Callboard Fall 2015

''The alums have all had such varying experience post college that there's never one standard answer to their questions.''

FALL 2015

Stage Door Forum Alumni mentors share insight for graduating seniors B Y EV A N H EN ERSO N

THE STUDENTS come for the wisdom, to connect and

to hear from alumni who left the security of the Halls of Troy and are out in the world finding steady work. Over pizza, and with no professors in the room, inquiring seniors discuss agents and acting classes, friendly freeways and… potentially unfriendly predators. At a gathering of the Stage Door Forum networking event, if you happen to mention that you have been thinking about taking a month off after graduation to swim with sharks, you will not be laughed out of the room.

“Do you think an experience like that will not help your acting?” 2004 SDA graduate Patrick J. Adams asked when the question of potentially non-lucrative personal pursuits came up at a spring Stage Door Forum meeting. “If that’s really in your heart, have fun.

Experience something.” (continued on page 8) 3

TOP, L TO R:

Troian Bellisario, Devin Kelley, Patrick J. Adams and Dylan Kenin at the spring semester Stage Door Forum. Photos by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging.

Introducing Our Newest Full-Time Professors Board of Councilors

THIS FALL, five professors have joined the School of Dramatic

Arts as full-time faculty — including former part-time lecturers Paula Cizmar, Kathleen Dunn-Muzingo and Laura Flanagan; and new members Carla Della Gatta and Melinda C. Finberg. The faculty will be joining our acting, critical studies and dramatic writing programs.

Michele Dedeaux Engemann Founding Chair Michael Felix Chair Patrick J. Adams Lisa Barkett Todd Black Steve Braverman David Bridel Tate Donovan Greg Foster Brad Fuller Michael Gilligan Robert Greenblatt Donna Isaacson Gary Lask Sheila Lipinsky Jimmy Miller James D. Stern Rik Toulon

Michael Felix, chair of the board of councilors for the USC School of Dramatic Arts, celebrates Madeline Puzo’s 13 years of leadership as dean of the School by announcing the scholarship was named in her honor. Photo by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging.

David Bridel Serves as Interim Dean for 2015-16

Parent Ambassadors Steve & Abbey Braverman Suzanne Bruce, MD & Malcolm Waddell Elizabeth & Thomas Dammeyer Scott & Deborah DeVries Anne Helgen & Michael Gilligan Ernest & Raphael Morgan Lauren & David Rush

Adding Comedy to the Mix The USC School of Dramatic Arts has added a new minor to its program. The Comedy (Performance) minor is a 20-unit study, which focuses on the theory and practice of comedymaking from a performer’s perspective. Beginning with a foundation in the history of comic performance, and supplemented by courses in the fundamentals of acting and performance, the progression of the minor offers students a comprehensive theoretical and experiential education in the many differing disciplines of comedy. ■

AS OF JULY 1, David Bridel was appointed

interim dean of the School, following Madeline Puzo’s announcement that she was stepping down as dean. Bridel will serve in this role as the university conducts the search for a new dean.

Interim Dean Bridel is associate professor of theatre practice in voice and movement and director of the master of fine arts in acting program. A director, playwright, performer, choreographer, and teacher of acting, movement and clown, his works have been performed at universities, festivals and theatres across the globe.

He is the winner of an ARC Grant from the Center for Cultural Initiatives, a Cultural Engagement Grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs, an Entertainment Weekly Special Events Award, a NYFA Fiction Award, an Anna Sosenko Musical Theater Award and a Zumberge Award for his research project, Clowns Across Continents.

His new book, Clowns: In Conversation With Modern Masters, co-authored with Ezra Lebank, was released last year. Other works include his original plays I Gelosi and solo performance Sublimity, which won the Best Satire Award at the 2013 United Solo Festival in New York; and contributions to American Theatre magazine and The Soul of the American Actor periodicals.

Along with this position, Interim Dean Bridel is the founding and artistic director of The Clown School in Los Angeles, the only studio in the city devoted exclusively to the study and practice of clowning, officially partnered with Improv First in Beijing and the Stanislavsky Institute in Brazil. He is also an associate director of multi-award winning theatre company Four Clowns. ■

Paula Cizmar Assistant Professor of Theatre Practice Paula Cizmar is an award-winning playwright whose works have been produced all over the country. She is a faculty member of the dramatic writing program.

Her works include Seven, Goats Spring Eternal!, January, The Death of a Miner, Still Life with Parrot & Monkey, river: post-futurist, Candy & Shelley Go to the Desert, and Street Stories.

Cizmar has been a recipient for an NEA grant, an international residency at the Rockefeller Study Center in Italy, and a TCG/Mellon Foundation On the Road grant to research trafficking in The Balkans for her play, Salvage/ Spasiti. Her work was also selected for O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and EnVision at Bard.

Cizmar is a winner of a Mellon Mentoring Award for Mentoring Undergraduates at USC, and she has produced events for USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. She also founded the Deep Map Theatre Project for undergraduate playwrights to write and perform pop-up plays about current events.

