Production designer Mark Worthington will speak at the 17th annual Design Showcase West on Saturday, June 1, 2019, at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Freud Playhouse.

Worthington is a seven-time Emmy Award nominee and a four-time Art Directors Guild Awards winner for his work on FX Networks’ American Horror Story and ABC’s Ugly Betty. He has been nominated by the ADG 10 times.

As a production designer, Worthington most recently worked on the pilot episode of the upcoming HBO series Watchmen, the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy, and on the first season of the CBS All Access series Star Trek: Discovery. His credits include the first five seasons of American Horror Story, all four seasons of Ugly Betty, Fox’s Scream Queens and USA’s Political Animals. He also worked on the pilots for CBS’ Battle Creek, Fox’s Backstrom, and ABC’s Once Upon a Time and Lost. His film credits as an art director include Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Hearts in Atlantis, Town & Country, U.S. Marshals, Wag the Dog, The Chamber and Tombstone. He is currently the production designer on Marc Cherry’s upcoming CBS All Access series Why Women Kill.

Worthington holds an M.F.A. in set design from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.A. from Reed College. He teaches graduate-level production design classes at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

Design Showcase West, created by UCLA TFT, is the only national entertainment design showcase on the West Coast featuring the work of students graduating from the nation’s top university design programs, including UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; California Institute of the Arts; California State University, Long Beach; Carnegie Mellon University; Chapman University; Northwestern University; NYU Tisch School of the Arts; Ohio University; Penn State University; San Diego State University; University of California, Davis; University of California, Irvine; San Diego State University, San Diego; University of Georgia; University of Missouri-Kansas City; University of Texas at Austin; and the University of Washington. Exhibits range from costume to scenic, sound, lighting and production design. Studio executives, film and television producers, theater artistic directors and professional designers attend DSW to meet the industry’s fresh rising stars.

Recent guest speakers include Hamilton costume designer Paul Tazewell in 2018; production designer Deborah Riley (Game of Thrones) in 2017; filmmaker Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) in 2016; producer Bill Prady (The Big Bang Theory) in 2015; and costume designer Ellen Mirojnick (The Knick) in 2014.

DSW is presented by the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Department of Theater.

RSVP for complimentary tickets on Eventbrite.

Posted: May 30, 2019

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Two-time Golden Globe-nominated actor Pierce Brosnan has been named the 2019 commencement keynote speaker at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT). Filmmaker Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust) will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award in Film/Television/Digital Media and actor-activist George Takei (Allegiance) will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award in Theater. UCLA TFT Dean Teri Schwartz will preside over the event to be held on Friday, June 14 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

“We are delighted to welcome Pierce Brosnan, Julie Dash and George Takei as our 2019 Commencement Speaker and the recipients of our UCLA TFT 2019 Distinguished Alumni awards, respectively,” Schwartz says. “For Pierce Brosnan, his outstanding work as an actor in so many great films has inspired audiences worldwide. Just as important, Pierce’s tireless dedication as an environmental and social impact activist has informed and galvanized people to action around the globe. I couldn’t think of a more worthy artist to address our students to encourage them to use the power of humanistic story to not only entertain, but to enlighten, engage and inspire change for a better world. The same is true for the creative and social impact work that has distinguished the careers and lives of our UCLA TFT alumni Julie Dash and George Takei. They represent the very best of a UCLA TFT education. I am incredibly proud that they will represent the finest of our celebrated alumni this year at Commencement.”

Brosnan is an actor, film producer, environmentalist, philanthropist, artist and two-time Golden Globe Award nominee known for his rich and extensive career in front of the camera and behind the scenes as a producer. He reinvigorated the popularity of the James Bond franchise by starring in the box-office blockbusters Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Among his many other film credits are Mamma Mia! and its sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again; The Foreigner; No Escape; Survivor; The Ghost Writer; Seraphim Falls and The Tailor of Panama as well as The Thomas Crown Affair, Grey Owl, Dante’s Peak, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Mars Attacks!, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Lawnmower Man and Mister Johnson. Along with his wife Keely Shaye, Brosnan has been drawn into a passionate leadership role for numerous environmental issues. Most recently, the two produced the documentary film Poisoning Paradise, which was released this month and directed by Shaye.

