expressin winter 2008

Anyone can post creative work online these days, bypassing gatekeepers and gaining instant worldwide exposure

T H E M A G A Z I N E F O R A L U M N I A N D F R I E N D S O F E M E R S O N C O L L E G EW I N T E R 2 0 0 8

Snow DayA pair of intrepid pedestrians trek through Boston Common, just steps from the Emerson campus.

2 Expression Winter 2008

Expression welcomes short letters to the editor on topics covered in the magazine. The editor will select a representative sample of letters to publish and reserves the right to edit copy for style and length. Send letters to: Editor, Expression, Office of Public Affairs, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston MA 02116-4624; [email protected].

Memory Lane In This Issue

My, how times have changed We, the members of the audience, have stormed the gates. We can now create and distribute our own media – film, music, writing and more – like never before. This phenomenon is still in its cultural infancy, yet Emerson alumni are participating in droves by making creative and fresh work and getting it out to the masses successfully. From directing short films and posting them online to sites like YouTube to creating music that’s discovered overnight via a mention on a popular blog, Emersonians are front and center in the media phenomenon sometimes referred to as “The People Formerly Known as the Audience.” Our cover story explores this exciting development.

Next, we selected a handful of Emerson alumni who are bona fide experts and asked them to answer a question or two in their field. Their expertise ranges from organic gardening to U.S. presidential history to baseball. There’s something for everyone, and we think you’ll like the results.

In another story in this issue, we show you how the Emerson College campus has been re-created online via a wildly popular site called Second Life. This 3-D world is populated by avatars (walking, talking virtual people) and contains wonders limited only by the imagination.

Rhea Becker, editor

The faculty of Emerson College, in its earliest incarnation, subscribed to some rather interesting theories. Read the undated advertisement at left selling bodices and girdles purported to increase one’s health. The College’s namesake and founder, Charles Wesley Emerson (below), was the man behind some of these these ideas.

CORRECTION In the Class Notes section of the Spring issue of Expression, the name of Melinda Valente’s fiance should have been Kenchy, not Ken.


Campus Digest

Robert R. Ashton, a veteran advancement professional with fundraising and alumni relations experience at more than a half-dozen private and public colleges and universities, has been named vice president for advancement at Emerson College.

President Jacqueline Liebergott announced the appointment following an extensive national search. “Robert Ashton is the right person at the right time for Emerson

College,” Liebergott said. “In addition to having a wealth of experience and a track record of achievement in advancement, he has an academic background and professional credentials in communication. We look forward to working with Bob as we consolidate the gains we have made over the past 14 years and generate the resources we need to maintain our forward progress.”

Ashton served most recently as vice president for university advancement at

New vice president for advancement named

Edmund Ansin, president of Sunbeam Television Corp., which owns and operates television stations in Boston and Miami, has established a $250,000 scholarship endowment at Emerson College to provide financial support for students from diverse backgrounds.

Income from the Ansin Endowed Diversity Scholarship Fund will provide up to 100 percent tuition support for two incoming freshmen each year. The scholarships will be renewable annually as long as students maintain satisfactory grades.

The scholarships will be awarded to students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, first-generation college students and students from

Media-community leader Ansin funds diversity scholarships

racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented at Emerson. Preference will be given to young men and women who are members of the Boston Boys and Girls Clubs, which Ansin has long supported.

Emerson College name and logo now trademarked

San Jose State University and prior to that as vice president for university advancement at the State University of New York at Albany. He has also served as vice president for college resources at

Sarah Lawrence College, as vice president for the capital campaign at the New School for Social Research and in advancement and alumni relations at the Stern School of Business at New York University, the University of Maryland and SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. Ashton holds a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communication.

Edmund Ansin

The Emerson College name and its distinctive “e” logo were registered recently with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, along with several other names and service marks associated with the College.

The trademarked names and images are: Emerson College, Emerson, the 1880 “e” logo in purple and in black and white, the College’s branding tagline “Bringing Innovation to Communication and the Arts,” the WERS tagline “Music for the Independent Mind,” American Comedy Archives and EVVY.

While the name Emerson College has been used for more than a century, the College has only recently taken steps to register the institution’s name. The value of pursuing a trademark came to light three years ago when a business that opened near the Emerson campus used “Emerson” as part of its name without seeking permission from the College.


The acclaimed actor-director and community activist Edward James Olmos delivered a fiery and passionate message last fall when he presented the College’s annual Balfour Distinguished Lecture on diversity.

Olmos gave an hour-long talk, titled “Using the Arts to Bridge the Cultural Divide,” to an Emerson audience in the Cutler Majestic Theatre. He also

Actor Olmos delivers passionate lecture on diversity

Edward James Olmos

met with students, faculty, staff and friends of the College.

Olmos is known to millions of television viewers for his portrayal of Lt. Castillo in the television series Miami Vice, his current role as Admiral Adama in the hit series Battlestar Galactica and his portrayal of a real-life math teacher at a troubled East Los Angeles high school in the movie Stand and Deliver, which earned him an Oscar nomination.

Performer, voice teacher, writer and philanthropist Elinore (Ziff) Greene, formerly of Newton, Mass., died Dec. 22, 2007. Wife of the late Kermit Greene, she died after a long illness in Minnetonka, Minn., where she had resided since 2000. She was 79.

In 2003 she made a gift to support the construction of the 130-seat Kermit and Elinore Greene Theater in Emerson College’s new Tufte Performance and Production Center. The theater is used for classroom instruction and for performances by the Emerson Stage group.

Greene was born and raised in Northampton, Mass. After graduating from

Elinore (Ziff) Greene ’48, namesake of College’s Greene Theater, dies

Northampton High School, she attended Emerson and earned a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama in 1948. The same year, she married her husband, an M.I.T.-educated mechanical engineer who became a paper industry executive.

Greene remained ac-tive at Emerson throughout her life, leading the Aid to Speech Therapy Program.

Remembrances in lieu of flowers may be made to the Combined Jewish Phi-lanthropies of Greater Bos-ton, 15 High St., Boston, MA 02110 or Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624.

The Balfour Distinguished Lecture series is sponsored by the Center for Diversity in the Communication Industries at Emerson College with support from the Lloyd G. Balfour Foundation, Bank of America N.A., Trustee. The previous speakers were Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte and Suzanne de Passe.

Elinore Greene ’48


Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist Adam Guettel was appointed the first Waldman Professor in Performing Arts by the School of the Arts. Guettel was in residency at the College in November and taught master classes, held forums, attended rehearsals and participated in other activities related to his expertise.

Guettel is the composer/lyricist of The Light in the Piazza (book by Craig Lucas), which received six Tony Awards in 2005.

“Adam Guettel is among the most progressive and exciting composers working today in the American musical theater,” said Grafton Nunes, dean

Tony Award winner named first Waldman professor

Adam Guettel

of the School of the Arts. “He represents a dynamic continuation of the traditions of talent and innovation represented by his mother, Mary Rodgers [Once Upon a Mattress], and his grandfather, the great American composer Richard Rodgers [Rodgers and Hammerstein].”

The College’s first endowed professorship in theater arts, the Waldman chair is funded by a gift from Honey Waldman, a 1946 graduate of the College, and her sister, Gladys Waldman Brownstein, and is in honor of their parents, Harry and Dora Winiker Waldman.

Health Communication program moves to new department

The Graduate Program in Health Communication has been relocated from the Department of Marketing Communication to the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD). The move was announced by Dean of the School of Communication Janis Andersen, who met with the full-time faculty of both departments. Timothy Edgar, who heads the Health Communication program, at the same time contacted the graduate students currently enrolled in the program to announce the relocation.

The relocation was motivated by the desire to place the program in a department where the health research methodologies are complementary, according to Edgar, CSD Chair Daniel Kempler, Marketing Communication Chair Joann Montepare and Andersen.

The move also supports the operation of the five-year combined Bachelor’s/Master’s Program in Communication Sciences and Disorders/Health Communication.

In recent weeks two former faculty members, Mary Joyce and Rhea Gaisner, died.

Mary Joyce, former communications professor, died in California, where she had relocated in 2002 after serving many years at Emerson as a faculty member and chair of the Communication Studies Department. According to an email sent to faculty, Joyce died Dec. 12 after a long bout with cancer. “Mary was an

important member of our community. She was a leader of our marketing program, and a role model for her students and colleagues,” said President Jacqueline Liebergott in the email. Donations can be made in her memory to Planned Parenthood.

Former Acting Professor Rhea Gaisner died Jan. 10, 2008, in her home in New York City. Gaisner retired as professor of performing arts and head of the Acting Program less

than two years ago. “During her eight years at Emerson, Rhea touched her students and colleagues with her intelligence, courage and honesty,” said Dean of the School of the Arts Grafton Nunes in an email. Before coming to Emerson, Gaisner established herself as one of the premier master teachers of acting in America. A memorial gathering will be held in April.

College mourns two former faculty members


Emersonians imagine and

c r e a t e entire new worlds on the web

Get A LifeLife 2nd2nd2nd2nd

7 Expression WInter 2008

Imagine a place where people are able to build their world from scratch, mold a new image of themselves, and zip effortlessly to far-off destinations. A world where residents fly through raging hurricanes in tiny planes, or visit Boston as it might have looked in Colonial times. This may sound like material from a science fiction novel, but it’s actually a 3-D virtual world called Second Life, found on the Internet and entirely built and owned by its ‘residents’.

Second Life is what’s known as a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), in which users are represented on screen by

animated ‘avatars’ who can walk, fly, talk and interact with each other in virtual 3-D environments, spaces all designed by the users. Avatars are virtual represen-tations created by individual users and can be realistic or fantastical.

Projects range from the nation of Sweden opening a virtual embassy to the hit CBS series CSI: NY creating its own virtual world of a crime scene.

The possibilities of Second Life are limited only by the human imagination, say its fans. According to Josh Fisher ’92, creator of a virtual world called Urbani-acs (see sidebar on p. 9), Second Life residents run a surprising gamut. “It’s every-one – housewives, grandmas, dads, businesspeople, kids, athletes. It’s a diverse group, and it’s only going to get wider.” Urbaniacs, though not user-generated like Second Life, is part of the

By Christopher Hennessy

online trend of worlds populated by avatars.

Emerson faculty, students and alumni use Second Life and related technology in ways that span education, business and commerce, entertainment and gaming, art and creativity and other areas of interest. In fact, Emerso-nians have already created a strikingly realistic online

“Emerson Island” (individual spots in Second Life are called ‘islands’), which re-creates the corner of Tremont Street and Boylston Street in Boston, where much of Emerson College now lies; part of nearby Boston Common; and even the interior of the on-cam-pus Bordy Auditorium. Anyone can visit and explore the virtual Emerson as it grows. (Visit http://slurl.com/secondlife/Emerson%20Island/96/147/36 and follow the instructions to sign up. Once you’ve downloaded the necessary application, the website will take you directly to Emerson Island.) Cutting-edge colleges and universities, like Emerson,

Residents of the online world Second Life visit the Emerson virtual Bordy Auditorium (below left) to ‘attend’ a virtual conference. Below right, an avatar in Second Life stands at the corner of Tremont and Bolyston streets, in the heart of the “Emerson Island,” a spot dedicated to re-creating segments of the campus online.


are readily taking advantage of Second Life. In fact, more than 50 universities now have representation ‘in-world’, according to Linden Labs, the San Francisco-based company that created and owns Second Life.

