her start after an internship with Emerson alum Dawn Steinberg ’82 at Sony TV Casting.
2006 Luis Dechtiar is doing video production work with educational publisher Discover Writing Co., based in Vermont. He is also taking his films to
various festivals around the region. This fall he was asked to work as the AV technician for live events at the Baha’i World Center in Haifa, Israel.
Where Are You And What are You Doing New job? Received an award? Recently engaged or married? New baby? Moving? Recently ran into a long-lost classmate? Let us know. Use this form to submit your news or send it to Barbara_Rutberg@emerson.edu; 1-800-255-4259; fax: 1-617-824-7807. You can also submit Class Notes online at www.emerson.edu/alumni.
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Out of This World Melanie Gideon ’86 pens young adult novels that straddle worlds “I use fantasy to try to blur the lines of reality,” says three-time author and Emerson alumna Melanie Gideon ’86. “I try to bring the reader into a new awareness, try to startle them out of their skin.” For Gideon, “skin” is something she considered deeply while writing her latest book, a young adult novel called Pucker (Penguin), whose main character is a young burn victim. The book has been nominated for the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults Award. Pucker tells the story of teenager Thomas Quicksilver, called “Pucker” by his classmates because of burn scars on his face. An outsider, Thomas must keep the secret of his family’s otherworldly origins. When his mother falls ill, he must return her to their home world – where he finds his scars healed but is presented with a painful choice to make. “What I’m hoping is that Pucker sparks some deeper conversations about skin,” says Gideon. In choosing a burn victim for her main character, she was able to write from the “extreme point of view of someone who’s struggling with being in their skin.” The Bulletin of the Center of Children’s Books called Pucker “a compelling novel about a tortured and confused but ultimately beautiful protagonist.” Gideon says, “There are obvious ways in which we judge people by their skin: color, beauty, disfigurement. What I think is really relevant to kids…is skin
as metaphor: how much ‘skin’ do we need in order to protect ourselves?” Gideon’s answer? “Enough…but not so much that it’s armor and the world can’t find a way in.” Gideon’s books share a common element that energizes her work. “All of my protagonists are outsiders, are ‘mixed-world’ characters,” she says. It’s something she understands intimately. Her father is from India and her mother is Caucasian. “Growing up in Rhode Island I had to straddle two worlds, and I didn’t really fit in either one of them.” She quotes Thomas from her book, who says, “As an outsider you can see around the edges of things…” She adds, “You’re more open in certain ways, and that can be painful at times – but it’s also a gift.” Voice of Youth Advocates magazine says Gideon “captures the attention of her audience in a real life fantasy work of art.” It’s a blend of fantasy and reality – a style she calls contemporary or reallife fantasy – that also makes her work unique. The San Francisco Chronicle declares, “Gideon’s skill at storytelling transcends genres; it’s funny how realistic this novel makes this made-up world.” Gideon began writing young adult fiction after she completed her first novel, for adult readers, The Girl Who Would Swallow the Moon. Having stalled while writing the next novel, Gideon went back to her bookshelf. “I started re-reading all the books I had read in childhood, the books that I felt had transformed me: A Wrinkle in Time, Ursula K. Le Guin’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia.” The excitement she felt for these books led her to put aside the novel she’d been writing and
begin what would become her second book, a young adult novel called The Map That Breathed, which came out in 2003 and was praised by reviewers. Currently she’s “dreaming up the next book.” For Gideon that means, “I read as much as I can, see as many movies as I can, and I listen to really loud music. It just helps things coalesce. Eventually an idea takes hold of you and has this urgency, and you know that’s the one you have to go with.” – C.H.
Why Emerson College?