Dash broke through racial and gender boundaries in 1991 with her award-winning film Daughters of the Dust, becoming the first African-American woman to have a feature film theatrically released in the United States. In 2004, the Library of Congress placed Daughters of the Dust in the National Film Registry where it joins a select group of American films preserved and protected as national treasures by the Library of Congress. Daughters of the Dust received the Best Cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991, and Dash is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including Guggenheim, Fulbright and Rockefeller fellowships, among many others. Dash was nominated for a Directors Guild Award for the critically acclaimed, NAACP Image Award-winning CBS movie The Rosa Parks Story. She has also directed TV movies for MTV, BET, Starz Encore and HBO. Recently, she has written for and directed multiple episodes of OWN’s Queen Sugar. Her upcoming projects include directing a Lionsgate biopic about civil-rights activist Angela Davis; the film adaptation of Danielle McGuire’s At the Dark End of the Street; and the documentary feature Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. In addition to her work in film and television, Dash is a frequent lecturer at many leading universities, including Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Yale. She received her M.F.A. from the UCLA College of Fine Arts (now known as the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television) in 1985. At UCLA, Dash was a member of the historic L.A. Rebellion film movement, created by student filmmakers who crafted a new possibility for black cinema, one that explored and related to the real lives of black communities in the U.S. and around the world.

Takei is known around the world for his role in the acclaimed original TV series Star Trek, in which he played Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the Starship Enterprise. He has become one of the country’s leading figures in the fight for social justice, LGBTQ rights and marriage equality. Takei currently hosts the AARP-produced YouTube series Takei’s Take, exploring the world of technology, trends, current events and pop culture, and is the subject of the documentary To Be Takei. On his own YouTube channel, Takei and his husband Brad Takei bring viewers into their personal lives in the “heightened reality” web series It Takeis Two. He will next be seen as a series regular in the second season of Ridley Scott’s anthology drama The Terror, which premieres on AMC in August. In 2015, Takei made his Broadway debut in the musical Allegiance, which was inspired by his true-life experiences in two Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. In 2017, he starred in a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures in New York City. Takei has served as the spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign’s Coming Out Project and was Cultural Affairs Chairman of the Japanese American Citizens League. He graduated from the UCLA College of Fine Arts with bachelor (’60) and master of arts (’64) degrees.

Posted: June 6, 2019

The post 2019 Commencement Brosnan Dash Takei appeared first on UCLA School of TFT.

By Rebecca Kendall

Building a more ethical and socio-economically diverse entertainment landscape while ensuring that television’s history is preserved and shared with future generations is the driving force behind a transformational $20 million gift to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT) and the UCLA Film & Television Archive from the Patricia W. Mitchell Trusts.

The gift was conceived by the late philanthropist Patricia W. Mitchell to honor the legacy of her husband, legendary television industry leader John H. Mitchell, who died in 1988.

UCLA TFT will use $10 million from the Mitchell Trusts, coupled with a $5 million contribution from the UCLA Chancellor’s Centennial Scholars Match program, to create the John H. and Patricia W. Mitchell Endowed Scholarship Fund. This endowment advances UCLA TFT’s efforts to recruit and retain the most talented and diverse students pursuing degrees in the entertainment and performing arts industries.

In addition, $10 million will be directed to the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the second-largest moving image archive in the United States, after the Library of Congress, and the world’s largest university-based media archive.