A new world in 3-DSince its launch in 2003, Second Life has exploded in popularity. Today more than 9 million ‘residents’ from around the globe inhabit this virtual world, with 40,000 users online at any given time. What began as 64 ‘acres’ of virtual space in 2003 is now over 65,000 acres and continues to grow rapidly.

To turn their imaginations into virtual reality in Second Life, users simply have to sign up for a free account, explore what has already been created, decide what they want to add to the world, and learn the site’s 3-D modeling program. Many users choose

to re-create parts of the real world (e.g., London’s Knightsbridge, Greenwich Village in New York, as well as parts of Amsterdam, Dublin, Tokyo and many other places), while other users create places built from their own imagina-tion.

Emerson Assistant Professor of Visual and Media Arts Eric Gordon sees Second Life as “sort of like early chat rooms. People hang out in places and have events. It’s the same phenomenon, except that you’re now using an avatar, and you’re moving through three-dimensional space.” Gordon is the author of the forthcoming books The American Urban Spectator: New Media and the American City and The Place of Social Media.

The precursor to Second Life was what are known as ‘massive multiplay-er online role-playing games’ (or MMORPGs) like the ever-popular World of Warcraft (WOW) or EverQuest. WOW players undertake “grand quests and heroic exploits in a land of fantastic adventure,” according to the game’s website. Alumnus Veronica Belmont ’04 runs one of the largest WOW “guilds,” a collection of about 800 members. In her role, Belmont organizes online events such as “The Running of the Bulls,” where hundreds of Tauren (a race of cow-like human-oids) run naked through the virtual world of Azeroth. “That’s a sight to see!” she said.

Getting educated in Second LifeGordon points out, however, that even though these online games use avatars like Second Life, Second Life is different because everything is user-generated. “This is why we find it so empowering: it’s not just living in a place, it’s building and it’s collaborative building.”

Emerson faculty and students are using Second Life in a project called Hub2, an initiative by the city of Boston in which community members were asked to think in new ways about the city and civic engagement. The collaborative nature of Second Life led Boston officials to recognize its potential for the Hub2 initiative. Gordon is facilitating the city project and used it last fall as a learning experience for Emerson students.

“Hub2 is essentially bringing real-life communities [e.g., Boston’s Chinatown residents] into a lab to build their own physical spaces within Second Life as a way of learning from the virtual,” explained Gordon, “and then putting that back into real life.” One of the intended projects that the city hopes to pursue will bring youth together to imagine the best ways Boston’s Downtown Crossing commer-cial district can be productively used as a ‘hangout’ space.

The Emerson component of Hub2 includes a course Gordon taught in the fall semester, entitled Networked Place, in conjunction with an evening class simply called Hub2 (offered through Emerson Professional Studies) for community members (e.g., city workers and civic leaders from Chinatown, Roxbury, etc.). That section was taught by Gene Koo, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. The two class sections had different curricula but worked on projects together and

‘met’ online.Associate Professor John Craig Freeman uses Second Life to showcase his virtual reality environments (entered via nodes or bubbles).

In Gordon’s class, Emerson students “used the Boston Common as our test ground,” he explained. The students utilized the 3-D possibilities Second Life offers in order to design “the best Boston Common possible.”

At a recent ceremony on campus, Emerson officials presented a key to the virtual Boston to Mayor Thomas Menino’s avatar. “Hub2 enlists Boston residents to engage pressing issues facing communities by re-imagining them through technology,” said Gordon during the event. “Computerized virtual worlds like Second Life offer powerful new tools for these communities. The goal of our project is to enable civic leaders, youth workers and others to use these tools to improve our city.” Officials from the Mayor’s Office, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Northeastern University, the Green-way Conservancy, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy were on hand to view various sites produced for the project at laptops throughout the room.

Gordon and Associate Professor of Visual and Media Arts John Craig Freeman have also been awarded a $30,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to explore how to integrate Second Life with live forums, foster live and virtual interactions, and record/retain the resulting exchanges.

Another way higher education is using Second Life is in the area of distance learning, which can use email or other online resources like audio and video feeds to connect learners with instructors who are in different locations. At Harvard University, for example, Tim Brenner ’01, videographer and video produc-tion specialist, uploads videos of lectures into a Second Life environ-

Josh Fisher ’92 has created apopular addition to the online role-playing world

“Virtual worlds give people the opportunity for a little wish fulfillment,” according to Josh Fisher ’92, creator of the quirky online world of Urbaniacs.com. “Everyone is cooler online.”

‘Cool’ may be the key to the hip-hop flavored Urbaniacs site, which Fisher launched in 2004. Though not a part of Second Life (see main story), the Urbaniacs site is part of a growing trend of interactive websites and features a wild universe filled with users’ wacky avatars. Users can make their avatar learn martial arts, spend money called ‘urbos’ on, say, gold tire rims and even compose rap songs about themselves.

What started as a hobby for Fisher, a former development executive for an animation studio, has grown into a full-time job. He has been creating online games and web-based entertainment for nearly three years. His most recent work was as producer for NFL Rush Zone, a new “massive online game for young people” created by the NFL. It launched in late 2007.

When the Urbaniacs site racked up a whopping 3 million visitors in a single month in the summer of 2006, the Los Angeles Times took note. The paper remarked that the site (“filled with hip-hop music and bell-bottomed superheroes”) has become “a choice destination for teenagers” and “hit a cultural nerve.”

Fisher’s site was deemed a pioneer among online avatar communities in the U.S. by Eric Garland, chief executive of L.A. market research firm BigChampagne.

Fisher agrees the site caters to young people, but said many parents play alongside their kids. “They battle

each other, trade, compete and play in a world where everyone has the opportunity to be creative.” He explains that parents have sent emails to him saying they checked out the site to see what their kids were doing online but then returned for more.

The world of Urbaniacs has hosted two weddings and one funeral in its short life thus far. “One of our core users passed away this summer, and the outpouring of sadness from people who had never met this user in real life was extremely touching,” Fisher said. “People needed to grieve. It’s amazing [to watch] the emotional connections that people have made with the game, and with the other users,” he said. Even when the site

“retired” one of its characters recently, Fisher said “users really felt like a friend was going away.”

Two users even met in the online world and recently married each other. “That just cracks me up,” Fisher laughs. But he understands the connections people make are real.

“People share in virtual worlds... partially because you are protected by a layer of anonymity. It’s like having several hundred or even thousand very dear pen pals.”

– C.H.


Master of his Universe

ment. “A virtual classroom was created where students not physically located in Cambridge could ‘attend’ class,” Brenner explained. “There is a great potential with Second Life and other virtual worlds in distance education….[because] a virtual world can help bridge the gap by adding another resource to the communication and learning process.”

Virtual panoramasAssociate Professor Freeman uses digital technologies to produce virtual environments and says the participa-tory nature of Second Life has created new possibilities for his work. He specializes in creating exhibitions made up of virtual reality environments projected into the real world (e.g., via a projector onto a large movie screen) that lead the user from global satellite perspectives to virtual reality scenes on the ground. His work has been exhibited internationally.

A long-term project Freeman began in 1997, called Imaging Place, is now reaching worldwide audiences via Second Life. Imaging Place is a gargan-tuan repository of video narratives and panoramic images of people and places from across the globe. In his exhibi-tions, viewers begin looking down at the earth from global satellite images,

and then zoom down to explore panoramic views on the ground where they encounter denizens of the area who then tell their own personal narratives of being affected by the places they live in or have visited.

With Second Life, Freeman has begun creating “nodes” or “bubbles” that Second Life residents can visit via audio and video presentations. A viewer, for example, flying above Tremont Street, can enter a node and immedi-ately be transported to as far away as Taiwan.

Second Life “has allowed me not only to make the work accessible worldwide, but…now the work can also become inhabitable,” Freeman explained. “I’m particularly fond of meeting [through the person of his character, or avatar] individuals or small groups and giving them tours. Each of these individual bubbles then ends up being a memory trigger [recalling some place or memory] – which adds to an extended narrative [I deliver].”

In his globe-trekking to obtain the images and narratives he uses, Free-man focuses on places “where global-ization is having the most visible impact,” for example, the U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuana.

In the same way that there are hundreds of different channels, each with their own brand of entertainment, I see virtual worlds and online communities as a way of connecting people with similar interests.”

Josh Fisher ’92,creator of Urbaniacs.com

“

Screen captures (below and far right) from a virtual conference held in the Bordy Auditorium on Emerson’s ‘campus’ in Second Life


Freeman has captured narratives that are historical or political, personal or poetic. “I’m particularly interested in how identity formation is changing in the digital network,” he explained.

Virtuosity unleashedThere are many potential uses of what Gordon calls “the immersive presenta-tion quality” of Second Life. For example, the National Weather Service created a simulation that allows users to walk through various weather systems or to integrate a U.S. map with live weather data, Gordon says. “A ‘wow’ moment for me was flying a little jet right through a hurricane,” he added. Other users have modeled molecular structures in order to virtually travel through ‘innerspace’.

“I’ve seen people build legitimate businesses in Second Life (selling items and property), and even form support groups for depression or other issues,” said alumna Belmont, who previously worked at CNET.com, where she produced and co-hosted the website flagship’s podcast, Buzz Out Loud. She has commented on technol-ogy issues on MSNBC and CNBC, among others. “One of my favorite ways to use Second Life is to attend in-world conferences and speaking events,” Belmont added. “You can view presentations and listen to live,

streaming audio from the attendees. It definitely saves you on traveling costs.” Belmont currently is host and producer of the web show Mahalo Daily.

Erin O’Brien ’06, who was instrumental in creating the Emerson Island during her student days, believes that real-world companies and organizations “have only begun to scratch the surface of what they can do virtually.” O’Brien worked full-time in Emerson’s Information Technology department for two years while finishing up her B.F.A. studies in new media. She was the primary 3D developer and designer of the virtual Bill Bordy Auditorium at 216 Tremont St.

“In the same way that there are hundreds of different channels, each with their own brand of entertainment, I see virtual worlds and online commu-nities as a way of connecting people with similar interests,” says Fisher, creator of the online world of Urbani-acs (see sidebar). “In places like Second Life, there are different cliques, and each one of those cliques could spin off into its own section.”

O’Brien argues “the most meaningful projects” are the ones that use the virtual space to help others.” As

an example, O’Brien points to a Second Life environment, created by the founder of Linden Labs, which helps people who suffer from cerebral palsy.

“It’s really inspiring to see people enjoying an enhanced virtual life when they might be limited in some way,” O’Brien said.

Spaces that showcase scientific phenomenon and experimentation are also common uses of Second Life. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s “island.”

O’Brien thinks people too easily dismiss Second Life as “a game,” which she says is short-sighted. Belmont finds one misconception “is that the friend-ships and relationships that we build [in-world] aren’t as relevant or impor-tant as the ones we have with the people we see offline. It’s true that we only know the personality they let us see online, but I think it’s often the most truthful representation.”

Misconceptions abound when it comes to virtual worlds and digital media in general, ‘residents’ point out.

