F e at u r e
Blair Takes ‘Skeptics on the Road’ to Los Angeles On Tuesday, January 8, Chan and Monie Hardwick welcomed Blair parents, alumni and friends to a “Skeptics on the Road” presentation in Los Angeles featuring host and speaker Blair Kohan ’85. A motion picture agent and partner at United Talent Agency (UTA), Ms. Kohan has been named to The Hollywood Reporter’s “Power 100” list of women in entertainment for the past three years. After losing touch with Blair Academy for a number of years after graduation, she “rediscovered and reconnected” with the school at her 10-year reunion in 1995. “Everything I learned at Blair and everything I became as a result of my experience there is a really big part of why I became productive and successful,” Ms. Kohan told the audience. “It is an honor to have been asked to speak to you about this place that has had such a profound effect on my life and for which I feel such a deep sense of gratitude and commitment.” Infusing her speech with some humor about her own teenage years and current profession, Ms. Kohan noted that she came to Blairstown from Miami with “very little focus, not a lot of direction and definitely no discernable skills or talent yet. I was poorly read; I made reckless, impulsive decisions; I was a slight bit angry at 13 and really obnoxious. Little did I know then that these were the exact qualities that would enable me to become a successful Hollywood talent agent.” She credits the school’s structure and consistency with instilling in her an ethic of discipline, community,
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After graduating from Blair in 1985, Ms. Kohan went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., where she studied writing and met her best friend, actress Julianna Margulies, with whom she moved to Los Angeles in 1989. She began her career as an agent trainee at the BauerBenedek Agency, which later merged with United Talent Agency. Shortly thereafter, she left to become a feature development executive at Brillstein Grey; vice president of production for Oliver Stone and Dan Halsted at Illusion Entertainment; and a production executive at 20th Century Fox–based Horizon Entertainment. In 1997, Ms. Kohan joined United Talent Agency and returned to her first passion: representing top creative voices in entertainment and promoting the art of storytelling. As an agent at UTA, she works closely with some of the industry’s most accomplished actors, directors and writers, including clients Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen.
selflessness and love of learning, all of which have been essential to her success at UTA over the past 15 years. Success began at Blair, where Ms. Kohan went from visiting regularly with the Dean of Students’ office to serving as a prefect her senior year and winning the Franklin Prize as the class’s most improved student. “Blair taught us to work hard and play hard,” she said, “but, perhaps more importantly, Blair saw our potential, even when we couldn’t see it ourselves.” To watch the “Skeptics on the Road” presentation in full, please visit:
www.blair.edu/skeptics-on-the-road.