My Turn Secret ‘Agent’ Iris McQuillan-Grace ’05 gathers inside tips on what actors can do to find an agent Myths surround the talent agent. These anonymous dream-makers live behind their secretaries and assistants. Powerful and charismatic, they rarely answer the phone. Only A-listers get appointments. The quest of finding an agent for an aspiring actor right out of school can
Iris McQuillan-Grace ’05
seem daunting and frustrating. So, I set out on the best route – and hope to demystify the agent ‘myth’ in the process. At first I tried cold-calling agencies for weeks and got nowhere. Score one for stereotypes: Agents are difficult to get a hold of. Then I realized I was naïve in my approach, doing what every other aspiring actor was doing. So I did what any logical alum would do – I called every Emersonian I knew, writing emails to more than 200 people asking for interviews. Suddenly my inbox was flooded with actors and agents who couldn’t wait to share their experiences with me: success stories, descriptions of the agent/actor relationships, and survival tactics for budding actors. Before you start the agent search, however, consider these tips: “Go where you’re comfortable,” advises Brad Petrigala ’02, assistant at Brillstein-Grey in Los Angeles. “You should like the city you’re in regardless of whether its New York or L.A.” Actor Jayk Gallagher ’04 points out, “There is no day job. There is no Plan B. You have a survival day job, but one you don’t feel bad about leaving to go to an audition.” Some alumni suggested putting on a showcase with fellow actors. This puts the focus on the craft and builds skills. No one is going to “discover” you sitting at home. Another tip: Invite agents to come see your work. When compared to the pressure of an in-office interview where you perform your two-minute monologue in front of a desk, an actual performance environment shows you to your best advantage.
Start taking classes in your community. This will help you stay sharp for auditions, increase your repertoire and also help create a supportive network of contacts. Don’t forget to prepare your tools: a great headshot, a great reel of good performances and a colorful selection of memorized material. It is wise to educate yourself on the industry and read all you can. Watch out for roles you would be right for. Read the daily trade publications so you have a working knowledge of the industry, for example, who the CEO of Paramount is. You must also ask yourself who you are, what type of actor you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what makes you unique. Adam Ohler ’02 sums it up: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” There is no single route to securing an agent. There is only persistence and determination. Be fearless, tenacious, and joyful about these next steps. Remember, there are lots of people willing to help you. Especially if you’re an Emersonian. Iris McQuillan-Grace ’05 is an actor, director, writer and public relations consultant. She will be going on the road for her first national tour at the end of October.
Because our daughter received a stellar education and made us all part of the Emerson family. “At Emerson, you don’t just get a diploma. You get a diploma and a résumé.”
So say Robert and Jamie
how impressed we have been.” The Maddens, who have been President’s Society donors to the College since 2002, have also been impressed with the education Mary received and The Maddens became all that she has accomplished acquainted with Emerson when since graduating. (The Mary was in high school and accomplishments include landing considering which colleges to a job in radio promotion at Sony apply to. “She loved Emerson BMG in New York City and coimmediately,” recalls Jamie, producing an award-winning play a retired fashion industry at the New York International executive. “It had everything Fringe Festival.” she was looking for.” Mary applied for and received early Jamie says Emerson graduates admission. She visited the are prepared to achieve because campus with her dad and of the hands-on experiences decided to come. they gain working on campus at places like WECB radio “The first week of classes (which Mary did), performing was the week of September off-campus, or working at 11, 2001,” notes Bob, who internships at V-2 Records and is chief operating officer Universal Music. of CBS Enterprises, which includes overseeing the dayBob puts it this way: “At Emerson, to-day activities of King World you don’t just get a diploma. You Productions. “It was a tough get a diploma and a résumé.” time for students, but it was also tough for the parents, For information about gift especially those like us who opportunities at Emerson College live so far away. contact: Carolyn Jasinski, Associate Madden of Pacific Palisades, Calif., the parents of Emerson graduate Mary Rose Madden ’05.
“Jackie (President Jacqueline Liebergott) reached out to us personally and stayed in touch with us. We have felt like family ever since then. I can’t tell you
Director of Parent Leadership Giving, Institutional Advancement, 120 Boylston St., 7th floor, Boston, MA 02116-4624. www.emerson.edu/ alumni/support_emerson/index.cfm. 617-824-8561; 617-824-8566 (fax)
Residential Suite The new Piano Row Building on the Emerson College campus includes a residence hall with student rooms that offer stunning views of the city. The College’s first gymnasium is also housed in the new structure. For the full story and additional photos, see page 18.
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