“We’re particularly excited to be making this gift at UCLA,” said Bill Allen, who serves as the trustee of the Mitchell Trusts and whose parents Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows were longtime friends of the Mitchells, “because not only will it help provide a diverse community of students with strong ethical, creative and business foundations for careers in the business, but it will help preserve the legacy of so many great industry leaders of the past who have created so much wonderful television that UCLA has been, in my opinion, heroically, attempting to preserve with insufficient resources from the industry and others for a very long time.”

The gift will support annual archive programming for television, such as workshops, lectures, screenings, symposiums, as well as greatly needed television preservation opportunities. It will also fund the creation of a state-of-the art framework for the digitization of various television formats for future generations. The gift will also significantly enhance the archive’s ability to acquire, preserve and make available to the public, the work of television’s greatest creators, whose work might otherwise be lost, and whose impact would have therefore been forgotten. In addition, the television archive will be renamed the John Mitchell Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

“We at UCLA TFT are deeply honored and filled with tremendous gratitude to be the recipient of this magnificent gift,” said Teri Schwartz, dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. “This is a groundbreaking, visionary gift that will be fully transformational for our outstanding students and for our UCLA Film & Television Archive. Through the great generosity of the Patricia W. Mitchell Trusts, we have the special opportunity to advance the groundbreaking work of our world-renowned archive and recruit and retain the finest, most diverse students in the world as the new Mitchell Scholars — all in harmony with the values and goals of the Mitchell family to educate and train the next generation of ethical industry leaders prepared to navigate the entire landscape of the entertainment industry with deep skill, knowledge and real-world experiences. We are very proud to be the home for this gift and to have the honor of upholding the very special legacy of John H. and Patricia W. Mitchell. Without question, we at UCLA TFT will steward this inspiring gift with great care, thoughtfulness and full dedication to ensure its lasting success, long into the future.”

Born and raised in New York, John Mitchell graduated from the University of Michigan in 1939 with a degree in economics. A pioneering television studio executive, he began his entertainment career in the formative years of the industry. He joined Screen Gems productions in 1952 as one of its original employees and eventually founded what would be Screen Gems’ successor, Columbia Pictures Television, serving as its president from 1968 to 1977. More than 100 television series and 50 TV movies were produced during his tenure, including The Flintstones, Brian’s Song, which won five Emmy Awards, and Father Knows Best, among others. In the 1980s, Mitchell served three terms as president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Patricia Mitchell spent her childhood in Portland, Oregon, where she honed her talent as a singer and performer. At 16, Mitchell, who was then known as Pat Windsor, had already started making a name for herself, debuting in New York City at the Cotillion Room of the Hotel Pierre. This paved the way for appearances at all the major supper clubs across the country and abroad. When she married John, she shifted gears and opted to devote her time and attention to her new family life. Always community-minded, Patricia provided leadership through her involvement with a variety of organizations, including the Beverly Hills Family Y, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Trousdale Homeowners Association, the Young Musician’s Foundation and the Center for the Partially Sighted.

The $20 million gift to UCLA TFT is part of a broader $50 million gift that includes the University of Michigan and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. The University of Michigan will receive $10 million and USC will receive $20 million. Like UCLA, which contributed $5 million to the gift as part of the UCLA Chancellor’s Centennial Scholars Match, USC has contributed a matching donation of $5 million. Allen is working with the three universities to identify other potential gift opportunities that feature a match donation option so that other donors can amplify the value of the effort and potentially bring the overall gift total to $100 million.

“Increasing global competition and the accelerating pace and scale of technological innovation are disrupting all of the world’s major industry sectors, and creating enormous challenges and opportunities for individuals and companies in the process,” said Allen, who is also CEO of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. “World-class research universities are at the center of much of this innovation and transformation and are increasingly attracting the best and the brightest students from around the globe. As such, they are uniquely positioned to prepare current and future generations to navigate these complexities as their graduates go on to create, scale and sustain both companies and content for rapidly evolving industries like media and entertainment. And as these industries increasingly recognize the value of a more diverse talent pool in front and behind the cameras, I am confident they will welcome the partnership of these particularly inclusive universities in attracting and preparing their workforce of the future.”

