Alumni in the News

Noah Simblist (Ph.D., Art History, 2015) was appointed chair of the Department of Painting + Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Jonas Criscoe (B.F.A., Studio Art, 2006) has work in Expo 2017, a juried exhibition at Dallas's 500x Gallery.

Andrew Aaron Valdez (B.F.A. in Theatre Studies, 2017) has joined the Cleveland Public Theater as the New Play Associate. Valdez is a director, playwright, educator, actor and arts administrator from Donna, Texas. His work is centered on highlighting underrepresented communities and immersive theater set in unconventional spaces.

Marcia Green Santore (B.F.A., Studio Art, 1982) has two solo exhibitions this fall. "Pattern in Motion" at the UConn-Stamford Art Gallery is Oct. 28-Nov. 30, and "Inexteriors" at the O'Brien Art Gallery at Roane State Community College, Harriman, is Oct. 16-Dec. 1. In April 2017, Santore curated an exhibition of small abstract work at Twiggs Gallery in New Hampshire.

The Heartland Theatre Collective, founded by alumnae Marian Kansas (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2016) and Nicole Oglesby (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2016), was nominated for a B. Iden Payne Award. Allison Wojtowecz (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2017) was nominated for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Drama for her performance as June in the Heartland Theatre Collective's first production, Dust, which premiered October 2016.

Robert Di Donato (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2016) was recently cast in a series of shorts called "Oddcupations" promoting the glasses company Warby Parker.

Briana Bower (M.F.A., Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities, 2016) received the Distinguished Thesis Award for her M.F.A. thesis “This Object Holds: Exploring Adolescent Identity Through Object-Based Performance” from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE).

The New York Times featured Charm, a play directed by Will Davis (M.F.A. Directing, 2013).

David Crespy (M.F.A., Playwriting, 1986) published a new book, Ladford Wilson: Early Stories, Sketches, and Poems. The book features a selection of early work from Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.

Benjamin Whitcomb (M.M. 1994, Ph.D. 1999), professor of Cello and Music Theory at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, recently published his seventh book, A Compendium of Chords for the Cello, through AuthorHouse.