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THE BUSINESS OF SHOW BUSINESS The summer that Brisa Trinchero ’05 was 12, she produced a show in her family’s backyard in Lake Oswego. She drafted her dad to build the stage, her mom to direct, and her brother and neighbor kids to act in supporting roles. The play was Alice in Wonderland, with Trinchero as the star. It was a huge hit, and she paid the actors five bucks each from lemonade and cookie sales. Today, dividing her time between Portland and New York City, Trinchero and her company, Make Musicals, help produce Broadway musicals that cost up to $15 million. She brings together musicians, writers, producers, and actors for shows like the recent Broadway production of Catch Me if You Can. “My grandparents were theater patrons who took me to Broadway shows in high school,” she says. “My dad was a concert promoter in college, and my mom helped me build my pre-teen acting career. I thought I wanted to be an opera singer, but decided to try the business of show business, helping producers, writers, and performing artists across the country connect to create musicals. During my first term on The Bluff I had to pick a theater company to study, and I chose the Broadway Rose Theatre Company. A few weeks later a position opened at the theater and I was in! I started as a fundraising assistant and became director of development. Around the same time, an opportunity came up for the company to convert an old building into a theater house. It involved a large capital campaign that catapulted the annual budget into the millions and doubled the staff. I realized that this was what my M.B.A. had trained me for. I was promoted to executive director and did that for three years. Now, along with Making Musicals, I run a theater lab, Running Deer, in Trout Lake, Washington, which conducts musical-theater development projects. I find composers, lyricists, and producers from around the country to come out and develop their shows. Five shows have been developed there, in the shadow of Mount Adams.” —Christine Colasurdo
N O T E S Thanks Eveline, you’re correct of course, and we sure miss him around here now that he’s retired.
’06 OVER THE MOON Here’s the latest from Eva (Wolff) Hortsch: “Gary Hortsch ’96, ’98 and I welcomed our first child, August Peter Hortsch, on May 22 at 12:22 a.m. He was 8 lbs. 7 oz. and came with a full
head of hair. He’s the first grandchild on my side and the first in 25 years on Gary’s side! Needless to say, both families are over the moon. We’re calling him ’Gus’ for short and he’s pretty darn adorable.” Thanks Eva, and congratulations to you and Gary. Renee Dentlinger successfully completed the required course work and boards to earn her degree from the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 14. She was one of 122 in the class of 2011. On July 1, Renee began a three-year family practice residency at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri. She is one of 13 in the new class of interns. Congratulations, Rene—er, make that, Dr. Dentlinger.
’08 WELCOME BACK! Autumn (Dierking) Molay writes: “My husband Ian and I finally moved back to the Portland area after three years in Illinois. I received a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and worked for a year as a promotions producer for an ABC affiliate in my time away from the Pacific Northwest.” Jeff Ryan writes: “I realize I’m a bit slow on the update, but in June 2010 I married fellow U.P. grad and E-Scholar Sevrina Bacon (now Sevrina Ryan).” Jennifer Smith has some good news to share: “Ken Anderson ’07 and I tied the knot on June 25, 2011! We were married at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Portland on a perfect day, then honeymooned in Europe for two weeks and now reside in SE Portland. Ken is a junior
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partner on a wealth management team for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and I teach third grade at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Milwaukie.”
’10 TIGER’S TRAVELS Tiger Lee Torelle is going to school in Thailand, according to a note from her mom, Suzanne Seiber, who shared the following e-mail update from her daughter: “Last week we had a bit of a break from school, and I used the opportunity to travel down to Klang in Rayong province to chill with my lovely Thai friends, who are, I’m convinced, some of the most welcoming people in the whole world. They invited me on a group trip to Ampurwah floating market, which is found on the most accessible part of Ampurwah village, famous for having been built on sticks across a wide stretch of river. My friends and I spent a couple days there, waking up early each morning to make merit (pay homage with food and prayers) to the monks, who paddle themselves about from house to house in long wooden canoes. After a giant Thai style-breakfast (hint: it always involves fish), we all crowded into boats on the beautiful Mekong River, searching for temples on the jungle choked banks. If it weren’t for the tiny floating docks—easily mistaken for abandoned rafts—and the gold and red tipped temple roofs, dramatically arched, irreverently piercing the thick canopies, one might not notice the temples at all. Luckily, we managed just fine; some in my group seemed to know just the right places to search. Without them, we certainly wouldn’t have found the Chinese cave temple. Buried in the hills, up flights of steep marble steps, the cave temple was built by Chinese immigrants into the walls of tiny hidden caves. Now keep in mind, Thai caves are not the frigid damp spelunking-grounds of the Pacific Northwest. Mild, occasionally cool, and never cold, Thai caves are so hospitable, they make it easy to imagine how we as a species once abandoned our comfy trees to call them home. “The temple itself is reminiscent of a Disneyland haunted house, in that you proceed in dim light and rocky terrain, unsure of your next step, until an entire wall suddenly gives way to a candle-decked shrine, or a painted dragon juts out surprisingly from an unas-