Carla Della Gatta Assistant Professor Carla Della Gatta has published essays and reviews in various publications — including in collected editions from Oxford University Press and Palgrave Macmillon; and in journals such as Shakespeare Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Shakespeare, Theatre Journal and Bulletin of the Comediantes; among others. She joins the critical studies faculty.

She has dramaturged professionally, and was lead translator for a play from Spanish to English for the Mellonfunded cultural mobility initiative, The Cardenio Project.

She also worked as a scholar for the theatre for Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Victory Gardens Theater. Her work has led to invitations to speak all over the world.

Her research areas also include early modern drama and theatre history, the history of Shakespearean performance, Latina/o Theatre, Spanish Golden Age theatre, Jewish theatre, adaptation theory, gender and sexuality studies, postcolonial feminism and critical race theory.

Kathleen Dunn-Muzingo Assistant Professor of Theatre Practice Kathleen Dunn-Muzingo is a professional dialect-accent coach who has worked with named actors and actresses in film, television and theatre, and teaches dialects training and a voice-body integration process for actors at USC. She is a member of the

acting faculty.

A multi-Dramalogue (Garland) Award winner for her leading performances, Dunn-Muzingo received her certification in voice/speech and movement training under the late master teacher Arthur Lessac, and taught alongside him for over 10 years. (continued on page 5) 3

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Photo by Mark Berndt.

Dean Madeline Puzo: A Legacy of Innovation and Accomplishment During her 13-year tenure as dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, Madeline Puzo compiled an enviable record, moving the School forward in reputation, degree offerings and global vision. When she stepped down from the position on June 30, Puzo could look back on these significant milestones: n

Adding two new graduate degrees: MFAs in acting and dramatic writing

Revising and expanding the undergraduate program n n

Retooling the critical studies coursework

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Approving an annual new play festival for student playwrights

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Giving the green light to rotating repertory experience for MFA actors

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Doubling the number of faculty members

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Introducing student internships with Center Theatre Group and other leading theatre, film, television and performance companies

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Hosting showcases in New York City and Los Angeles to give graduating BFA and MFA students a chance to perform for casting agents, managers and talent agents

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Instituting an immersive summer program for international actors in collaboration with the prestigious Shanghai Theatre Academy

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Chairing the dean’s committee for USC’s Visions and Voices: The USC Arts and Humanities Initiative since the beginning of the program 10 years ago

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Initiating the campus Get Your Hands Dirty With the Arts festivals

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Sponsoring master classes and discussions with top theatre professionals, including Tony-winning actor and singer Brian Stokes Mitchell, choreographer Twyla Tharp, performance artist Danny Hoch, actress Fiona Shaw, theatrical and opera director Peter Sellars, actors and directors Kathleen Turner and David Hyde Pierce

THIRTEEN GROUNDBREAKING YEARS. “DEAN PUZO’S PASSION for the theatre stimulated a period of tremendous growth in the School of Dramatic Arts. New programs, new facilities and new faculty are now a reality thanks to her vision and her perspicacity.

She leaves the School in excellent health and with a powerful sense of purpose, and her legacy will inspire future generations of our community for many years to come,” Interim Dean David Bridel said.

Puzo has said her future plans include “recommitting to her work as a prominent figure in the field of theatre.” Since her announcement, several dozens of her friends and supporters of the School have banded together to create the Madeline Puzo Endowed Scholarship, in recognition of her “13 years of unwavering commitment to the School and her tremendous impact.” The group noted that Dean Puzo’s greatest dream for the School was to strengthen its scholarship fund. Her named scholarship will be given to a USC Dramatic Arts MFA student in either acting or writing. The scholarship will help ensure that no talented student who seeks to enroll in the School’s MFA program cannot attend due to economic barriers.

Before coming to USC, Puzo, a Los Angeles native, was associate producer at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, where she planned seasons and supervised productions for seven years. She came to that post after the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, where she was producing director, heading the artistic and production staffs and establishing a research and commissioning program to discover and produce plays from non-Western cultures.

Prior to that, she was associate producer for Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum,

where she supervised more than 50 productions and led the creation of the Taper’s second theatre, Taper, Too. As its director, she won nine Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards.

She began her theatre career as a stage manager — the focal point of any production, and useful training for the multifaceted demands of directing a dramatic arts school.

Her theatre career also included being the artistic consultant and co-producer for the theatre portion of the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival in 1984 and co-producer of Carplays, a multidisciplinary festival presented with the Museum of Contemporary Art. Puzo has been a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Theatre Communications Group and the Rockefeller and Lila Wallace Readers Digest foundations. She has written for American Theatre magazine and for the stage. Her adaptation of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory was presented by the Mark Taper Forum for 10 consecutive years and toured Eastern Europe.

