Alumni in the News

Lina Chambers (M.F.A. in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities candidate) will receive the Don and Elizabeth Doyle Fellowship and Lauren Smith (M.F.A. 2017) will receive the Distinguished Thesis Award at the 2018 American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) conference. These awards celebrate excellent work in theatre for youth and outstanding scholarship. The conference will be held in Minneapolis August 1-5, 2018. 

Hannah Wolf (M.F.A., Theatre, 2018), a Los Angeles based director, dramaturg, and creative producer originally from Juneau, Alaska, has received a 2018 National Directors Fellowship. The fellowship will begin at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in July 2018 and provides 18 months of practical, hands-on training and mentorship, and concludes with a professional directing opportunity. Wolf's work has been seen at Perseverance Theatre, Superhero Clubhouse, The Vineyard Theater, The Civilians, Culturebot, Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, Howlround, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York University (NYU), PeppercornTheatre, Writopia Lab, The Secret City and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 

Kimberly Belflower's (M.F.A., Playwriting, 2017) show "Lost Girl," which follows Wendy Darling's coming-of-age story after her return from Peter Pan's Neverland, will be performed at the Stiemke Studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by the 2017-2018 Professional Training Institute company, an advanced actor training program for students in 9th-12th grade. 

Matrex Kilgore (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2015) directs 'A' (What the Black Girl Found While Searching for God), written and performed by Taji Senior and heading to Ground Floor Theatre in July. Inspired by George Bernard Shaw's The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search For God, 'A' is the story of a person, searching inside and outside of herself to find her place in the world. That search is filtered through a lens of black girlhood. 'A' hopes to ask and answer the question: Who has the right to self-creation?

Callan Steinmann (M.A., Art Education, 2013) has been appointed Curator of Education at The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia. Steinmann has been associate curator of education at the museum since 2013.

Suzanne Ramo (D.M.A., Performance, 2013) joins Texas State University in the fall of 2018 as Assistant Professor of Voice. Previously she was Assistant Professor of Voice and Director of Opera Workshop at West Texas A&M University, where she led the opera workshop to their first national award in the National Opera Association's opera production competition with her production of Menotti’s "The Medium." She also recently performed the role of Violetta in Verdi’s "La Traviata" with Amarillo Opera, available for viewing on pbs.org.

Robert “Beto” Skiles (M.M., Composition, 1977) was inducted into the Austin Jazz Hall of Fame in April. His band, “Beto and the Fairlanes” were inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in February.

Rebecca Fahning (B.F.A., Theatre Studies, 2014) teaches theatre and theatre tech at Desert Pines High School in the Clark County School District, the fifth largest school district in the nation.

Honey Goodenough (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2000) is the resident teaching artist at The Puppet Showplace Theater in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her work will be showcased at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta in September.

Hai Zheng Olefsky (M.M., Applied Music/Voice/Piano, 1990), assistant professor of music at Southwestern University, was honored by Austin Mayor Steve Adler and the Austin City Council with a special proclamation on Thursday, May 10, 2018 for her 18 years of community work as Artistic Director for the Young Musicians Festival Competition at the Asian American Cultural Center.