This story first appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

Posted: June 20, 2019

The post Mitchell Trusts appeared first on UCLA School of TFT.

By Noela Hueso

Next year, Sylvan Oswald, UCLA TFT Assistant Professor of Playwriting, will embark on a project that sheds new light on the proceedings that take place in Virginia Woolf’s popular 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography. In Orlando, a young English nobleman mysteriously transforms into a woman and lives for more than 300 years, with the added benefit of not physically aging; it’s a narrative that is popular with scholars of gender and transgender studies, but it doesn’t tackle transgender issues in an insightful or profound way. Oswald sees a benefit in using the story as a jumping off point to do just that.

His project, which may take the form of a series of texts, will be made possible by a prestigious Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In April, Oswald was one of four professors at UCLA to receive the honor, which is awarded to a broad range of scholars, writers and artists based on prior achievement and exceptional promise.

His interest in Woolf’s piece comes from his own relationship with the novel.

“When I first read Orlando, I was looking for a trans hero,” Oswald, 40, says, “but because it was a ‘writer’s holiday,’ [what Woolf described in her famed diary as ‘a joke…and quick reading’] there was no struggle about the change of gender. Part of being drawn to Orlando for my project was wanting to go back and unpack my initial reaction to the book. What would it look like if there was more awareness of thinking about a trans experience?”

Oswald’s work as an interdisciplinary artist revolves around plays, texts, publications and video that explore the ways identities are constructed. At UCLA TFT, he has created two courses that have brought contemporary performance practice and theory to students. His work is borne not necessarily from plot but from imagery and language.

“Very often I’ll become interested in a drawing or a photograph or a piece of information that I hear, like a footnote,” he says. “It’s never a headline; it’s always some obscure, lost thing that I didn’t even know I had or some tidbit that has been forgotten; then I investigate it.

“My friend MJ Kaufman, who is also a playwright, talks about the materiality of language,” he adds, “which is thinking about language like clay instead of just information, to think about the sound of it or the shape of it or the speed of it; vowels and consonants and rhymes.”

Oswald’s latest book project, High Winds, created in collaboration with graphic designer Jessica Fleischmann, is an example of this idea. High Winds is one of the first two titles published by X Artists’ Books, an independent press that publishes the work of avant-garde and interdisciplinary artists. It’s an artist’s book, which, by definition, is an art piece that takes the form of a tome. Conveyed in an “associative, elliptical style,” High Winds follows the journey of the title character, a trans man dealing with insomnia, who takes a “hallucinatory road trip” to locate his estranged half-brother.

“Sylvan’s work is always compelling and forward thinking,” says UCLA TFT Theater Professor Dominic Taylor. “High Winds is most telling as an object of performance itself, but he has taken it a step further, using it as a text for performance. It’s extraordinary to consider this complexity. Imagine a mobile by Alexander Calder, which is where I would pair the object of performance that is High Winds, then consider that object recreated as a performance by a human being. It is profound and significant.”

Sometimes a title comes to Oswald quickly and then the writing process is an exploration of a “magical phrase.” “What is this? If it’s a character’s name, who is this? What are the elements of this person?” he says. “I spend a lot of time generating material in this way.”

Oswald often draws on personal experiences in his work. He enjoys letting an audience figure out what is drawn from real life and what is fiction. “I have often been a confessional writer,” he says. “As an artist, there’s a willing suspension of disbelief on my part that people may or may not see [a project] as true information about me. I’m actually quite interested in blurring that line…in a number of my projects, my web series Outtakes, in particular, [audiences may say] ‘Is this happening? Is this not really happening?'” The second season of Outtakes, described as “a lo-fi mock-doc semi-improvised web series exploring transmasculine identity,” began Sunday, June 9 on the Open TV platform.