Puzo has been a fierce defender of the value of a theatre education. In a USC Trojan Family Magazine article several years ago about the new energy she was creating at the School, Puzo declared that the dramatic arts prepare students “for any other profession they want to pursue” in addition to performing or holding design, technical and directing positions behind stage.

She said: “Look at what theatre teaches: the great literature of our civilization, the subtle school of morals embedded in our literature, how to collaborate and how to have confidence and tell a story. Such incredible life lessons!” ■

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Donor Marquee THE USC SCHOOL OF DRAMATIC ARTS would like to recognize the generosity of the following

individuals and organizations who have supported the School with a gift of $1,000 or more over the past year towards core annual programs such as production, guest artists, scholarship and the Dean’s Strategic Fund. We recognize at the visionary level those donors whose tremendous generosity has reached the cumulative giving level of $1 million+ and whose foresight and extraordinary commitment has helped secure our role as one of the leading dramatic arts programs in the country and laid the foundation for our continued prominence and future achievements.

V ISION ARY CIRCLE

P RO DUCERS

Dr. & Mrs. Peter Bing and the Anna H. Bing Living Trust George N. Burns Trust Katherine B. Loker Robert & Elizabeth Plumleigh in memory of Karen Plumleigh Cortney*

Margaret Eagle & Eli Rapaport Brad & Ally Fuller Mark J. & Elizabeth L. Kogan Philanthropic Fund Gary & Karen Lask Sheila & Jeff Lipinsky Moss Foundation Aileen & James Reilly Jim & Leslie Visnic

S EASON SP ON SORS

The Ahmanson Foundation Albert & Bessie Warner Fund Steve & Abbey Braverman* Barnett Charitable Foundation* Richard & Lori Berke* Elizabeth & Thomas Dammeyer Scott & Deborah DeVries* Michael & Debbie Felix* Kathryn & John Gilbertson Eric T. Kalkhurst & Nora K. Hui* Seth & Vicki Kogan* Joshua & Siobhan Korman Philanthropic Fund* Brian & Dianne Morton* Steve & Jerri Nagelberg* Sally & Howard Oxley in honor of Madeline Puzo* Susie & Alex Pilmer* Teri & Byron Pollitt* Lauren & David Rush* Suzanne Bruce, MD & Malcolm Waddell* Craig & Jennifer Zobelein E XEC UTIVE PRODUCERS

Anonymous Alexander & Megan LoCasale* Ernest & Raphael Morgan* Oscar & Mary Pallares* Richard & Diane Weinberg PROD UCERS

Randolph & Ellen Beatty The H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation Tate Donovan Gail & Jim Ellis in honor of Madeline Puzo Roger & Michele Dedeaux Engemann

(CONTIN UE D)

DI RECTO RS

Todd Black & Ruth Graham Black In memory of John R. Bukowiec Dr. Verna B. Dauterive Ken & Kim Farinksy Gregory & Marci Foster George & Dyan Getz Anne Helgen & Michael Gilligan Pat & Cindy Haden from The Rose Hills Foundation Jimmy & Cheryl Miller Christine Marie Ofiesh Steven and Sylvia Ré Robert R. Scales in memory of Suzanne Grossmann Scales Carole Shammas & Darryl Holter Thomas Schumacher James D. Stern Rik Toulon Nancy & Peter Tuz PAT RO N S

Patrick J. Adams The Emanuel Bachmann Foundation Barbara Cotler George & Barbara Farinsky in honor of Meg Farinsky Laurie & William Garrett Eddie & Julia Pinchasi J.W. Woodruff and Ethel I. Woodruff Foundation Linda Yu

ANGELS

Jonathan & Adrienne Anderle Mohammed & Elizabeth Anis Anonymous Susan & David Berck Yvonne M. Bogdanovich Sara Bancroft-Clair & Pierson Clair Linda Chester & Kenneth Rind in honor of Howard & Sally Oxley Richard Frankosky & Elaine Eliopoulos Alan Friedman & Laura Lee Susan A. Grode David & Debra Jensen James & Margaret Kelly The Bridges Larson Foundation David & Debra Little Marguerite E. Maclntyre Douglas & Elissa Mellinger Cathy Moretti Sandra Moss Scott S. Mullet & Jenelle Anne Marsh-Mullet Robert & Debbie Myman Sherri Nelson Dr. Willa Olsen Mark Paluch Teri & Gary Paul Joseph & Catherine Phoenix Andrew J. & Irene Robinson Meredith & Drew Rowley John & Cyndy Scotti Rick & Jeanne Silverman Nancy Sinatra, Sr. in honor of my niece Madeline Puzo Abe & Annika Somer Jeff & Cathie Thermond Ruth Tuomala & Ernest Cravalho Gloria A. Vogt-Nilsen Carol & Grover Wilson D O NAT I O NS I N K I ND

Els Collins Jeffrey de Caen Rosemary Gabledon David & Debra Jensen Tamara Ruppart & Kevin Zvargulis *REPRESENTS MULTI-YEAR PLEDGE

We hope you will consider becoming a member. For more information about giving to the School of Dramatic Arts, please contact Sara Fousekis at 213.821.4047 or fousekis@usc.edu.

