Katherine Profeta ’99, dfa ’09, yc ’90 with her husband Steve Bodow and her daughters Nina (6) and Veronica (4) This has been a terrific season of new plays for Paul Niebanck ’97: Blood and Gifts at Lincoln Center Theater, RX at Primary Stages, and Death Tax at the Humana Festival. Julius Galacki ’98 had three short dramas — A Haunted World, My Death, and Empty Slot — in the Atlantic Stage’s first annual Festival of New Plays in Myrtle Beach, SC in April 2012. Marj Mitchell ’97 is the managing director of that theatre. A Haunted World was also performed at the Hollywood Fringe Festival last June at the Theatre Asylum in Los Angeles, directed by Julius. First Night, a short film he wrote and directed based on the play first seen at the Yale Cabaret, was also screened during the Festival, giving the movie its Los Angeles premiere. This year Mahayana Landowne ’98 is adopting the title Theatrical Visioneer. Her intention is to bridge “traditional theatre” with participatory art. Lately she has been inspired by engaging the audience and shifting theatrical paradigms. Mahayana has also started a business leading workshops in creativity and has held sessions at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. She is still based in Brooklyn, creating plays, parades, and action events. Last spring Wade McIntyre ’98 wrote the latest installment of the Home Alone movie franchise, which will have its premiere on ABC Family this holiday season. He worked closely with Rachel Rusch ’05, dfa ’08, yc ’00. Wade is now working on Do No Harm, a medical thriller on NBC that will have its premiere in early 2013. His daughter, Story, is two years old and enjoys swimming, trains, and throwing sand onto her own head and laughing about it. With each year that passes, Ed Blunt ’99 is more grateful for his experiences at YSD. Ed continues to practice and enhance the skills and techniques taught at YSD in his company,
Life Design, where he trains multibillion dollar companies, doing keynote presentations around the world and vacationing for a living. He worked most recently for the Federal Aviation Corp, Novo Nordisk, Combined Federal Campaign, and the EPA. Ed is also the voice behind the launch of Amazon’s Kindle Fire. “My goal is simple,” he writes. “Inspire 100,000 people to action and lead them to freedom.” He is grateful to YSD for opening up his imagination to greater and greater possibilities. After a successful performance of So the Arrow Flies at Wellesley College, Esther Chae von Zielbauer ’99 is delighted to share that the research materials as well as the script in various stages of development went on display at the Library of Congress as part of the Asian Pacific Heritage Month in May, 2012. It will be archived in the Library of Congress’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection, Primary Holdings Initiative. In the fall of 2012 Esther’s absurd puppet play Ddan Da Ddan!!!, about a superwoman sock puppet imprisoned in a kryptonite cell, will be featured at the inaugural TimeWave festival, a new, cutting-edge, international festival fusing art and technology. Esther continues to work as an actor and TED fellow, exploring the intersection of live performance, technology, and intercultural communication. Raymond Kent ’99 has been busy opening two new offices this year in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles for his company, Sustainable Technologies Design Group, LLC. Ben Strange ’11 has joined the team this year. The company recently completed the opening of the Las Vegas Mob Museum, the Allen Theater complex for Cleveland Playhouse/ Playhouse Square/Cleveland State University (where Jim Swonger ’93 is the resident sound designer) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame renovation. Raymond has also been continuing his work on sustainable technology initiatives as co-chair of the International
Mahayana Landowne ’98
Esther Chae von Zielbauer ’99, photo by Amanda Max
STEP Foundation (Sustainable Technology Environments Program) and is currently working on two pilot projects for the STEP rating system: Slippery Rock Performing Arts Center in PA and the Cuyahoga County Library Auditorium in Parma, OH. A landscape architect and painter, Jane Padelford ’99 also collaborates on art installations in Washington, D.C. Robert Perry ’99 and Cynthia Kocher ’00 have had a busy year! Their son Austin James Kocher Perry was born on November 15, 2011. He joins his big brother, Jack, who is now in kindergarten. After seven years in sunny South Florida, they moved to Richmond, where Rob is the assistant professor of lighting design at Virginia Commonwealth University. Rob and Cindy both continue to work professionally. Rob has especially enjoyed collaborating on several projects in Minneapolis with director Lisa Channer ’00. Since the fall of 2010 Katherine Profeta ’99, dfa ’09, yc ’90 has been an assistant professor in the Drama, Theatre, and Dance Department at Queens College, CUNY. She still collaborates with Elevator Repair Service and choreographer/visual artist Ralph Lemon, whom she met as a student at YSD. Lately she has been asked to speak on several occasions on the emerging field of “dance dramaturgy.” She visited YSD last spring as a respondent on the dramaturgy students’ “passion projects.” Katherine is married to Steve Bodow yc ’89 and has two daughters: Nina, 6, and Veronica, 4. She still sees classmates Becca Rugg ’00, dfa ’05 (Faculty), Annie Dorsen ’00, yc ’96, Louisa Thompson ’98, and Lisa Channer ’00. Writing from Beijing, China, where she and her family have moved and will stay through 2015, Claudia Arenas Rosenshield ’99 says she has been studying Chinese and being a full time mom to two daughters, now 9 and 6.
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