“Everyone thinks: ‘I don’t even have time for my first life!’ I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that,” Gordon said. “It’s not that virtual worlds are about retiring from your first life. Users see Second Life and other virtual worlds as opportunities to socialize, not isolate themselves.” E

Emerson faculty have used the collaborative nature of Second Life for Boston’s Hub2 initiative, which essentially brings real-life communities into a lab to build their own physical spaces, like this green space (left) and MBTA trolley scene (below), within Second Life as a way of learning from the virtual and then using those experiences to build in the real world.


Experts often spend their entire professional lives studying a single subject. Expression decided to assemble a number of Emerson alumni who themselves are experts in particular fields to provide readers with an eclectic sampler of engaging, useful information. Our experts hold forth on everything from the possibility of a First Husband in the White House to tips on starting an organic garden to how to choose great wines.

The Ask


Diana Kuhns Barton ’91An expert in the production of large-scale special events, Diana Kuhns Barton was production supervisor for the Academy Awards broadcasts for nine years. She was also a key member of the production team for the Emmy Awards as well as the Democratic and Republican national conven-tions. At the Academy Awards, for instance, she was respon-sible for the paperwork that ran the show: “If we were wrong, the show was wrong.”

Josh Pahigian, MFA ’01A baseball aficionado, Josh Pahigian has written a collection of books on the subject of baseball, including The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip: A Fan’s Guide to Major League Stadiums (with Kevin O’Connell, MFA ’00) and Red Sox in the Playoffs: A Postseason History, 1903-2005. His latest book, 101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out, will be published this spring.

What’s your favorite big league baseball park and why? What’s your least favorite?

Okay, I admit it. Having grown up in New England and having had the pleasure of attending about 20 Red Sox games a year during my time at Emerson, I have to say Fenway is my favorite park. Sure, the grandstand seats are narrow, made of wood, and in many cases pointed out toward centerfield, rather than toward home plate, but when it comes to providing an intimate environment that places the majority of fans right on top of the action, it is truly unsur-passed. The passion and baseball acumen of the Boston fans also add to the game-day experience. And don’t forget those scrumptious Fenway sausages sizzling right outside the ballpark gates.

My next favorite park is Wrigley Field in Chicago. Yes, I’m a sucker for the old-time yards. It hasn’t been maintained as well as Fenway through the years, but like Fenway, it’s a throwback to a simpler time in our nation’s, and in the national game’s, history. As for the newer generation of stadiums, PNC Park in Pittsburgh made the greatest impression on me, owing to its river views, cozy stands and great pierogies.

My least favorite park would have to be Shea Stadium in New York. The good news is that the Mets will be opening a new ballpark in 2009 to replace it. But every time I visit, memories flash through my head of Bill Buckner and the ball trickling through his legs. And the giant pictures on the concourse of Jesse Orosco, Ray Knight and other ’86 Mets celebrating don’t help my mood either. But more than just being an unpleasant place for Red Sox fans to visit, Shea’s outfield view is dismal – make that post-apocalyptic – as it showcases a very bleak part of Queens. And the steady roar of jumbo jets flying overhead as they depart from the nearby airport drowns out the crack of the bat all game long.

1. Know what your department heads are capable of. You have to be a conductor of sorts. A conductor may not have played all the instruments in his or her orchestra, but they know what each one can do.

2. You must be able to adapt to different personalities and situations very quickly. On any given show, you could be working with a completely different crew. Also, during a show, you never know what is going to happen. You have to be able to size up the situation and begin creating solutions or options, in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.

3. You must like a high level of stress. Work a live show like the Academy Awards – which is watched by millions of people – and you’ll know what I mean.

4. Don’t burn bridges. If you are the producer, you want to keep your production staff and crew happy because ultimately they are running your show. You want to keep them working with you for years to come.

5. In order to get ahead you may have to start at the bottom. After I graduated from Emerson College my first television job was as a runner making $40 a day – before taxes! Get over it and work. It will pay off.

6. Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter. You must tell people when you are available to work, what you’re willing to do (in the beginning, do everything) and keep in contact with those you’ve met. Always. I’ve been working for close to 17 years in television, and I still keep putting my name out.

Name several things one should know in order to run a successful large event.

Concept by Rhea Becker


Paul Doiron, MFA ’97Paul Doiron is editor-in-chief of Down East, the venerable magazine about Maine, founded in 1954.

Myra Gutin ’70, MA ’71Author of The President’s Partner: The American First Lady in the Twentieth Century, Myra Gutin is also a professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Rider University. In May, her new book, Barbara Bush: Presidential Matriarch, will be published. An updated edition of The President’s Partner will be available in 2009.

How do you come up with new story ideas each month about your single subject – the state of Maine?

We steal them. Seriously, we’re not ashamed at looking at what other magazines are doing and learning from their successes. But I think that what elevates our process above that of mere petty thief is that we’re stealing from magazines that, on the surface, have nothing in common with us: New York magazine, Esquire, Vanity Fair. We learn more from the New York Times Magazine than we do from our competitors. The challenge for us, as a regional magazine with a much smaller budget and staff than the big guys, is to take some-thing like New York’s classic “Urban Etiquette Handbook” and re-imagine what that concept might look like if it were applied to a rural and reserved state. Reading another magazine got us thinking about how manners in Maine differ from those in other places (and they do, by the way). So it was the spark that ignited our own creativity. The reality is that ideas are all around. Any good editor should have a thousand of them. The trick is to recognize the exceptional ones. And then it comes down to execution.

How will the institution of First Lady change if/when a man occupies that position?

Ah, the First Gentleman. Whoever is the first male in the White House as a spouse is going to be a trailblazer. The only model we really have is Denis Thatcher, husband of Margaret Thatcher. But there’s never really been much made of the role of the spouse of the British prime minister. So our First Gentleman or First Spouse is going to be writing the history of it. It will be doubly interesting if it turns out to be Bill Clinton.

At the time I wrote my book (the late 1980s), I probably did not envision a First Gentleman. But for the last 10 years I’ve thought it was a distinct possibility because women have had more success and are undertaking more responsibilities in the political arena. Now we have two female senators from California. We’ve got about nine female senators. We’ve got a lot of women in the House. So it was going to happen eventually. I just wondered if Elizabeth Dole was going to get there first. She was a candidate but I don’t know how seriously she was really taken, unlike Hillary Clinton.

First Ladies have three responsibilities: ceremonial; they decide whether they want to be involved in political responsibilities; and then they have advocacy as a responsibil-ity. I’m not sure I would see a male spouse involved in those three areas. Probably not in the ceremonial. I don’t think I see Bill Clinton hosting teas at the White House. But I certainly can see him doing the requisite political activity, and I can see him advocating for a cause or causes.


Jace Mortensen ’99Gardener and landscaper to the renowned alternative health practitioner Dr. Andrew Weil, Jace Mortensen lives in Arizona and writes the organic gardening column for DrWeil.com.

Alan Tulin ’76Known professionally as

“Al Tulane: Man of a Million Names,” singer Alan Tulin has a very special skill: he is hired by special events producers to instantly memorize the names and seating locations of up to 200 guests, and then he personally greets each guest by name via an improvised song.

Is organic gardening possible anywhere? What steps must one take to begin gardening organically?

Not only is organic gardening possible anywhere, it’s possible everywhere. It was once the only way people gardened and how farmers farmed until agro-chemicals trickled down into the consumer market around WW II. Whether indoors or in the backyard, plants can easily be grown organically. Good soil and a handful of seeds are all one really needs to start an organic garden. I usually tell people if they’re on a budget to invest in the soil, not the plants. A strong plant will die in poor soil but a weak plant will revive in fertile soil. In general, organic gardening begins with the soil. Good soil grows healthy plants and healthy plants as a rule are more resilient to pests and disease.

Organic gardening can be done on any scale. The garden I tend at Dr. Weil’s house is about 2,500 square feet and the landscape is full of everything from cactus to apple trees. We do it all with organic techniques. On the other hand, my friend has a window box where she grows basil from seed without adding anything but water.

Almost any plant that the home gardener selects can be grown organically. I recommend consulting a neighbor or a local nursery for varieties that will do well in your climate. I strongly recommend people avoid buying plants and chemicals from the big-box stores and instead purchase gardening products at the local nursery. You can usually find organic fertilizers there, the plants are better cared for, the bagged soil amendments are superior, the staff can usually answer all your questions and your local business owner will be grateful.

How do you memorize so many names? Do you have memory-improvement tips for the average person? The act involves a great deal of preparation. I get the names, information and seating arrangements from the event’s production team. I then memorize the seating chart and create a medley of show tunes, rewritten to contain all the names and personal info.

The performance usually runs about 20 minutes. I work with an extraordinary musical director, Fred Wells. Our favorite client is Bloomingdale’s. We’ve performed for their annual “Best of the Best” celebration at Tavern on the Green [in New York City] for the past 13 years.

I use the mnemonic techniques that I learned from Dr. [Kenneth] Crannell at Emerson to help me remember the information. The preparation is everything. When I know the material cold, I’m free to really experience the amazement of the audience. I find that the best way to remember anything is to paint a vivid or even absurd mental picture that is unforgettable. I picked up a specific technique from Dr. Crannell while rehearsing Al Corona’s production of Company in the late 1970s. Mary Archambault was playing Amy, the fast singing bride (“Pardon me, is everybody here, because if everybody’s here...”). Dr. C. suggested that Mary be particularly aware of where, in her mouth, the pronunciation of various words was happening. By practicing and becoming acutely aware of what she was doing with her tongue, teeth, roof of her mouth, etc., she was able to sing at lightning speed and with great clarity. Try it with a tongue twister. It works!


Christopher K. Bigelow ’91The great-great-great-grandson of a Mormon apostle and the author of Mormonism For Dummies, Christopher Bigelow also co-founded and edited the Mormon literary magazine Irreantum and the satirical Mormon newspaper The Sugar Beet. He has given expert commentary on Mormonism to FOX News Radio and the Catholic Channel on SIRIUS Radio.

Jenn (Mann) Berman ’92Known as Dr. Jenn to millions, Jenn Berman is the author of The A to Z Guide to Raising Happy, Confident Kids (2007), a Los Angeles Times best-selling book. A psychothera-pist, author and speaker, she has made hundreds of appear-ances in print and broadcast, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show (NBC), Intervention (A&E), the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, US Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Details and Good Housekeeping.

Many people think Mormons aren’t Christian, but it depends on what your definition of “Christian” is. If you mean simply a believer in Christ, then Mormons are definitely Christian. If you mean a member of a mainstream Christian denomina-tion, then no, Mormons have too many theological differ-ences.

Mormons are more liberal and progressive than many people expect. We don’t condone sex outside of marriage, but we celebrate its bonding role in marriage beyond procreation, and many of us practice family planning through birth control – in fact, we tolerate abortion in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother’s life. Mormons believe in the Bible, but aren’t literal creationists – many Mormons believe that the six “days” God took to create the earth could refer to six creative periods that lasted for the equivalent of millions of today’s earth years. Mormons can also be surprisingly progressive about modern issues such as stem cell research, mixed-race adoption and marriage, uses of science and technology and other issues.

In light of Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy, name a few things that non-Mormons do not understand about Mormonism.

What is the most common mistake parents raising children make today?

