Alumni in the News

Robert Schenkkan (Drama 1975) was recently named the Thornton Wilder Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. His play, All the Way (winner of the 2012 Senator Edward Kennedy Theater Prize and the Steinberg/American Theater Critics Association Best New Play Award) has its East coast premier in Boston at A.R.T. in September starring Bryan Cranston.

Erica Nagel (MFA 2008) has been named the Director of Education and Engagement at McCarter Theatre Center. She also serves as a Lecturer at Princeton University.

Bruce Shackelford, BFA 1975, is participating as an appraiser PBS Antiques Roadshow for his 18th season.

Robert Pruitt's (MFA '03) exhibition "Women" is now on display at The Studio Museum of Harlem. "Women", a series of portraits of contemporary African-American women drawn in Conte Crayon, has been mentioned in the Huffington Post, Art Daily and Blouin Artinfo. Pruitt lives and works in Houston. 

Maxine Graham Price (B.A. Art, '59) will participate in ArtHouston's  2013 opening reception at Thornwood Gallery on Saturday, July 13, from 6-8 p.m. She will give an artist's talk with images at 2 p.m. that same day. Price will also exhibit her paintings at the Kirchman Gallery in Johnson City, TX, opening reception Saturday, July 27th from 4-8 p.m.

Jonathan Santore (Music Composition, '87) won The American Prize in Composition 2013, in the category for professional composers of choral music. He is Chair of the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, where he has taught composition and theory since 1994, and is Composer in Residence for the New Hampshire Master Chorale. His composition Front Porch Poems, for mezzo, viola, and piano, is featured on the Chiaroscuro Trio's new CD New People, just issued by Albany Records; Aurelien and Elizabeth Petillot, founding members of Chiaroscuro, are also both alumni of the Butler School of Music.
 

Gina Gwen Palacios (MFA '06) is one of 10 artists showing in the exhibit Where Shall We Go? opening Friday, July 12th at Gallery Black Lagoon. For Palacios, painting is an act of self-assertion and personal revelation. Where Shall We Go? is a collection of works that show us places and moments both traveled and imagined. Each image evokes a story remembered or wished to be forgotten. 

Kristina Felix (MFA, '10) and Christina Weisner (MFA, '10) have both been awarded a 2013 Fulbright Research Grant in Sculpture. Felix will work with indigenous communities in the Andes, where she will learn traditional methods of storytelling, weaving and textile-making while incorporating this into her studio-practice. Weisner is headed to Germany where she will research and make site-specific sculptures based on the Ries Impact Crater, one of the largest meteorite impact craters in the world. 

The David Shelton Gallery (3909 Main Street Houston, TX 77002) presents a group exhibition of talented MFA 2014-15 candidates and 2013 graduates; Peter Abrami, Janaye Brown, Adriana Corral, Georgia Carter, Aaron Meyers, James Scheuren and Eric Shane Swanson. Opening reception: Friday, June 28, 6:00- 8:00 pm. 

The 2013 Tiny Park Drawing Annual is a group exhibition focused on drawings and the concept of drawing, in the widest terms. The show includes video work, three-dimensional cut paper drawings, as well as more traditional forms of drawing. This year's drawing annual will feature artworks by Sara Frantz (MFA, Studio Art, '07), Calixto Ramirez, David Culpepper, Rob Verf (Lecturer at UT), Sam Prekop and Claude van Lingen. Opening Friday, June 28, 2013, 7pm to 11pm, at 1101 Navasota St.