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Dramatic Arts Welcomes Steve Braverman, Brad Fuller to Board The USC School of Dramatic Arts welcomes our newest Board of Councilors members: Steve Braverman and Brad Fuller. In their capacity on the board, these distinguished individuals will serve as counsel to the School and university, as well as provide their knowledge, leadership and support to continue to grow the School as a top dramatic arts education institution.

Co-Founder and Executive Managing Director of Pathstone Family Office, Steve Braverman has more than two decades of professional experience in wealth management. He also frequently speaks at industry conferences and is a regular contributor to media on subjects regarding investment. Prior to Pathstone Family Office, he previously served as president of Harris myCFO Investment Advisory Services, LLC. Braverman has extensive board experience — serving on the Board of Trustees of the Englewood Hospital and Medical Center Foundation, the YaleNew Haven Hospital Investment Committee and the Dwight-Englewood School; as well as having served on the advisory boards of Fortigent, Skybridge Capital, Seraph Group, Pershing Advisor Solutions and Pimco.

Steve and his wife, Abbey, have been champions of several important causes, including food allergies.

They have also generously supported the School having established the Braverman Family Scholarship at the School of Dramatic Arts to provide assistance for undergraduate students. In addition, the Bravermans serve as the School’s Parent Ambassadors for the tri-state area and are members of USC’s Parents Leadership Council executive board.

Their daughter, Heather, is currently a student at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. She has extensive TV and film credits, and is currently working on her own album as a singer-songwriter. They hope their daughter, Julia, who is also a performer, will also become a Trojan in the near future.

Brad Fuller founded Platinum Dunes with Andrew Form, along with partner Michael Bay, in 2001. The production company has released 11 films since its inception, including hit film series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Purge. The company also produces two hugely successful shows — Black Sails, starring Toby Stephens, on Starz and The Last Ship, starring Eric Dane, on TNT. Platinum Dunes produced The Purge for Universal Pictures in 2013 in which the film grossed $34.1 million opening weekend, while the sequel, The Purge: Anarchy, grossed $29.8 million for its opening. A third installment is in the works to be released in 2016.

In 2014, Fuller and Form produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — starring Megan Fox, Will Arnett and William Fichtner — for Paramount Pictures.

The film earned $478 million with a sequel currently being filmed. Also for Paramount, the duo’s film Project Almanac, directed by Dean Israelite, was released this year.

Brad and his wife, Ally, are supporters of the School and hosted the first of the School’s salon series events, which featured Emmy- and Golden Globewinning actor Michael Chiklis in their home in the spring.

Their son, Cameron, is a senior at the School. Their second son, Paxton, will soon start at Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. ■

3 Newest Full-Time Professors (continued from page 2)

As a performer and teacher, she developed a method of voice-body integration for dialects training, accent reduction and healthy expressive voicing.

Her recent film coaching credits include Avengers, The Guest, Star Trek, Cabin in the Woods and Sea of Trees. Recent TV series are Madmen, Extant, How to Get Away with Murder and CSI Cyber. She has coached more than 40 theatre productions in accents, dialects and voicing, both at USC and professional theatres in the Los Angeles area.

Laura Flanagan Assistant Professor of Theatre Practice Laura Flanagan began her professional acting career as a teenager in a Paramount Pictures film starring Robin Wright.

Since then, she has acted off- and off-off-Broadway, in regional theaters and film. She is a member of the acting faculty.

She is currently a lifetime member of the Ensemble Studio Theater/Los Angeles and was previously their producing director. She has taught acting and voice at Long Island University, NYU’s School for Continuing Education, as well as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. She is a certified Fitzmaurice Voice Teacher, having been a student of Catherine Fitzmaurice for many years in New York.

She received the Charles Bowden Award for Acting from New Dramatists in New York, as well as numerous awards for her audiobooks. She holds a BA in English and Theater Studies from Yale University and an MFA in Acting from Carnegie Mellon and The Moscow Art Theater.

Melinda C. Finberg Assistant Professor of Theatre Practice Melinda C. Finberg is a nationally known dramaturg and scholar of theatre history. She joins the critical studies faculty.

Her volume EighteenthCentury Women Dramatists (Oxford University Press, 2001) is taught in colleges and universities across the U.S., Canada and Europe. In addition, she received the 2006 Elliot Hayes Award for Achievement in Dramaturgy from the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) for her work on the 2005 Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s critically acclaimed revival of Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem.

She has taught at Swarthmore College, Princeton University, Rider University, and been a guest lecturer at University of Puget Sound, Yale and Princeton Universities.