Many parents want to be their child’s friend and are afraid to upset their child. As a result, they abdicate their role as parents. Kids do best when they know the rules of the house and know what the consequences will be if they break them. Kids will kick and scream when those rules are enforced, but deep down they are glad you are following through because it shows them you care. In order for kids to feel safe and under-stand cause and effect, parents have to be consistent with their behaviors and actions. You want your child to know that you mean what you say and you say what you mean. This is one of the toughest jobs of being a parent. It is always easier to just say “yes” to make the problem go away, but it harms children in the long term.


Lois Roach ’83A longtime theater director and playwright, Lois Roach directed The Wiz for the African-American Theater Festival; A Lesson Before Dying and Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First 100 Years for the New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, Mass.; and the New England premiere of The Old Settler for the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, which won numerous awards. She is a lecturer and visiting artist in the Theater Depart-ment at Wellesley College.

Lawrence Dutra ’83 President, CEO and an owner of the Adams Wine Group, Lawrence Dutra also operates wineries in Santa Ynez and Santa Rosa, Calif.

To me, anything by August Wilson, Suzi-Lori Parks. Her [Pulitzer Prize-winning] Top Dog/Underdog was absolutely powerful. Also, some of the things Dael Orlandersmith is writing and the work that is coming out of the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, with Emily Mann. I’m also thinking of the work from the National New Play Network, which involves about 20 theaters. They’re develop-ing new plays out of their network and there is some interesting work coming out of that. E

In your view, which plays in modern theater will stand the test of time?

Many people are intimidated by wine and the myriad choices they are confronted with. There is no substitute for tasting a variety of wines and experiencing wines from different grapes, different countries and different wineries. Since most wine is consumed with food, gain a working knowledge of which wines pair best with which foods. Tour a winery or two, join a wine club and have fun with it all.

The most common question I get is, “How did you end up in the wine business?’ People find it to be a very romantic line of work, yet mysterious in many ways. Owning wineries is hard work, believe it or not. We face all the competitive challenges that any business does. But what I love most about the business is that I meet and work with lots of passionate, creative people who are inspired by what they do for work. Much like my years at Emerson, come to think of it!

How does one choose a good wine?


Anyone

can post

creative work

online

these days,

bypassing

gatekeepers

and gaining

instant

worldwide

exposure

By David McKay Wilson


Like a slew of Emerson graduates in their 20s, Lazar has discovered that communicating in the 21st century takes both talent and tech-savvy in a generation that downloads music from iTunes, uploads videos on YouTube.com, and stays connected on social networking websites like Facebook or MySpace.

Gone now are the middlemen that served as arbiters of what got published, recorded or filmed. Today, amateur filmmakers like Emerson students Patrick De Nicola ’08 and Jonathan Ade ’07 can spend a couple of all-nighters making a 2-and-a-half-minute parody of the film Brokeback Mountain, post it to YouTube and have it viewed more than 2 million times. Singer-songwriter Eric Hutchinson ’02 unexpectedly lands a recommendation from mega-celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton, and overnight, his album jumps to No. 5 on the iTunes charts and his songs get 40,000 spins on his MySpace page.

Meanwhile, comedian Dan Levy ’03 is such a hit blogging on the popular CollegeHumor.com website that he was invited in the fall of 2007 to host the CollegeHumor tour to 12 campuses across the country. The biggest audience turns out at California State Polytechnic University one night, as 3,000 students show up to hoot and holler at the hilarious, and occasionally ribald, humor. While on tour, Levy uploads video clips and keeps a blog

– short for ‘web log’, a site where its creator has his or her say (often on a daily basis), and then responds to those who comment on their prose.

“CollegeHumor.com took their brand, which had developed a strong online audience, and took it on the road,” says Levy, 26, who lives in Los Angeles. “This was the kickoff year and we’re already booking shows for the spring. It’s only going to get bigger.”

The transformation of American culture has touched the academy as well. Eric Gordon, assistant professor of visual and media arts at Emerson, says as access to information has become so pervasive, the teacher becomes less a fount of knowledge and more of a guide for students trying to

make sense out of what’s available to them. And as the nature of media shifts, so has teaching.

“Even the notion of teaching to individual mediums has to change,” says Gordon, who teaches courses in Digital Media and Culture and The History and Esthetic of New Media. “You can’t think of designing for individual screens. We have to think about distribution systems. You may have a program for a certain time slot, but then there’s also web distribution, on demand, or DVD.”

Digital distribution means that the product – be it a music recording or television ad – gets transferred electroni-cally and doesn’t have a physical form. When the students of Emerson Associate Professor Thomas Vogel recently entered the International Advertising Associa-tion’s annual competition, everything was done online, like a growing segment of the global economy.

“There were judges all over the world, and they went to the websites to see what had been submitted,” says Vogel, who is also director of Emerson’s graduate program for global marketing communication and advertising. “It makes life easier. New media is being used as a tool to maintain and strength-en services and develop potential customers.”

A new role for audiencesThe changing media landscape has also generated a new player in the news and entertainment industry: the audience. Blogger Jay Rosen, who writes on media, says that the audience is no longer just on the receiving end in a media system with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened, in isolation from one another.

Today’s audience is active. It responds with great fervor to news stories in web-based forums. The audience creates blogs on the web, giving voice to anyone with a computer, empowering citizen journalists as never before. And today’s audience spouts off continued on page 22

On a chilly mid-December afternoon, entertainment reporter/blogger Shira Lazar ’04 is rushing between television appearances in midtown Manhattan. She passes the towering Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and turns on her mobile phone’s video camera to narrate a one-minute blurb on the wonders of the holidays in New York. She then uploads the clip wirelessly to her blog at thepopreport.com.

Within minutes, it’s there for the world to see, along with feeds from her weekly online show about Los Angeles hotspots, an interview for www.movies.com with actor Tom Hanks, as well as a clip of a guy pushing her car down Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard after it ran out of gas.

“I’m multi-platform – it’s about being on everything,” says Lazar, 24, one evening in New York. “These days, you take advantage of online. You take advantage of TV and mobile blogging. You put it all together and you have one amazing product.”

For Lazar, that product is her growing presence as a pioneer in the fast-changing world of New Media, which since the turn of the century has profoundly transformed the fields of journalism, music, television and film.



Alumnus Randy Barbato’s (’82) World of Wonder (WOW) Productions has always been on the cutting edge of trends in popular culture and entertainment, producing films like Party Monster and The Eyes of Tammy Faye. One of their most recent endeavors is WOW TV, where users can essentially “create their own TV channel.”

Acting alum Jayk Gallagher ’04 has never been shy about getting his work

‘out there’. His clips are available on MySpace and iFilm, for example.

Last spring, alumni Jen Kirkman ’96 and Chris Romanski ’00 took part in an experimental cable television series, Acceptable TV, which premiered in March on VH1. Produced by popular comedian Jack Black, the show was similar to a sketch comedy program and featured several “mini-shows,” including one created by a viewer. In another interactive twist, viewers voted online for their two favorites to

“We like to think of WOW TV as a boutique user-generated outlet,” Barbato explained. “We offer producers the ability to upload in high resolution.” The producers can choose to charge visitors to view their work, with WOW taking a percentage much smaller than studios or other

‘gatekeepers’. The site also maintains “a liberal policy,” according to Barbato, i.e., they “frown upon censorship.”

Even though it’s still a very young site, WOW TV has close to 200 channels created by all kinds of users.

“The majority of people we attract are young producers, up and coming directors and talent,” Barbato reports.

“Our philosophy has always been that the talent is out there. Most studio

Back in 2006, Gallagher decided to shoot his own pilot, entitled Jayk Gallagher Kills Hollywood. He then translated that pilot into video clips that he promoted at http://www.myspace.com/jgkh.

return the following week. The rest of the sketches get “canceled.” One of the most popular mini-shows, for example, was called “Homeless James Bond,” a sketch that satirizes the suaveness of secret agent James Bond and features Romano as a homeless henchman. Each week, the broadcast spotlighted the user-generated pilot that received the most votes.

Surf some online entertainment from a handful of alumni

Images from various channels on WOW TV, created by Randy Barbato’s World of Wonder Productions.

Scenes from Jayk Gallagher Kills Hollywood


by Christopher Hennessy


people are gatekeepers trying to control and prevent talent from rising to the top, but fortunately we are in the midst of [another] technological revolution, [one] that is truly transforming and democratizing the entertainment industry!” Says Barbato, “If you want your own TV network, then your first stop is WOW TV.”

He called the show “a scathing sociopolitical comedic rollercoaster that’s kind of like what would happen if The Daily Show with John Stewart met Jackass [the MTV stunt show]…. Gallagher leaps from behind the desk of safety from which many hosts deliver their monologues, and carves

straight to the heart of the problem, ripping it out and holding it up for all to see.” According to Gallagher, the clips helped lead to Current TV (the network founded by Al Gore), which commissioned five comedic clips from Gallagher.

Acceptable TV, an experimental cable television series, incorporated lots of interactive opportunities for viewers.

Gallagher has appeared in national commercials for Diet Dr. Pepper, Yellowpages.com, and Jeep and on TV shows on the E! Network and MTV. Most recently, he joined a Los Angeles-based theater company called needtheater as a resident artist.



continued from page 19 on whatever is on its mind – from the war in Iraq to the latest rock album released on an independent record label.

“It’s a participatory media,” says Gordon. “We’ve seen major news stories get broken on blogs. There are millions of listening ears today instead of just a few reporters. It has created a culture where nothing can hide.”

Emerson alumni are riding the digital tidal wave from coast to coast. Take Jamie Silberhartz ’04, a fledgling actress now living in West Hollywood. In the summer of 2006, Silberhartz went to a top-secret audition for what she thought was a part on the ABC Television hit show Lost. After her second call-back, she landed the job. But it wasn’t a prime-time gig as a castaway on that South Pacific island.

Instead, Silberhartz, 25, was hired to act on so-called ‘webisodes’, which appeared on the websites of the show’s sponsors. It was part of the Lost producers’ strategy to keep the show’s diehard fans involved between seasons by showing 1- to 5-minute video segments with clues about what was coming up in the fall. The edgy ad campaign landed Silberhartz on the cover of the New York Times Arts & Leisure section.

“It was awesome,” she says. The web has provided an outlet

for Silberhartz’s acting career. In the spring of 2007, she starred in a 3-minute comedy satire, Modern Day Jesus, in which she went out on a date with a good-looking guy with long hair and a crown of thorns. His name was Jesus, and he was intent on kissing her in the front seat of his car at the end of their first date. By year’s end, the short had 363,829 views and 1,364 com-ments. There were four video respons-

es as well, including one parody that Silberhartz acted in called Miriam and Shoshanna, which featured two Jewish girls rapping about life in the Orthodox community.

Silberhartz also appeared in a series of whimsical web ads for the shoe company Enchanted Royals, created by her classmate, Haley Thompson ’04. It was a real Emerson effort, with the videos directed by Carol Fahey ’05 and the music provided by the Warm Air Telegraph, which is led by Dara Weinberg ’04.

“It was like being back in college, only we have more wisdom now,” says Silberhartz. “As an actress, you have no control over when you get a job. With YouTube, you can do a film for the Internet with friends. You aren’t getting a big paycheck, but you are doing what you love. You do it for the love of the art.”