Oswald started writing plays at 13 and directing at 15. As an undergrad at Barnard College, Columbia University, he focused on both pursuits. Playwriting prevailed, however, and by the time he was getting his M.F.A. in playwriting at Brown University alongside notable playwrights such as Quiara Alegría Hudes (In the Heights), he found that his knowledge of directing informed his writing.

“I’m really glad I learned how to direct,” he says. “That training helped me have a different perspective on playwriting. It really made me think about the entirety of the event of a show; to know about staging, to know about tech.”

Oswald says the Guggenheim is generally considered a mid-career award — and the idea that he’s at that stage in life takes some getting used to.

“It’s a kind of mental shift to think of yourself as moving from emerging to mid-career,” he says. “I’ve been precocious most of my life and I can’t be that anymore, which is weird.”

Even so, it’s a validation of his career.

“It’s a meaningful validation of the work that I have been doing up to now,” he says. “It’s as if members of the field are saying, ‘No, no, let’s take another look here. It’s not time for this person to go off into the sunset.'”

Above: Oswald watches a rehearsal for his theatrical essay, Trainers, which will premiere at London’s Gate Theatre in 2020.
Photo by Jennie Liu.

Posted: June 28, 2019

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Twenty UCLA TFT alumni and faculty have been nominated for a total of 24 Primetime Emmy Awards this year. The 71st ceremony takes place on Sunday, Sept. 22 at the Microsoft Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, honoring the best programming from June 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019. It will be broadcast on Fox.

MIKE B. ANDERSON, (M.F.A. ’90), supervising producer, The Simpsons, “Mad About the Toy,” Fox
Animated Program

STEVEN CANALS, (M.F.A. ’15), co-executive producer, Pose, FX
Drama Series

MARGARET M. DEAN, (M.F.A. ’92), supervising producer, Robot Chicken, “Why is it Wet?” Adult Swim
Short Format Animated Program

AVA DUVERNAY, director, writer, executive producer, When They See Us, Netflix
Limited Series
Directing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special
Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special

ERICK FEFFERMAN, (M.F.A. ’09), editor, Deadwood: The Movie, HBO

Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Limited Series or Movie

SACHA GERVASI, executive producer, My Dinner With Hervé, HBO

Television Movie

ALEX GIBNEY, producer, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, HBO

Documentary or Nonfiction Special

ALEX GIBNEY, executive producer, Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, A&E

Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking

DHANA RIVERA GILBERT, (M.F.A. ’96) co-executive producer, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Prime Video

Comedy Series

ANDREW GOLDBERG, (M.F.A. ’02) executive producer, Big Mouth, “The Planned Parenthood Show,” Netflix

Animated Program

REBECCA GUZZI, (M.F.A. ’13), assistant costume designer, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, “Forbidden Fruit,” FX
Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes

SILAS HOWARD, (M.F.A. ’10), co-executive producer, Pose, FX

Drama Series

JOHN MATTER, (M.F.A. ’04), dialogue editor, Game of Thrones, “The Long Night,” HBO

Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (one hour)

PETER MERRYMAN, (M.F.A. ’01), assistant director, BoJack Horseman, “Free Churro,” Netflix

Animated Program

KEVIN MESSICK, (B.A. ’89) executive producer, Succession, HBO
Drama Series

MAUREEN MLYNARCZYK, (M.F.A. ’98), sheet timing, Steven Universe, “Reunited,” Cartoon Network

Short Format Animated Program

RON OLSEN, (M.F.A. ’87), set decorator, Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons,’ ABC

Production Design for a Variety Special

BILLY PORTER, actor, Pose, FX

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

BEN STILLER, director, executive producer, Escape at Dannemora, Showtime

Limited Series

Directing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special

AMY WINFREY (faculty), director, BoJack Horseman, “Free Churro,” Netflix
Animated Program

MARK WORTHINGTON (faculty), production designer, The Umbrella Academy, “We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals,” Netflix
Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program (one hour or more)