Finberg’s scholarly work is widely published and cited in journals, collections of essays, and reference books. She also speaks at conferences and theaters across the country on the professional women playwrights of 18th century London. ■

High School Conservatory Unleashes Student Creativity B Y P A U L A CIZMAR

IT HAPPENS every year: On the first morning,

they’re somewhat wary strangers. They arrive from all points of the globe, jet-lagged, with myriad questions, expectations, doubts, hopes. But just four weeks later, when it’s time to leave, the students of the Creating Characters class find that they have expanded their imaginations and experiences, formed an ensemble, and — amazingly enough — created and performed their own play.

Creating Characters, along with the Acting Intensive, is part of SDA’s Summer Theatre Conservatory, a four-week program for high school students in which they earn college credit, study with professors from the School of Dramatic Arts, and get a sense of what it’s like to be an undergraduate at USC. This summer, students from as far away as China lived in the dorms, attended class sessions from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, and discovered a bit of what it’s like to be independent — responsible for doing their work and managing their time without the prompting of parents — and, even more important, what it’s like to be an artist.

Emphasis, of course, is on Process.

Collaboration. Empathy. Metaphor. Creating Characters is a hybrid — not quite a writing class, not quite an acting class, not quite a production class. It’s an introduction to theatre making — and is very hands-on. A typical day might include writing exercises, improvs, developing a sense of character through movement and gestures, a play reading, some Viewpoints work, a brainstorming session, an exercise in collaboration. It’s all geared toward opening up students to imaginative impulses they didn’t even know they had, and demonstrating how to build something that is uniquely theatrical — together, as a team.

My co-teachers this summer, alumni Madhuri Shekar (MFA ’13) and Jonathan MuñozProulx (BA ’11), were quick to identify a few perennial obstacles the kids have to climb over before they can join together and make a play from scratch. First and foremost: It’s hard to collaborate — everyone is passionate, has their own ideas, and the give and take

is really difficult, especially when everyone wants to make something that has meaning.

Next, our students see far more films than they do theatre — so guiding them away from creating something that isn’t dependent on photographic reality is an ongoing challenge.

And, as Jonathan noted, the closer we get to the final presentation, they all become “productoriented and think only about tech.” Trying to get them to simplify and to start to envision a piece that is theatrical is part of the process.

“I tell them, they can have trees onstage if they are the trees,” he said. “They can have sounds onstage if they make the sounds.”

To emphasize the work-in-progress nature of the play the students create, we don’t use traditional sound and lights for the final presentation, just “vernacular technology” — that is, whatever we can generate from cell phones, flashlights and the stray overhead projector that we scrounged from the hallway of the McClintock Building. This helps, too, to get everyone’s mind away from film and into the realm of stage magic.

It’s a mad scramble as the presentation day draws near — and even after doing this for 12 years, I confess I still always worry if the whole thing is going to come together. But there is something about the will to create that drives everyone on.

In the end, the students performed a piece set at a residential mental health facility where various characters were haunted by their dreams. The text portion of the play was bookended by movement sequences, and within the overall story, each student got a spotlight moment for their character. As Madhuri noted, “The show looked amazing” — and that was without a fog machine, colored lights, and a dozen costume changes, which they were sure they couldn’t live without.

“Wow. I didn’t know I could do this,” a 16-year-old from Beijing said after performing the brand new, collaborativelywritten piece. The others nodded and looked at him, and a 15-year-old girl from Houston said, “But we did.” ■

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Through her work, Waddell hopes to connect Japanese theatre practitioners to the rest of the world...

Theatre Exchange

Alumna Connects Japanese-U.S. Cultures Through Art B Y V EL I N A H A SU H O U ST O N Photo by @Cyclone_A

Velina Hasu Houston, a Tokyo-born playwright, librettist, and essayist who is a professor, director of dramatic writing, associate dean and resident playwright of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, and whose work often has focused on U.S.-Japan relations, recently interviewed Amanda Waddell, a USC alumna with a similar interest in the U.S. and Japan.

WHEN ONE THINKS OF a typical citizen of Japan, one may not think of someone like USC School of Dramatic Arts alumna Amanda Waddell. Originally from Houston, Waddell, a 2010 graduate, has been a resident of Tokyo for five years. What is she doing there? Theatre.

After graduating from USC, Waddell moved to Tokyo and undertook a two-year directing program at the Creative Theatre Academy at Za-Koenji Public Theatre. She studied under two directing professors, Makoto Satoh and Ikuta Yorozu as well as with visiting, practicing artists in the Tokyo theatre world. While her studies replicated some of the studies that she had experienced at USC, the difference was that everything was taught in Japanese. She studied classical Japanese theatre, kyogen (comedic Noh performance), aikido (martial art), and other dimensions of Japanese theatre.

“I had hoped to learn more about contemporary Japanese theatre, particularly the underground theatre movements that popped up during the 1960s and 1970s. But since the professors were actually some of the movers and shakers from that era, they were a little too embarrassed to talk about their own exploits,” Waddell noted.

“We did talk more about… how to really market and engage small communities through theatre,” she said. “Being able to learn the inner workings of a public theatre was just an added bonus.