Making a living in the digital world can be a challenge as new models for commerce continue to develop, with the music industry on the forefront of this movement. Since he graduated four years ago, Morgan Page ’03 has found his niche in the evolving international music marketplace. He has recorded 80 remixes, a dozen singles and his second album. This comes as no surprise to those who had listened to his weekly dance-mix show on WERS during his college years.

After graduating, Page, 26, moved to Los Angeles and landed a job with M80 Interactive Marketing, which creates word-of-mouth online market-ing campaigns on blogs and e-mail networks for top entertainers, concert tours, feature films, video games and consumer brands.

While working the web, Page also continued making music in the studio, developing new dance mixes for his

For more information about the Emerson alumni and faculty interviewed for this article, visit the following sites:

Eric Hutchinsonhttp://www.myspace.com/erichutchinsonShira Lazarhttp://www.shiralazar.com/Dan Levyhttp://www.danlevyshow.com/Morgan Pagehttp://www.nuancerecordings.com/Jamie Silberhartz

“Modern Day Jesus” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIHRGTVG5qIEric Gordonhttp://placeofsocialmedia.com/blog/index.php

Hot Links


TOP: Comedian Dan Levy ’03 helped raise his public profile by blogging on a popular college humor site. ABOVE: Shira Lazar ’04 records entertainment reports about figures ranging from Miley Cyrus (“Hannah Montana”) to Dr. Phil and posts them online. RIGHT: Singer/songwriter Eric Hutchinson ’02 became an overnight sensation after a single mention on the mega-blog Perez Hilton. FAR RIGHT: Actor Jamie Silberhartz ’04 gained visibility through her performances in web episodes related to the ABC TV hit series Lost.


gigs deejaying at club scenes in Los Angeles, the United Kingdom, Ger-many and China. He has also made a name for himself in L.A., creating

“remixes” of songs by noted artists such as Norah Jones and Ashlee Simpson, putting the thump-thump-thump beat to their tunes to make them more appealing at dance clubs.

“That’s my bread and butter, to make sure a song gets in the Billboard charts,” says Page. “They give me the vocals, drums, keyboard and guitars, and then it’s up to me to make it cool and interesting for the dance floor.”

By February 2007, Page quit his day job at M80 to devote himself full time to music. That has opened up all sorts of possibilities. Later that month, he flew to Shanghai for a four-day gig deejaying in a leading Chinese nightclub. It also gave him time to record new work on his own label, Nuance Recordings, which in late December, had four collections of songs for sale online. Chunks of his songs appear on websites selling ringtones for mobile phones. Page’s music also plays on satellite radio and in shopping malls at Victoria Secret stores.

“People are discovering music in many different ways now,” says Page.

“You’ve just got to work to get your music out there.”

Finding one’s audience, though, can take considerable work, and a bit of luck. Eric Hutchinson ’02, a singer-songwriter who lives in Manhattan, has been writing songs and touring since graduating five years ago. In August, he released his first album, Sounds Like This, which caught the ear of celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton after a high school friend of Hutchinson’s sent Hilton the recording.

Hilton touted the album on his blog on Sept. 5, and posted a link to Hutchinson’s MySpace page where web surfers can hear it and buy his music

through iTunes. In a few days, the once-obscure singer had hundreds of emails, 3,000 new fans had requested to be his MySpace “friend,” and record sales skyrocketed to 10,000 albums, with 90 percent of the sales coming through online outlets.

By late fall, his album was also being sold at Best Buy stores around the country. This winter he was touring across the U.S. and Canada as the opening act for the pop-rock group One Republic.

“Getting that mention by Perez Hilton was such good timing,” says Hutchinson, 27, who lives in Manhattan.

“I like that the CD is being sold in stores. But there’s a whole generation that’s even younger than me that’s never going to buy an album except by downloading it online.”

As the Internet develops as the source of entertainment in the 21st century, filmmakers like Bryan Wilson ’04 sometimes need to strategize how to use the web to showcase their work. Wilson’s film, Windowbreakers, which chronicles how two kids find the thieves responsible for a string of break-ins in a Boston neighborhood, was selected for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. But to win acceptance to the prestigious festival, producers have to agree to premiere their film there, so Wilson couldn’t put the film up for all to see on YouTube.

However, he did create a website to promote the 10-minute short, and those who want to see the film can now download it for $1.99 from iTunes.

“You try to create some buzz on the web,” says Wilson, whose sixth film, Chasing Tails, has been submitted for several festivals in 2008.

To pay the bills, Wilson has also found work as a movie stunt man. In July, he was in New Haven for eight days on Yale University’s campus working on Steven Spielberg’s fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series. One day,

RIGHT: Brokeback to the Future (logo is at right) is a film parody created by Patrick De Nicola ’08 and Jonathan Ade ’07, who made names for themselves when they posted it online. BELOW: Music-maker Morgan Page ’03, who has parlayed his remixing magic into major gigs worldwide, sells his collected work online. BOTTOM: Filmmaker Bryan Wilson ’04 has used the web to promote his short films, including one accepted to Sundance.

Wilson played a student who had to dive out of the way of a motorcycle.

That day, an amateur with a video camera took some footage of Spielberg directing his new film. It was soon up on YouTube, and Spielberg, the gray-haired director, was concerned about whether the pirated shot would spoil his latest production.

The filming came within days of the launch of the iPhone, Apple’s revolutionary communications device, which Spielberg had just purchased. Wilson recalls watching Spielberg use his iPhone to go onto YouTube to watch the video of someone filming his film.

“It was surreal,” says Wilson. “Here I was standing with Spielberg, who was checking out YouTube like anyone else would. It was like I was in some kind of a time warp.” E



FILMNonagenarian activist and alumna Doris “Granny D” Haddock is the subject of the HBO documentary film Run Granny Run. At the age of 90, Haddock walked across America to rally against the influence of big money in elections. Her journey brought national scrutiny to the system’s flaws. Years later, she ran for U.S. Senate against incumbent Judd Gregg. The film captures the challenges she faced with just four months until Election Day. Haddock is the author of Granny D: You’re Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell (Random House, 2003) and Granny D: Walking across America in My Nine-tieth Year (Random House, 2001). She received an Emerson honorary degree in 2000. She attended Emer-son from 1928-1931.

Ann Carol Grossman, MA ’76, recently debuted her film, The Powder and the Glory, to a sold-out audience at the Boston Jewish Film Festival. The movie docu-ments two cosmetics indus-try moguls, Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein, and their bitter 50-year rivalry.

NEW MEDIAA web project by Juan Devis ’93 – “part digital mural, part social documen-tary, part travelogue” and called Departures – has won international, national and local digital-media awards in the year since the artist created it. The art project’s subject is the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles. “The neighborhood is changing,” Devis told the New York Times, “and I wanted to record that change of scene by the folks who live there.” The site contains slide shows, audio inter-views, historical photographs and literary quotations.

RADIOKen Johnson ’84, vice president of programming, Cumulus Broadcasting, was recognized for his achieve-ments at the 14th Annual Living Legends Dinner Gala held in New York City. John-son oversees the program-ming of 25 stations in 15 markets, in the urban, urban adult contemporary and gospel radio stations. During his tenure at Cumulus, he has been involved in over 20 station launches. The Living Legends Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedi-cated to preserving and hon-oring the works and deeds of pioneers and trailblazers in the music industry, broad-casting and related fields.

Doris Haddock

Notable Expressions

A scene from The Powder and the Glory, a documentary by Ann Carol Grossman, MA ’76


Pooja Kohli, MA ’02, is the director of the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival. “An event like the MIAAC is essential for a film com-munity that is undergoing a huge metamorphosis,” she told India Abroad newspaper. Kohli was a well-known tele-vision personality in India by age 20.

THEATERSheryl Kaller ’82, director of several Broadway produc-tions, most recently directed Christopher Durang’s Adrift in Macao in its New York premiere at Primary Stages. Variety declared, “Kaller has the right take on this zany project: Make it pretty and make it fun.” The play is described as a “film noir musical parody,” with book and lyrics by Durang (Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, The Marriage of Bette and Boo) and music by Peter Melnick. The Philadelphia Inquirer calls Kaller’s produc-tion “laugh-out-loud funny.”

Steve Bluestein, MSSp ’68, has penned a play, Rest, In Pieces, that was given a reading at Los Angeles’ Pico Playhouse. The roles of the mother and father were played by Lainie Kazan and

Stuart Pankin, and their son was played by Richard Israel. The play tells its story from three points of view. In each segment, one member of a close-knit family dies and the two survivors have to adjust and cope with the loss. Their anger, unspoken emotions and unfinished business are revealed.

WORDSNathan Duke ’01 recently started a TimesLedger newspaper column called

“The Reel Queens,” which will focus on all aspects of film in the Queens (N.Y.) borough, “which are rapidly transforming it into Hol-lywood East,” he writes. He covers film shoots in the area, premieres, retrospec-tives, festivals, current films, upcoming talent and the stu-dios. He says, “I came to the conclusion that I preferred describing film’s artistic merits in print to working on studio lots, and so began my graduate degree at New York University’s journalism department.” His reviews can be found at www.critical-conditions.net.

Rachel Louise Snyder, MFA ’95, has published her first book, with WW Norton. The book, Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade, tackles the issue of what it means to be

an ethical consumer. Snyder is also a contributor to the public radio shows This American Life, Marketplace and All Things Considered.

MUSICMusician Reed Foehl ’88 has more than a dozen songs licensed to television. Every song from his last record, 2004’s Spark, and a few tunes from his latest, Stoned

Reed Foehl ’88

Beautiful, have been licensed by a number of TV shows

— everything from Dawson’s Creek and Joan of Arcadia to The Biggest Loser and Break-ing Bonaduce — as well as the feature film Just Friends, a 2005 comedy. Foehl’s mu-sical beginnings date back to his time in Boston when he formed a duo called Acoustic Junction. Most recently, the music man recorded a live set for XM Radio.


From the president of theAlumni Association

Dear Alumni,

Over the past several months, the Alumni Association board of directors and chapter presidents across the country have been hard at work initiating a new strategic plan designed to help us reconnect alumni to a vital and energized Emerson College.

I recently had the pleasure of reconnecting with a most remarkable Emersonian and would like to share this experience with you.

While attending Emerson in 1926, Helen

Alumni Digest

Robert Friend ’79

Choat was one of 500 women who auditioned for an on-air radio role with Boston’s All Shopping Network, WASN. She won the job, an extraordinary accomplishment at such a young age. Sadly, in order to pursue her career, Helen had to leave Emerson. But she vowed to return at a later date to complete her studies and get her degree.

Helen’s career took off and she found herself in the heart of Manhattan living her dream. Her intelligence and talent kept her in constant demand. She had roles in all of the major soap operas and acted in primetime dramas with such luminaries as Orson Welles, Agnes Moorehead, Ilona Massey and even popular New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Helen embraced the new medium of television and became a much-in-demand actress. She was also a popular face on commercials extolling the virtues of coffee, soap powders and other popular products and services of the day.

This past November, Helen celebrated her 100th birthday. Given her accomplishments, I was delighted to have the privilege of meeting

this bright, beautiful and extraordinary woman and awarding her a much-deserved honorary degree. She was thrilled to become Emerson’s newest and oldest honorary alumnus.