Posted: August 9, 2019

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Last fall, Nicolette Robinson made her Broadway debut and simultaneously became the first African American actress to take on the lead role of Jenna in UCLA alumna Sara Bareilles’ hit musical Waitress. Since her last performance in November, the Los Angeles native, who graduated from UCLA TFT in 2009 and has appeared on such TV series as The Affair, Hart of Dixie, Unforgettable and Perfect Couples, has been back in her hometown gearing up for her next role and enjoying time with her husband, actor Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton) and their two-year old daughter, Lucille. Prior to her special guest alumna appearance at UCLA TFT’s Orientation on Tuesday, Sept. 24, she chatted with TFT’s Noela Hueso about Waitress, performing as a teenager and why she loves her alma mater.

Congratulations on making your Broadway debut!
Nicolette Robinson: Thank you! Working on Waitress was a dream. It was the best creative experience I’ve had so far. It was really special.

What made it so special?
I’ve loved this show since it opened on Broadway. I was incredibly moved when I saw it and I immediately bought the cast album when it came out. When I was pregnant I played the cast album almost every day in my final trimester. It helped me through some really hard times. I just loved the show, never expecting or even dreaming that I would get to play the role of Jenna — I just loved it as a fan. A year later on my daughter’s first birthday, I found myself flying to New York for my final callback and it just felt so beautifully ordained. Everything about the experience from then on was magical. Having the honor of being the first woman of color and the first real-life mother to play the role came with so much love and support from the theater community. Getting to sing Sara Bareilles’ music every day was a dream. The role of Jenna is so multifaceted, loaded with emotion and depth, and I was able to take quite an incredible journey every single performance. It was a role of a lifetime. The cast was phenomenal and the audience was with us at every turn — feeling their energy was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’ll never ever forget it.

How does it feel to be back in L.A.?
My daughter is in preschool now and my family lives out here so it’s nice to be back home for a while. My husband has been working on an album here, too. It’s good for him to be able to do it where we live.

When did you know you wanted to be an actress?
My parents were both in the arts. My dad was a director and my mom was a choreographer and they started their careers as performers. I grew up leaning against the mirrors in rehearsal rooms watching my mom work. It was around me all the time and performing just was something I’ve loved so much from an early age.

You performed in high school productions?
Yes. I went to St. Bernard High School in Playa del Rey, a co-ed Catholic school, which is funny because I’m Jewish. My mom was the dance teacher there and she helped run the drama department with Doug Griffin, my drama teacher. The school had a really strong arts program. I did a bunch of musicals — Sweet Charity, Pippin, Once on This Island…plus dance recitals and gospel choir. I just loved it all.

You did Once on This Island after high school, too, didn’t you?
Yes, I did it professionally with the Reprise Theater Company at the Freud Playhouse! It’s the show that got me my Equity card and where I met my husband.

Did you have any professional gigs when you were in high school?
In my senior year, I booked a guest spot on CBS’ Cold Case. I had to get my GED just so I could be on set without a tutor. I filmed on the show for almost two weeks. This was around the time when I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to study in college. I had such an amazing time working on set and having this experience that I was like “Ok, maybe this really is what I want to do.”

Why did you decide to come to UCLA TFT?
UCLA was always on my dream-school list but I wasn’t really sure if I would get in. Doug recommended me to audition for the department. The funny thing is that to every other school I applied to, I did so as a psychology major. Psychology sounded like a more reliable degree. But when it came to UCLA, I said to myself, “Let me just try to see if I can get into the theater department.” I knew that my heart lived in the arts so I just applied and auditioned. When I got in, it was a no-brainer [that I would attend].

What do you most fondly recall from your time here?
I learned a lot from my peers and developed friendships that I will have forever. I loved everything about my experience. It felt like I had tricked people into letting me do something that didn’t feel like school at all — it just was fun all the time!