The native Texan’s interest in Japan started with an anime character, and was amplified by a summer abroad when she was 16 years old and a USC study-abroad program in her junior year of college.

“I used to watch Sailor Moon on TV with my sister and it hooked me,” Waddell said. “When I didn’t get into a summer acting program in my junior year of high school, my parents suggested a

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summer program abroad...” That sent Waddell into a “training mode.” She bought books about Japan and read fervently. The program placed her “in the middle of nowhere” (Ishikawa Prefecture in Komatsu). She studied Japanese and had a “normal high school life” with her host family.

At USC, Waddell majored in dramatic arts and East Asian studies. For her studyabroad program, she attended Tokyo International University in Saitama.

Waddell’s Japanese headway is with the performing company Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker. She is a theatre company member, and also works in production, helping the company’s producer to set up shows in Europe. The ability to be a performer and to help with production has enriched her life as an artist. She has traveled with the company to Germany and Austria. Next year, it will be presenting a production in London.

“When I was seeing theatre in Japan, I saw the work of my company’s founder, Toco Nikaido, and it blew me away,” Waddell said. “Everything else that I had seen didn’t seem very different from what I had seen in the West. But she was different. Like the punk aesthetic of Great Britain, Toco Nikaido was trying to be different from theatre’s forefathers, rebelling against established plays.” Waddell said she was moved by the youthful energy that she saw in the company’s new theatrical forms.

“I would say that it [the productions of Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker] is the greatest interpretation of what I personally feel like growing up in the world today,” Waddell said.

“Our performances, like life, are overflowing with information, advertisements, propaganda, and cheap, plastic disposable consumer goods.

The show has this air of irrelevant nihilism and existential emptiness, while at the same time being a completely heartfelt and gut-wrenching

spectacle. It is everything and nothing all in one.

It is post-dramatic theatre at its very best.”

Through her work, Waddell hopes to connect Japanese theatre practitioners to the rest of the world, whether that is through performance or curating different Japanese theatre troupes’ tours abroad. She also would like to produce young U.S. artists in Japan, and create more opportunities for young Japanese artists to study and attend theatre workshops in the U.S. and vice versa.

“Just recently I produced the Tokyo premiere of a friend’s solo-performance piece,” Waddell said. “It was performed in a bathtub, and I loved the chance to be able to share this style of performance with my Japanese friends, who were enjoyably shocked.”

Waddell feels that her education in dramatic arts and Japanese at USC gave her the tools that she needed to do what she does now. USC gave her “the encouragement to explore.” Moreover, she believes “the faculty and staff [at the USC School of Dramatic Arts] are very internationally mindful/connected people, which sort of opened the door for me to feel courageous enough to attempt to create a theatre career abroad.”

Of course, Waddell is an advocate of U.S. citizens living abroad.

“I highly recommend practicing theatre outside of the U.S. and especially in Asia,” she said.

“We should be… creating a huge network of bridges between the East and West.” She also stressed that such exchange must be approached openly and with cultural respect.

“It is… important to be humble when exposing oneself to another culture,” she said. “America is not the be-all and end-all. But if you come with an open mind, you will get back more than you could ever have wished for or expected.” ■

Alumni Marquee Thomas Anawalt (MFA ’14) can be seen as Tim in the show 99 Percent Gang and recently performed in Dunsinane at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts.

Robert Baker (BFA ’02) is seen in The History Channel’s epic 10-hour miniseries Texas Rising. Directed

by Roland Joffe, Baker joins an all-star cast including Bill Paxton, Brendan Fraser, Ray Liotta and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Brandon Barash (BFA ’02) has a recurring role on TNT’s Major Crimes since 2013. He also performed in General Hospital as Johnny Zacchara from 2007 to 2014.

Chasen Bauer (BA ’10) recently performed in Dunsinane at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts.

McKinley Belcher III (MFA ’10) was seen in David Simon’s Show Me a Hero and is featured in the upcoming PBS series Mercy Street, starring Josh Radnor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Gary Cole.

Jennifer Brienen (BFA ’06) is currently a design manager at Thinkwell Group.

She is teaching at the School of Dramatic Arts this semester.

Roland Buck III (BA ’15) plays Greaser in the feature Sleight, opposite Dulé Hill. He was also cast in a new Lisa Kudrow project, Shitty Boyfriends, and was one of seven finalists in the ABC Discovers Talent Competition.

Khalia Davis (BA ’10) played Lil Inez in Hairspray! at the Berkeley Playhouse.

She also recently performed in The Book Club Play as Lily at Center REPertory Company.

Michael J. Despars (BFA ’05) received the Theatre Leadership Award from the California Educational Theatre Association for chairing the CETA High School Theatre Festival and serving as the Director of the Orange County Cappies Critics Program. He also serves as the Vice President of Public High Schools on the CETA Board of Directors.

Jesse Einstein (BA ’10) is seen in Dial a Prayer with Brittany Snow, William H. Macy, Glenne Headly and Kate Flannery.