Helen’s 81-year journey back to Emerson is a powerful reminder of the spirit and longevity of the Emerson Experience. Just as Helen found her way back to Emerson, each of us has the power to make change, renew old friendships and ultimately strengthen our connection with the College.

In celebration of Helen Choat, I urge each of you to take a chance and reach out to a long-lost Emerson classmate. I promise you that your efforts will be meaningful and serve as a powerful reminder of the uniqueness of your Emerson Experience.

Thank you all for your continued support of the College. I wish you great success in 2008 and look forward to seeing each of you at an upcoming Emerson alumni event.

With warm regards,Robert Friend ’79President, Emerson College Alumni [email protected]

Helen Choat displays an honorary degree from Emerson College during her 100th birthday celebration. She is surrounded by mementos of her acting career.


LOS ANGELES

NEW YORK

More than 100 alumni shared “needs and leads” during the New York alumni chapter’s first facilitated networking event last fall. Ken Mattsson from Emerson College’s Career Services Office led the speed networking event. One participant secured an interview for the next day with a major broadcast network:

The College held a seminar on “The Art of Adaptation: Making Movies from Other Media” at Burbank’s Toluca Lake Tennis Club in November. About 100 alumni and students attended this professional presentation on screenwriting adaptation. From left are the panelists: screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs (parent of an Emerson undergraduate), Chocolat; Pam Abdy ’95, executive vice president of production, Paramount Pictures; Coleman Hough ’82, screenwriter, Full Frontal; Paul Dini ’79, Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker; Anna Hamilton Phelan ’65, Gorillas in the Mist; Alex Tse ’98, Watchmen; and Kate Boutilier ’81, The Wild Thornberrys Movie.

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“I had an interview two days later, and now I have a job,” said Heather Borgeson ’07. ”Good things come of these networking events!”

LOS ANGELES

A “Blast from the Past” L.A. party was hosted last fall by the College’s Office of Alumni Relations and Wade Williams ’94. More than 60 alumni from the 1990s joined Wade at the Chamberlain Hotel for a night of reminiscing and reconnecting. Above left: Jacinda Deukmejian ’93, Wade Williams ’94 and Christy Kallhovd ’93. Above right: Sasha Sommer ’93, Paul Morra ’95, Barbara Rutberg ’68, Wade Williams ’94 and Beth Greenwald ’95.


In October, alumni in the Cape Cod/Southern Massachusetts area gathered at the Pinehills Golf Club to welcome Janis Andersen (back row, fourth from right), new dean of the School of Communication. Those in attendance were eager to plan future alumni events in the area.

MASSACHUSETTS

The national American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention was held in Boston last fall, providing an opportunity for Emerson alumni and faculty to convene. A special Emerson alumni event drew more than 100 communication sciences and disorders alumni and faculty.

MASSACHUSETTS

Get career advice and resume feedback from Emerson’s Career Services office

Use the online directory to find fellow alumni in your professional field or new hometown

Attend the many professional, social, and networking events hosted all around the country.

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It’s what Emerson can do you for you. www.emersonalumni.com

of you are Graduates

of the Last Decade. Take advantage.

Graduates of the Last decade


BOSTON

Lisa Gregorian ’86 (left), with Irma Mann Stearns ’67, was on campus to accept the 2007 Irma Mann Stearns Distinguished Lecture Award in December. She spoke on “Making the Old New: Marketing Television in the Web Age” to a large Bordy Theater audience of students, alumni and faculty. Before the presentation, she visited with students and faculty to share best practices she has learned in her entertainment-marketing career.

Jen Kirkman ’96 joined other Emerson alumni comedians for the Emerson comedy night at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Anne Lembeck Leary ’85 and husband Denis Leary ’79 attended “30 Years of Comedy at Emerson College” and hosted a special backstage reception with President Liebergott.

Student Alumni Association members and local young alums teamed up last fall to serve dinner at Rosie’s Place, a Boston women’s shelter. From left are Ursula August ’08, Louise Albano-Hurley ’11, Jess Tomer ’08, Nicole Trifiro ’07 and Alex DiCicco ‘08.

More than 30 young alumni, including the Professor and Ginger from Gilligan’s Island, (a.k.a. Rick Allen ’00 and Stephanie Sherwood ’00), gathered for Boston GOLD’s annual Halloween Happy Hour in the fall. GOLD sponsors events for Graduates of the Last Decade.


CHICAGO

Alumni, faculty and staff attending the National Communication Association conference in Chicago last fall participat-ed in a reception welcoming Janis Ander-sen, the new dean of Emerson’s School of Communication. The evening’s activities included a speech in which Andersen spoke about several events taking place at Emerson College, such as a Federal Com-munications Commission symposium on media ownership rules and the “Road to the White House” journalism class. “It was an opportunity for the new dean to make an appearance before alumni and share her vision for the community, and connect alumni with what Emerson is doing right now,” said Amy Frankel ’85, president of the Emerson College Chi-cago Alumni Chapter.

Above: Chicago alumni and faculty attending the National Communication Association conference.

Left: Mary Krupka ’05 won an Emerson alumni sweatshirt door prize at the Chicago alumni gathering.

Overseer Bonnie Comley, MA ’94 (center), and husband Stewart F. Lane (left) hosted President’s Society members at their home in New York City in December. The President’s Society is comprised by people who support the College at a leadership level. College Trustee Tom Freston (right) spoke about the importance of philanthropy to the future of Emerson as well as his personal interest in supporting diversity scholarships for worthy students.

NEW YORKDENVER

Renee Schoichit ’02 displays her Emerson pride as the raffle winner at an alumni gathering in Colorado. The group enjoyed a day of socializing at Dave & Buster’s in Westminster followed by a brainstorming session for 2008 programming.

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Students from the Swolen Monkey Showcase comedy troupe performed for Connecticut alumni at Sweet Jane’s Rock & Roll Eatery in Hartford in September.

CONNECTICUT

If you remember

The Chateau

de Pourtales,

Kronenbourg beer,

and Ted’s wild train

adventures,

we are looking

for you!

In 1983 a group of Emersonians ventured out on a semester abroad program through Emerson College and Schiller University, traveling through France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and finishing up with two weeks in London. It was a fabulous experience and a great time!

If you were there, please join us at Alumni Weekend (May 30-June 1, 2008) to reminisce about our European adventures.

For more information, please email Patricia Oot at [email protected] or contact Barbara Rutberg of the Emerson College Office of Alumni Relations at [email protected]. E

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Alumni gathered in December for brunch followed by a private guided tour of the First Ladies Exhibit at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center led by Myra Gutin ’70, MA ’71, who is author of The President’s Partner: The First Lady in the Twentieth Century. Front row (from left): Tom Bauer ’68, Faith Flanagan ’88, Gutin, Sheila Sandapen ’92 and Lily Rothman, MSSp ’72, MA ’73; back row (from left): Michael Farah ’04, Mary Ann Cicala ’99, Susan Strassberg ’78, Sara McDermott

’06, Nancy Ellis Pitchko ’88, Laurie Kozinn Dolsky ’70, Melissa Kotulski ’99, Amy Rubinsohn ’73 and Robert Gaston ’90.

PHILADELPHIA


55th Reunion 1953 Fred Macintyre Dixon appeared as Jodelet and a Capuchin monk in the Broadway revival of Edmond Rostand’s classic comedy Cyrano de Bergerac.

1955 Maureen Dunn O’Keefe published a book of poetry, A Rhyme for All Reasons.

50th Reunion 1958

45th Reunion 1963 Nate Custer was deployed by FEMA three times in 2007 for disasters in Oklahoma, New Jersey and Kansas. He is also a public affairs reservist with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

1964Warren Rhodes went to Moscow last May to hear his sister, Cherry Rhodes, play the organ at the Moscow International House of Music.

1966Jonathan Backstrom recently published a new book called Cybernaughts of Metatron. He says it’s available online.

Carl Buck is vice president for JPMorgan Chase, Education Finance Division, focusing on high school initiatives.

1967Edward G. Conture received the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Honors of the Association award.

40th Reunion 1968

1969Diana Lekus is listed in the 2007 edition of Who’s Who of American Women.

1971Rona Wexler is owner of Wexler Consulting in New York, focusing on her practice as an employability expert, providing expert witness services to matrimonial and employment law attorneys. Rona’s husband is enjoying his retirement. Daughter Ariel Fixler graduated cum laude from Hunter College. Duane Kimball is founder and vice chairman of RewardsNOW in Dover, N.H. RewardsNOW has been named to the list of fastest growing privately held companies in the U.S. by Inc. magazine. The multi-million-dollar firm provides

rewards programs for VISA and MasterCard portfolios throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean.

1972Marlene (Cicerone) Gamba has been enjoying being principal of a Cranston, R.I., school for the last seven years:

“My Emerson background has served me well because I encourage our students to develop their inner talents.”

35th Reunion 1973

1974H. Jeffrey Rosen is an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. in Huntsville, Ala. He has upgraded from contracted help on the U.S. Missile Defense System to full-time consultant. “Thank you, Coleman Bender!”

George A. Bonelli ’52 (left) joins other alumni at Alumni Weekend 2007.

Class Notes

Barry Fonseca ’79 writes: “As if we were not busy enough, we took on an additional property.” Besides their inn in Newport, they now have a property on Cape Cod (above).

Ads


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1975Elwood Miles writes: “It is my pleasure to announce that in November 2007, the scholarship which honors my brother Linwood Smith reached a balance of $246,626.04.” For 25 years, friends and family have “kept the dream alive” at Gallaudet University. He also reports that his family is well and prospering. Among his nonwork activities, he has been researching his family tree and traced one line back to 1785.

Jennifer Vermont-Davis directed a play called Pap Smear at the Star Theatre on 43rd Street in New York City. The play was nominated for several awards. Jennifer still lives in the city with her husband and two children.

1977Lynn (Rothston) Nichols has been living in Western Massachusetts since 1999. That is also the year she left the corporate world to start Starstruck Design, a firm that does web and print design and email communication. She recently joined the board of directors of the local theater, the Shea, in Turners Falls.

30th Reunion 1978 Brian Francis Heffron has won three Telly Awards in the last four years, as well as two Aurora Awards and one Emmy for Academic Decathlon.

David D. Kindy was recognized as the Supplier of the Year by Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. Kindy is president and a principal of Mark Johnston Associates, an advertising/PR firm in Plymouth, Mass.

1981Holly Sutton-Darr has her own interior decorating business in Fairfield County, Conn. She was invited last year to be part of the “Autumn at the Chimneys” Designer Showcase in which 30 designers put their touch on Bridgeport’s largest residence, showing their work and giving back to the community as the proceeds go to charity.

1982Tom Shaker is a professor and runs the communications program at Dean College in Franklin, Mass. He is working on a book and documentary on the history of jazz in Rhode Island and won a grant from the R.I. Council for the Humanities for work on the film. Among his many activities, he hosts Soul Serenade on WICN, an NPR radio station in Worcester, Mass.

25th Reunion 1983 Three alumni are involved in the launch of the pre-Broadway tour of Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano at the Cutler Majestic: press agent Joanne Barrett ’83, Emily Thompson ’07 and Joe Guglielmo ’98.

1984Brian O’Donovan is the radio host of WGBH’s A Celtic Sojourn. He lives in Boston with his wife and family.