Who were some favorite professors?
Scott Conte and Marilyn Fox challenged me in their acting classes to be free and to push myself; it felt like such a safe space in there with my peers. I loved my one-on-one voice lessons with Dan Belzer and Linda Kerns.

What was your biggest takeaway from UCLA TFT that you still carry with you?
One of the greatest things I learned was to honor the feeling you have in your heart. Our passion lies in what brings us joy, and what challenges and excites us; I loved learning about the arts, whether it was performance or voice or diving into a certain character’s world…having the opportunity to really focus on strengthening my craft in this field at UCLA TFT was amazing…I just loved it so much.

What advice do you have for incoming theater students?

This is a safe space and there’s really no other place like it. Take risks and push yourself because you can only get better and stronger and grow from it. That’s what this experience is all about.

Posted: September 23, 2019

The post Nicolette Robinson appeared first on UCLA School of TFT.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz has been named the 2019-20 Hearst Theater Lab Initiative Distinguished Visiting Playwright-in-Residence at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT). Cruz will assume his role for the entirety of the academic year.

“We are very proud and excited to welcome the extraordinary Nilo Cruz to UCLA TFT as our 2019/20 Hearst Theater Lab Playwright-In-Residence. I have no doubt that he will have a transformational impact on our students and all of our community,” Dean Teri Schwartz says. ‘Nilo’s inspiring and groundbreaking plays are very much in harmony with our vison and mission at UCLA TFT as the ‘storytelling school,’ and with the goals of our Hearst Foundation Theater Lab Initiative. We are confident that Nilo will add immeasurably to the life of our School by generously sharing his brilliance and artistry with our amazing students.”

Cruz, a Cuban-American, gained national prominence in 2003 when he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Anna in the Tropics, a Depression-era tale about migrant Cubans working in a Tampa, Fla., cigar factory, for which he also received a Tony Award nomination. The immigrant experience is a common theme in many of Cruz’s plays and he has become known for his ability to successfully weave strains of magic realism and other literary traditions into his works.

In addition to the Pulitzer, he has received numerous awards, including those from the Kennedy Center Fund, American Theatre Critics and the Humana Festival for New American Plays; as well as grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others.

His plays include Dancing on Her Knees; A Park in Our House; Two Sisters and a Piano; A Bicycle Country; Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams; Lorca in a Green Dress; Beauty of the Father; Hurricane; and A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, as well as translations of Doña Rosita the Spinster; The House of Bernarda Alba; Life Is a Dream; and ¡Ay, Carmela! His work has been seen at numerous theaters around the country including, among others, South Coast Rep, the Mark Taper Forum, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Washington D.C.’s Studio Theatre and New York’s Public Theater; and around the world in Canada, England, France, Australia, Germany, Belarus, Costa Rica, Colombia, Japan and Spain.

As a lyricist, he is a frequent collaborator with composer Gabriela Lena Frank. He has written the libretti for The Conquest requiem and the Santos oratorio for Ms. Frank and the text of orchestral songs, La Centinela y la paloma. Cruz also adapted Ann Patchett’s 2001 novel Bel Canto for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, with Peruvian composer Jimmy López and recently premiered the Dreamers oratorio by López at Cal Performance in Berkeley, Calif.

Cruz, who received an M.F.A. from Brown University and an honorary doctorate degree from Whittier College, has twice previously served as a playwright-in-residence: In 2000, for the McCarter Theatre, in Princeton, N.J., and in 2001 for the New Theatre in Coral Gables, Fla., which commissioned Anna in the Tropics. Cruz has also taught drama at Yale, Brown and the University of Iowa. He is a member of the New Dramatists.

Last year, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel was named the inaugural Hearst Theater Lab Initiative Distinguished Playwright-in-Residence.

The Hearst Theater Lab Initiative is made possible by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, which in 2018 gifted $250,000 to UCLA TFT in support of its central vision as the pre-eminent storytelling school.

Posted: September 24, 2019

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