Wyatt Fenner (BFA ’07) performed in Bent at the Mark Taper Forum.

Kate Williams Grabau (MFA ’13) recently completed the national tour of Camelot.

Briana Henry (BFA ’14) has a recurring role on the NBC comedy Undateable, and is also starring in The Prodigal Daughter (a movie for television, opposite Torrey Devitto for PiXL

network). Henry also guest starred on has directed over 70 shows. She an episode of the ABC Family series recently directed Almost, Maine by Stitchers.

John Cariani at the Cape Cod Theatre Allie Jennings (BA ’15) was featured in Project. the film Once I was a Beehive.

Kathryn Lochert (BFA ’12) is a stage manager for American Blues Theater Kendall Johnson (MFA ’14) recently in Chicago, where she has recently performed in Dunsinane at the Wallis become an artistic affiliate. She is also Annenberg Center for Performing a proud new member of AEA. Arts.

Emily MacConnell (BA ’14) is a dancer Natalie Johnson (BA ’15) started full time at Saatchi & Saatchi in the social in the Celtic Fyre show, ranked as the country’s No. 1 theme park show by media advertising department for USA Today, at the Busch Gardens in Toyota.

Williamsburg, Va. Donald Jolly (MFA ’08) saw his Kevin Mambo (BFA ’95) starred in play Riot/Rebellion produced and performed at the Los Angeles Theatre August Wilson’s Seven Guitars at Two River Theater.

Center by Watts Village Theatre Company, in association with the Mykle McCoslin (BA ’96) was seen on Latino Theater Company.

ABC’s The Astronaut Wives Club.

Jennifer Wheeler Kahn (BFA ’04) Mike McLean (BFA ’08) performed as is assistant stage managing the Benny Southstreet in Guys and Dolls Broadway revival of Spring Awakening at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

Kathryn Meister (BA ’14) recently L. Zane Jones (MFA ’92) directed a stage-managed The Amazing new play by Thea Cooper for Civic Adventures of Harvey and the Princess Rep at New City Theater last summer, at the New York City Children’s and directed/produced a criticallyTheatre and Merrily We Roll Along at acclaimed production of A Streetcar the Astoria Performing Arts Center.

Named Desire by Tennessee Williams James Morosini (BA ’14) completed at New City Theater in Seattle. She shooting the pilot as the lead to a is currently Artistic Director for Comedy Central show.

Civic Rep in Seattle, and Associate Austin Nimnicht (BFA ’14) is featured Professor at the University of in the recent Cisco “Hackers” Washington School of Drama, where commercials. she teaches acting in the graduate and undergraduate programs.

Forest Whitaker (’82) is making his Eric Ladin (BA ’01) is featured as Glen in the HBO series The Brink. He recently played Manny Prieto (BFA ’12) was recently Scott Zoellner in Stephen Belber’s named the executive director of LA The Power of Duff at The Geffen Music & Art School.

Playhouse.

Jon Rudnitsky (BFA ’12) joins the cast Edgar Landa (BA ’92) directed the Thin of Saturday Night Live as a featured Air Shakespeare outdoor production player. of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Shaheed Sabrin (BA ’11) was selected Jackson Hole, WY, which featured by the U.S. Department of State for SDA alum Malika Williams (MFA the prestigious English Language ’11) as Titania and current graduate Fellow Program, an opportunity for students Gabriela Garcia (MFA ’16) highly qualified TESOL professionals. as Hermia and Adam LebowtizJanine Salinas Schoenberg (MFA ’07) Lockard (MFA ’16) as Lysander. He will also direct Culture Clash’s Chavez is currently working on a collective as one of seven female playwrights Ravine for Loyola Marymount writing The Hotel Play for the University (he assistant directed and Playwrights’ Arena 25th anniversary. understudied the original production Jared Sandler (BA ’15) is seen in the at the Mark Taper Forum and he film Pixels. assisted in the recent revival at the Kirk Douglas Theatre). He is an Madhuri Shekar (MFA ’13) saw her instructor of stage combat in the play In Love and Warcraft, which was School of Dramatic Arts and stages developed at USC, performed at havoc and mayhem for theatres Halcyon Theatre in Chicago, Artists at across Southern California and Play in Los Angeles and Custom Made beyond.

Theatre in San Francisco.

Elisabeth Ledwell (BA ’86) is a teacher James Snyder (BFA ’03) stars opposite at independent day school Falmouth Idina Menzel in the national tour of Academy on Cape Cod, where she If/Then.

Stephanie Swirsky (MFA ’11) won the Israel Baran Award for her play Jew Kamp.

Joe Sofranko (BFA ’09) won best actor at the Vancouver Web Fest and best directing at the Hollyweb Festival for Complete Works.

Anthony Sparks (BFA ’94) worked on staff as producer and writer on NBC’s The Blacklist. He is also an assistant professor of radio-TV-film at California State University, Fullerton, as well as recently taught as a visiting assistant professor at Occidental College and as a lecturer in American studies & ethnicity at USC. Andrea Syglowski (BFA ’06) performed as Celia in Of Good Stock at South Coast Repertory, and was also seen on ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder.