Michele D. Perkins, MA ’84, was appointed New England College’s 15th president. Since February 2007, she had been interim president and in the past served as senior vice president as well as vice president for enrollment. Under her guidance, enrollment doubled within four years and revenues increased from $14M to $25M annually.

Mike Dunne ’82 has left Chattanooga’s WTVC-TV as weekend anchor and political reporter to work in politics as external communications manager for Hamilton County, Tenn. He was also recently engaged to his former colleague, meteorologist Amy Katcher, on the steps of 130 Beacon St. “Without Emerson, I would never have had the incredible life I’ve led….”

1986Marianne Gellert-Jones and husband Andy have a baby boy, Henry Cormac Jones, born in August 2007 in Philadelphia.

1987Leslie Ellen Coplin is currently studying at the Upright Citizens Brigade, an improv theater in New York.

V. Kingsley has made the transition from professional theater and props design to quilt restoration. She accepted quilt commissions until the birth of her son in 1997. In 2002 she was diagnosed with cancer and lost her eyesight. In 2005 her sight was restored (“Yes, this is all true!,” she says). She fell in love and married longtime friend Danielle Hope in Maui. V. is an internationally recognized quilter.


20th Reunion 1988 Vivica Geary-Gibson is a senior event manager at Universal Orlando Resort and just celebrated her second wedding anniversary with husband Rick in November.

Wendy Perrotta is an executive assistant at the Boston-based From the Top, an acclaimed National Public Radio and PBS TV program that showcases young classical musicians. Wendy is also a classically trained singer and has performed with many local ensembles.

1992Heidi (Perlman) Guarino writes, “Has it really been 15 years? I can’t believe we’re all that old. I’m married with two incredible little boys and living in Salem, Mass.” After 10 years in journalism, seven years ago she took a position as chief of staff at the state Department of Education.

Marj Kleinman just started a new job in children’s media at a site for kids ages 5-9 for reading that uses voice recognition technology. She is senior producer and in charge of production and games. She’s also still plugging away on her documentary.

Sally Soto wants to announce the birth of daughter Rosalyn Andrea.

15th Reunion 1993 Jacqueline Fulmer completed a Ph.D. at UC/Berkeley in rhetoric (oral tradition emphasis) in 2002 and has been teaching there since. Her new book, Folk Women and Indirection in Morrison, Ni Dhuibhne, Hurston, and Lavin, came out last year.

Benjamin Harris is now working on a syndicated radio show.

Jeffrey Jamison had a busy and exciting 2006. His wife gave birth to a son, Harper, he graduated from Harvard Law School, and he and his family moved to Chicago, where Jeff began work at the firm Katten Muchin Rosenman.

1989Mike Isenberg is coordinating producer at Fox Sports Net Detroit. He comes to Michigan after nearly 10 years at ESPN. He, wife Elizabeth and two children love living in the Midwest. He would love to hear from classmates: [email protected].

Susan (McAlarney) Gerdeman was married in Stockholm, Sweden, where her husband, Rasmus, was born and raised. They have a daughter, Solange. Susan is national education executive for Chanel, and her husband is a senior financial analyst at Neuberger Berman. They live in Manhattan. Susan would love to hear from classmates and past members of the Emerson Comedy Workshop.

Elizabeth (McCready) Cote made some “big life changes” in 2007. She ended her 14-year marriage, left her job of 13 years at WGBH Boston, moved to Seattle and reunited with her high school sweetheart. She and

her children (as well as his) live together. She also started a marketing communications consultancy, specializing in the entertainment industry and cause/social marketing. Christine Rayne and John Caprise ’91 had a baby girl, Annaliese Helena, in April 2007 in Mesa, Ariz.

Dana Klein, MA ’89, won a Spirit of Excellence Award in Public Relations in South Florida.

1990Paul Delaney is a radiation safety technologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Bernadette Pauley is a standup comedian and actor and has worked steadily in TV, comedy clubs and other venues for the past five years. Her TV credits include Trading Spaces, Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, MTV and TBS.

Sherri Raftery earned the Toastmasters 2006-07 District 31 Area Governor of the Year Award and is the Toastmasters 2007-08 Lt. Governor of Marketing of District 31, which covers Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts. She is also the secretary of the Saugus Cultural Council and writes poetry.

Scott Gorenstein ’88 is a senior account director at the Susan Magrino Agency in New York City. He oversees publicity for Reader’s Digest, Blueprint magazine and Michael “Lord of the Dance” Flatley.

1950 Richard C. Sparling1957 Emily Sullivan1974 Catherine C. Tardiff 1983 David R. Morency1983 Amanda Collins1994 Courtenay Martin

In Memoriam


Tracie (DeJulio) Michelson writes, “We were finally given an opportunity to move out of South Florida and are now residing in Spring Hill, Tenn. (just south of Nashville). Our boys are 6 and almost 3. We would love to hear from our Emerson friends!”

1994Catherine Y. Chen moved back to Taiwan to work as director of public affairs for the Taipei City Tennis Committee. She is working on her Ph.D. at Emerson’s sister school, Shih-Hsin University.

Wendy Friedman has joined the Evans Team at the Upper East Side Manhattan Brokerage at the corporate headquarters of Sotheby’s International Realty.

Melanie Guerra and husband Mark Gronemeyer had their first child, Abigail Maisie, in October 2007 in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Terry Jacobs Walters has been working as a certified holistic health counselor and whole food cooking instructor for the past eight years. Her cookbook, Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Clean Food with Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You, came out last fall.

Franca (Marena) Gullett recently moved from Houston, Texas, to Athens, Ga. Her husband is a cardiovascular surgeon and she continues to run her international special events company, Attention to Detail. They have two children.

Jeffrey Perino’s solo piano CD, It Goes Without Saying, is out. He still works as a creative director at Sudler & Hennessey NJ. He and wife Ashley live in Madison, N.J., with their three children.

Anne Swanson, MA ’94, spent the first 10 years of her career in television news. She earned a degree in journalism at University of Texas/Austin and a master’s in communication industries management at Emerson. She has taught journalism and now works in internal communication for Northrop Grumman IT.

Cecilia Tan has a book coming out in April, White Flames (Running Press), a collection of short stories.

1996Tabitha (Baker) Anderson and Mark Anderson were married in September 2006 in Italy. They honeymooned in Chianti and have a home in downtown Seattle. A Great Dane puppy has been added to the mix.

Stefan Beittel celebrates his 10th anniversary as owner/operator of Digital Media Kitchen, a worldwide brokerage firm, reseller and rental facilty for nonlinear video editing systems and digital VTRs. He and his wife relocated to Raleigh, N.C.

Kristi Dadekian (Taylor) and Andy Dadekian announce the birth of their second daughter. Andy and Kristi would love to hear from old friends: [email protected].

Jennifer Kaufman ’97 and Barry Drane have a new baby girl, Mia Charlotte Drane, born in Greenville, S.C., in October 2007.

Lee Miller ’97 with actor Alfred Molina on the set of the film Lessons in Self-Defense, which Lee wrote and directed. Lee has also been producing and directing the video content for the Los Angeles Times’ new website, Metromix, whose senior editor is fellow Emersonian Deborah Vankin (Picker), MA ’97.

Taylor Morris got her Emerson degree in writing, literature and publishing and her first novel, Class Favorite, just came out from Simon & Schuster.

1997Aleisa Fleming-Dunn and husband Patrick adopted Maya Lily Lian Dunn, born March 2006 in Lianjiang City, Guangdong Province, China. She is doing great.


Constance (Grignon) Genter recently married William Genter.

Michael Hoyt received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Arizona State University in 2007.

Thomas McNeely, MFA, and Cheryl McGrath, MFA ’01, have adopted a girl, Alice Mayra McGrath, from Guatemala. The family has moved back to the Boston area and Cheryl is head of access services for the Harvard College libraries.

Bonnie Silva’s book Fifteen Legs, about homeless animals, was published by Riverbank Press with testimonials by Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Bill Maher. Her documentary of the same name was released in December.

Travis Small has been named associate vice president of Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications, one of New England’s largest independent full-service communication companies.

10th Reunion 1998 Matt Baldassarri writes: “Life moves too fast. I’m working at XM satellite radio in D.C. and just got engaged to Kelly Romanski. We are planning an October wedding in Big Sur, Calif. I bought a condo…What the hell happened?”

Kim Hessel was a cast member on the current season of The Bachelor.

Kate (Monaghan) MacKinnon is spokesperson for AT&T in New England and Upstate New York. She and husband Scott have a new baby boy, Damon Alexander, born in October 2007.

Heather Peterson and Lara Ismail would like to announce the birth of their daughter, Ariana Kala, in September 2007.

Janice (Toskich) Shelton is in her final year of law school and is studying civil rights and sexual orientation and the

Irene Melo ’97 had her first book signing for How Far Would You Go at the Hartford Public Library for the Harlem Book Festival in Hartford, Conn., in the fall of 2007.

law. She and husband John are expecting their first baby in May.

1999Nicholas Ashbaugh worked for The WB television network as a senior designer for TheWB.com. Last year he was hired by the Walt Disney Internet Group as a lead designer. When he’s away from his desk, he can be found behind the lens of his Nikon, somewhere on the streets of Los Angeles.

Lisa Allen Brown and Robert Brown have a new baby girl, Anne Elizabeth Brown, born in Boston in March 2007. She joins big sister Abigael.

Brian Hodges worked for four years as an Avid technician for a Philadelphia company and is now freelancing. In between assignments like the Superbowl and the U.S. Open, he is focusing on getting a writing career going.

Dot Joyce ’98 (left) and Heather MacFarlane ’00 (second from right) met up recently as they helped Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and WCVB’s Liz Brunner (right) kick off the Home for Little Wanderers holiday gift drive. Dot is the mayor’s press secretary; Heather is the public relations manager at the Home.

2000Michelle Alexander worked for Red Truck Wines as a blogger and traveled for 30 days across the country and documented her experiences on the Red Truck website.

Suzanne (McNaught) Thistle and husband David announce the birth of daughter Grace Elizabeth in August 2007.

Ariel Finelt Shoemaker is proud to announce the birth of her son, Simon Asher.

Michelle Roberts is an extra in the film Bachelor No. 2. She is also interning at a casting agency in Boston. She hopes to be a casting director someday.

2001Matt Chapuran is general manager of the Stoneham Theatre, a 350-seat theater located outside of Boston.

Dan Sheehan is teaching audio production at the Institute of Audio Research in New York City and the City


Kenzie Stroud is a marketing manager at KCWI-TV and is getting married in May.

Susannah Winfield has been promoted to event planner for the Department of Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. She recently married Louis Cloete.

Joshua Zagoren was a cast member of The Brother at the Theatre Building Chicago. The play tells the untold story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Josh planned to relocate to Los Angeles after the show’s run.

2004Danielle Marie Anziano is engaged to be married.

Andrew Damer is marketing director at Broadway in Chicago. He leads marketing campaigns for pre-Broadway productions, long-run engagements and touring productions.

Rachel Dowd, MA ’04, is deputy editor for The Advocate. Prior to joining the Advocate staff, she was deputy editor of Variety Weekend.

University of New York. He has also released his third CD of music, called The Dan Sheehan Conspiracy.

2002Jesse Glucksman is the online editor for No Good Television (ngtv.com).