Julie Taiwo Oni (MFA ’09) wrote the play Bunk, which was performed as a staged reading for Ensemble Studio Theatre LA’s LA Fest. Her short play Rioters or Cannibals was selected for a production at Cal Poly Pomona, and her drama Denim was presented during a workshop by MaiM Theatre Company for Son of Semele Ensemble’s 2015 Company Creation Festival. She is also one of seven female playwrights selected to participate in The Hotel Play for Playwrights’ Arena.

Broadway debut in Hughie.

Sedale Threatt Jr. (MFA ’15) was cast in the 2016 remake of Alex Haley’s Roots. The mini-series will be produced by alum LeVar Burton (’79).

Patrick Toth (MFA ’13) recently performed in Dunsinane at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts.

Donald Webber Jr. (BFA ’08) stars in the off-Broadway production Whorl in a Loop at Tony Kiser Theatre.

Elissa Weinzimmer (BA ’07) directed the sixth annual Tommy Awards in New York.

Malika Williams (MFA ’11) played Titania in the Thin Air Shakespeare outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Jackson Hole, WY. Alexandra Winter (BFA ’13) is performing as Harp/Gretl in the Broadway revival of Spring Awakening.

Sabina Zuniga Varela (MFA ’11) leads in Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles, performing at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

dramaticarts.usc.edu

7

Fall Alumni Party

Join us for an evening reception and hosted bar at IMAX Corporation’s new entertainment headquarters.

Tuesday, October 20 6:30–9:00 p.m.

IMAX Corporation

(continued from page 1)

Asked to join the board of directors by former SDA Dean Madeline Puzo, Adams developed Stage Door Forum in 2012 as a low-key opportunity for students to network.

Usually twice a year, once each during the spring and fall semesters, SDA seniors (BAs and BFAs) fill the room along with four or five SDA alums. Adams attends as many Stage Door Forum gatherings as he can, working them in around the schedule of his USA drama Suits.

Past attendees have included SDA alumni Beck Bennett (Saturday Night Live), Deborah Ann Woll (Daredevil, True Blood), Peter Vack (The Intern), Eric Ladin (American Sniper, Boardwalk Empire), Briga Heelan (Undateable, Cougar Town) and Troian Bellisario (Pretty Little Liars).

“It’s almost like the alumni who are 10 years out of school or less are our sweet spot,” said Kim Muhlbach, SDA’s director of individual giving who coordinates the events with Adams. “The alums have all had such varying experience post college that there’s never one standard answer to their questions.”

At the spring semester meeting, Adams and Bellisario were joined by Devin Kelley (Resurrection) and Dylan Kenin (Love & Mercy, Good Kill), a 1996 graduate and Taos native who works consistently in projects that film in his native New Mexico. Kenin’s ability to tap his New Mexico casting director connections to find consistent work served as an inspiration to the seniors and prompted Adams to marvel of his longtime friend, “You probably work more consistently than any of us because you’re always hustling.”

Following the introductions, Adams opened the discussion to questions. “Anything you are thinking about?

Anything you’re terrified of? What is burning in your almost graduated minds?”

Plenty, as it turned out. The unstructured format of Stage Door Forum — no profs allowed! — allowed the

language to get salty and cleared the air for the occasional anecdote about diva-ish behavior from stars with whom the alumni have worked. A portion of the discussion inevitably turned to places to live in Los Angeles with areas like West Hollywood, Echo Park and the beaches getting high marks for inner peace and the east San Fernando Valley getting points for proximity to studios and auditions.

“The place you find after you leave school is really important because the city can be really awful sometimes and you want to feel like you live in a community with your friends and you don’t walk out the door every day and feel beaten down,” Adams said.

“You just need the support of a community,” added Kelley. “I was used to walking to my friend’s house, or walking down the hall and crashing on somebody’s bed. If you can be closer to a close friend and be able to say, ‘I’m freaking out right now can you come with me on a hike or get coffee,’ it means a lot.”

On the subject of finding that perfect acting class or coach, the panel touted the benefits of getting word of mouth recommendations and of auditing for a few sessions and seeing whether a class is a fit before committing a lot of time or money. In a landscape as competitive as Los Angeles, Kenin and Kelley emphasized the value of gaining experience by joining a theatre company or by working for free in student films.

And when they do land that first professional job, the graduates should expect to feel both prepared (thanks to their SDA training) and clueless. Just like a then 22-year old Adams did on the set of his first film, Old School.

“I got a month on set and I had never seen a set in my life and all of a sudden, Will Ferrell is right there yelling at me, Vince Vaughn is smoking a ton of cigarettes telling me things I don’t even understand,” Adams recalled. “No one is going to expect you to know everything all the time.

You will be uncomfortable at first, but you’ll figure it out.”

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