Tom Grey’s young adult fantasy/adventure novel, Invisible Audrey Appleton and the Nightmares of Everdream, will be released by Abreen Publishing in March.

Jessica Marrocco has started her own business, Migration Marketing Solutions.

Heather LaBelle Williams was married in West Virginia in 2006. Now she and her husband live in Virginia. She is working in health communication for NCQA, creating health plan report cards.

5th Reunion 2003 Matthew O’Dette is a project manager for Cramer Productions in Norwood, Mass.

Nick Spinetto is a reporter for WINK-TV, the CBS affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla. He married Linday Liepman in 2006. “We met at our first reporting jobs in central Texas several years ago, and we’ve been together ever since.” Emersonians at the wedding (all Class of 2003) included: John Michael Rossi, Judy Calderon, Tom Gauthier, Liz Kravitz, Melinda Doyle and Kally Vafiadis.

Lauren Dunnington recently left the Boston area to pursue a master’s degree in public health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she will study maternal and child health with an emphasis on international sexual and reproductive health. Emily Florence, MA ’04, has a new website/zine, Savvy Miss: A Community for Women.

Kimberly Ratner-Miller is host of The Daily Special, a daily comedy-news show for women about celebrities,

Patrick Zeller ’99 and Emily Lefren-Brown ’01 are engaged. They met at Emerson working on a production at the Majestic Theatre, then met again in New York City three and a half years later and fell in love. They will marry in October in Vermont.

gossip, body image, food and life. The show is produced by Conde Nast and can be seen daily at www.elasticwaist.com.

Bryan Wilson worked as a stunt performer for the new Indiana Jones 4 movie to open in May. He performed stunts with Shia LaBeouf and Harrison Ford. He has done stunts for many movies. He also makes films and his Don’t Stop Believing music video can be seen on YouTube.

Many Emersonians attended the wedding of Lindsay Jackson Harvey ’04 and Adam Harvey ’04 on Cape Cod in July 2007. Among them were: Eddie Jones ’04, Krista Gunderson ’04, Vanessa Nollte ’07, Peter Caviecchio ’04, Nick Rhodes ’04, Chris Rocchio ’04, Sara Jane Keskula ’03, Jennifer White ’03, Katie McGrath ’03 and Jennifer (Neustein) Lurey ’04.

Abby Snyder was hired by Emerson alumnus Denise Kaigler ’85 as the corporate citizenship coordinator at Reebok International. She began interning at the company in May and “quickly realized this is the kind of work I enjoy.”

Christopher Strickland was on an episode of Next, a dating show on MTV geared toward college students.

2005Raime Alvino and Christopher Alvino have had a baby boy, Victor Sampson, in July 2007 in New York City.

Heather Dubuque is founder/CEO of the Lillian Nanny Agency in Nashville, Tenn.

2006Samantha Feld is living in Echo Park (Calif.) while working at Filter magazine doing marketing, events and promotion.

Megan Jacoby made her Broadway debut in Broadway Backwards. Megan continues to sing with Rosie O’Donnell’s Broadway Belters on the

Caitlin Bowes is living in Chicago studying movement and teaching children.

Meagan Fish has joined Pannos Winzeler Marketing as assistant director of media and public relations. Prior to joining the agency, she worked at Hamersley Partners, a Boston firm, and for Shoot to Kill Productions.

bi-annual Rfamily Vacations cruises and will be performing with the Minnesota Children’s Theater throughout its 2007-08 season.

Dion Lim says that after a year at WWLP, he is an anchor at KMBC, the country’s No. 1 ABC affiliate, owned by Hearst-Argyle.

2007Mike Bash appeared as Brom Bones and Bob Cratchit in the national tour of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow/A Christmas Carol for Theater IV of Richmond, Va. In the spring he will play the frog/prince in their production of The Frog Prince.

And What are You Doing

Where Are You

Emily Thompson ’07 has joined the national tour of Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano.

New job? Received an award? Recently engaged or married? New baby? Moving? Recently ran into a long-lost classmate? Let us know. Use this form to submit your news or send it to [email protected]; 1-800-255-4259; fax: 1-617-824-7807. You can also submit Class Notes online at www.emersonalumni.com. To register for the online community, use the ID number located above your name on the mailing label of this magazine. Include all of the zeroes.

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Your News

Mail to: Class Notes, Emerson College, Office of Alumni Relations, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624


Northern ExposureAn Alaskan sojourn helps Sara McDermott ’06 find work she loves using words and images

Graduating was a mix of ev-erything wonderful and everything frightening. I had achieved something I worked for long and hard, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t a student. All the daydreams I’d had throughout my education faced reality. My focus had been scriptwriting, but nobody swooped down, deus-ex-machina-style, to offer me a job on a studio writing team. It seemed impossible to find a future that would let me write creatively and make a living. But, in the summer of 2007, that would all change.

I’d had a fascination with Alaska ever since catching a documentary that detailed the lives of the people who live there year-round. After graduation, I decided I was finally going to get there. I applied for random Alaskan summer jobs, not concerned with what it was that I was going to have to do so much as just getting to this ‘last frontier.’ I needed an adventure, inspiration and peace and quiet to figure myself out. What happened next was fate, luck or coincidence.

I’d sent out a half-dozen job ap-plications to Alaska, and one made its way to the Klondike Gold Dredge in Sk-agway. They got in touch to say I could have the tour guide job if I wanted, but what they really needed was a script-writer to revamp all their tour guide and gold-panning show scripts. Judg-ing from my resume, I seemed like the girl to do it. In return, not only would I get my round-trip ticket to Alaska paid, but a salary and a bonus on completion of the work. It was going to be my first-ever official scriptwriting job.

I knew I was going to love Alaska before my tiny bush plane even touched down in the mile-long town of Skagway. My appetite for the great outdoors was satisfied as I hiked, went dog-sledding, horseback riding and had more than one close bear encoun-ter. The beauty of the area set off an explosion with my writing, and I was cranking out stories and scripts with newfound excitement. My tour guide/scriptwriting job served my acting bug as well as allowed me to practice new versions of my scripts with tour groups each day. The writing gave me experi-ence incorporating historical research into a script. Best of all, the job opened up other opportunities. As I was introduced as “the scriptwriter,” other tourism and theater groups approached me. I even got to give a V.I.P. tour to a relatively well-known movie star and her production company-owning family.

Finally, my love of photography got plenty of exercise and provided me with the inspiration to open my own Alaska-based business. PictureIt Vacations, which organizes Alaskan vacations and sends a photographer along on the outings, provides clients with custom-made scrapbooks at the end of their trips.

All in all, my long-awaited Alas-kan escape proved to be the pivotal, life-changing experience I craved. It opened my eyes to a different way of life, an un-expected way to make my living doing things I love. Opportunities, especially creative ones, really can come along where you least expect them.

Sara McDermott ’06 focused on scriptwriting while an undergraduate at Emerson. She won a 2005 EVVY for Best Drama Script.

My Turn


How my M.F.A. in creative writing translated to my musical avocationBy Jeffrey Perino, MFA ’94I’m 38. I’ve been working in pharmaceutical advertising for more than a decade. I still think often about college. I honed a craft there. I made friends there. Most importantly, I met my wife, Ashley, there.

I’ve heard colleagues say that the master of fine arts is a superfluous degree. The two arguments I hear are: first, you can’t teach writing, and second, if you want to write, write. The truth; however, isn’t black and white.

In my early 20s at Emerson, I imitated the authors I loved. I

necessary, even, for growth–but to make a significant contribution to one’s field, an artist needs a voice to stand apart. In advertising, we call it a brand’s USP (unique selling proposition). In my early 20s, I had passion, but no voice of my own.

At Emerson, I developed a healthy appetite for literature. I read Steinbeck and Salinger. I discovered John Fante and Haruki Murakami. I worked with established writers and spent time with other aspiring writers. Although I hadn’t yet found my voice, living in a literary world shaped the artist I wanted to be.

I was in my mid-20s, just getting my foot into the business of pharmaceutical advertising, when I resumed the piano lessons I began as a child. After each workday in downtown Manhattan, I’d walk over to the Greenwich House Music School. Here, practice rooms were available. Here, I took classical lessons. I loved the Romantics. It was like discovering literature for the first time. Composers led to other composers. Beethoven to Schubert to Chopin to Rachmaninov.

Classical music is wonderful, but exhausting. The harder I worked, the more there was to do. And the closer I got to flawless execution, the wider the chasm toward perfection grew. One night after work while rooting through the classical music selections at Borders, Jim Brickman’s CD No Words caught my eye. Whereas classical music often felt beyond my reach, Jim’s simple melodies engaged a different part of my brain. My first solo piano composition, “Ashley’s Song,” was written for my wife and shared on our wedding day.

During the next several years, I expanded my musical tastes. Solo piano composers George Winston, David Lanz and Suzanne Ciani all left a mark. But this time around, it was different. I was different. I had a growing family I loved, friends I respected and a career I valued. I knew who I was. Music fit right where a beloved avocation should: under family, friends and career.

I’ve been composing at the corners of my life for nearly a decade. So it’s not surprising that the album, It Goes Without Saying, came together over not months, but years. This year, to formalize recording, production and distribution, I did the legwork of starting my own record label. And there are levels of creativity and accomplishment in that, too.

So, yes, I think back with an appreciation of my time at Emerson. The lessons I learned from my M.F.A. still apply today–from how I shape a song to tell a story, to professional habits I developed, to the people I met there, to the artists I discovered. It’s taken a while to get to where I am musically, but I’ve loved the process.

Jeffrey Perino’s debut solo piano album, It Goes Without Saying, was recently released by Circle of 5 Productions.

My Turn

borrowed Hemingway’s bravado and Raymond Carver’s minimalism. It wasn’t for nearly a decade (and a shift from writing fiction to music) that I understood I had my own authentic story to tell. Now, imitation is fine–

May 30, 31, June 1

MyNo matter when you graduated, this is your Emerson

2008

AlumniweekendSchedule at a Glance

President Liebergott’s Champagne ReceptionWelcome DinnerMark Morris Dance Group – Dido and Aeneas Sunset Harbor Cruise

Alumni Association Meeting & BreakfastPresident Liebergott’s State of the College AddressAlumni College Sports Marketing—The Winning Team The Write Stuff— Fiction Writing Workshop On the Road Again—The 2008 Presidential CampaignReunion Class LunchesReunion Party & Celebrity Auction

Memorial ServiceFaculty & Alumni Brunch Keynote Speaker: Ted Hollingworth, Associate Professor of Organizational and Political Communication

Accommodations

Hyatt Regency Boston: special rate of $259.Call 800-233-1234 and mention Emerson College.

EC Piano Row Residence Hall: $50 per person per night.Call 1-800-255-4259 for information.

Friday, May 30

Saturday, May 31

Sunday, June 1

Celebrating Milestones

Reunions for all classesending in 3s and 8s

100th Anniversary of Zeta Phi Eta

60th Anniversary of Rho Delta Omega

25th Anniversary of the 1983 Europe Trip

Alumni Weekend brochures will be mailed in mid-March and will include details about accommodations and information about all of the weekend’s events.

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Out of SeasonBicycles that have seen sunnier days await the end of winter in a bike rack across the street from the Emerson campus.

expressin winter 2008

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