alumni – Page 30

The Broadway musical sensation Hamilton claimed a Grammy Feb. 15 for Best Musical Theater album, and the show’s creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, rapped his acceptance speech. Miranda and the cast of Hamilton (directed by Thomas Kail ’99) also performed for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony live via satellite from the show’s home at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York. In addition to Miranda and Kail, the show’s Wesleyan connections include album co-producer Bill Sherman ’02 and Atlantic Records’ head of A&R Peter Ganbarg ’88, who helped sign the album to the label. “This has been an amazing…

“The objects in Cameron Rowland’s remarkable show at Artists Space offer a history lesson and an aesthetic experience, intricately fused,” wrote New York Times art critic Roberta Smith in a Jan. 28 article. “Accompanied by terse explanatory captions, they expose some of the troubling inequities in American society, especially concerning its prisons and their use of compulsory inmate labor. The process of grasping the meaning of this work equally involves looking, reading and feeling but its subject is one of the most urgent of our time." In his current show, titled "91020000,” Rowland '11 carefully placed items in the space that were…

Jack of the Red Hearts, a film by director and executive producer Janet Grillo ’80, depicts a family raising a child with autism, as did her first feature, Fly Away. This new work features Famke Janssen (of Taken and X-Men) and AnnaSophia Robb (Carrie Diaries and Soul Surfer). Jack of the Red Hearts has garnered 11 festival awards both in the United States and abroad including the jury award at the inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, co-founded by activist/actor Geena Davis, to promote women and diversity in filmmaking. Jack of the Red Hearts will open in limited theatrical release on Feb. 26, in 25…

The exhibition, Line Dance—The Art of Fly Fishing by Peter Corbin ’68, is now on view at the National Sporting Library and Museum (NSLM), Middleburg, Va., through July 3, 2016. Sporting artist Corbin, who majored in art at Wesleyan and graduated with high honors, notes that he considers himself first a landscape painter, with the sporting matter as a part of the scene. The 15 large paintings—spanning nearly four decades of creativity—are on loan to the NSLM from collectors. Initially an abstract sculptor, Corbin notes that now, as a representational painter, he is still exploring some of the same principals that…

Nicholas Quah ’12 is the subject of “Meet the 26-year-old who's got all the news on podcasting,” an article by Benjamin Miller on Poynter.org. Quah is the creator and full-time blogger at Hot Pod, his newsletter about podcasts, which you can find at nicholasquah.com. It is also hosted at NiemanLab, the site for Harvard’s Neiman Foundation for Journalism. While most media aficionados consider the fall of 2014 to be the time when podcasts gained considerable popularity (Serial—the true crime investigation series on public radio is just one example), Quah had been a fan of podcasts for several years by then: as…

Tufts Medical Center selected Jonathan Bush ’93 to receive the Ellen M. Zane Award for Visionary Leadership. Chairman and CEO of the health care technology company, athenahealth, Bush was cited for “exemplifying visionary and transformational leadership” as well as his "passion for uniting individualized and coordinated patient care with the demands and practicalities of healthcare management.” Bush co-founded athenahealth in 1997. In 2007 it was the most successful initial public offering, and it is now one of the health care information technology industry’s fastest growing companies, considered by many to be industry standard. In announcing the award, President and CEO of…

Shari Runner ’79 was named president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League. Crain’s Chicago Business notes that she is redirecting the purpose of league. “Right now, all the things we support are in turmoil,” Runner told reporter Shia Kapos. “We have an opportunity to change that.” Runner had been interim leader of the Urban League for eight months and had served as senior vice president for strategy and community development a the Urban League since 2010. Previously a banker—vice president of ABN/AMRO Bank and vice president at First National Bank of Chicago—she attributes her move into the nonprofit world to…

Thomas Kail ’99, who is currently directing the blockbuster hit Hamilton on Broadway, written by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, brought the energy of live theater to the small screen as he set the stage direction for Grease: Live, a musical extravaganza starring Julianne Hough as Sandy and Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo, along with Aaron Tveit as Danny, Carly Rae Jepson as Frenchy, Mario Lopez as Vince Fontaine and Boys II Men in the role of Teen Angel. The musical, which was staged in front of a live audience, aired on Fox on Jan. 31. (more…)

Wesleyan University President Michael Roth ’78 has announced a $20 million gift from outgoing Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Joshua ’73, P’06, P’09 and Dr. Amy Boger P’06, P’09 to the university’s THIS IS WHY fundraising campaign. In recognition of the Boger family’s generosity and leadership, the building located at 41 Wyllys Avenue on the university’s College Row will be named Boger Hall. The Bogers are the largest donors to the campaign. Their gifts include $11 million to establish the Joshua ’73 and Amy Boger Endowed Wesleyan Scholarship Program, which has already benefited more than a dozen Wesleyan students and will provide access to Wesleyan to many more in the coming years; $3 million to endow the Joshua Boger University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, currently held by Professor of Chemistry David L. Beveridge; and $2 million for the Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, P’09 Endowed Fund for Student Research, which provided lead funding for 50 faculty-mentored student research fellowships in 2015.

Forbes named Jordyn Lexton ’08 and Guy Marcus ’13 to the 2016 “30 under 30” list for 2016, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy highlighted David Lubell ’98 as one of the “40 Under 40." Under the headline, “Todays Brightest Young Stars and The Future Leaders of Everything” Forbes magazine highlighted two Wesleyan alumni in their fifth annual listings of the top 30 young leaders in 20 different categories. From an initial list of 15,000, Jordyn Lexton ’08 made the listing in entrepreneurs. Lexton is the founder of “Drive Change,” which employs previously incarcerated youth, teaching food preparation as well as providing positions in their award-winning culinary vehicle in…

At the Golden Globe Awards ceremony televised on NBC on Jan. 10, honoring film and television achievements, the Amazon Studios TV series Mozart in the Jungle received two awards, Best Television Series – Comedy and Best Actor in a Comedy Series (Gael Garcia Bernal). The series deals with off-screen adventures and love life of a symphony conductor and is co-created, directed and executive produced by Paul Weitz ’88, who also recently directed and wrote the hit film Grandma with Lily Tomlin. Season 2 was just released on Amazon Prime at the end of December. According to Entertainment Weekly, the comedy…

Michael Bay ’86 has directed a new film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (Paramount), which opened in U.S. theaters on Jan. 15. Based on the non-fiction book of the same name, the movie traces what happened Sept. 11–12, 2012, when terrorists attacked two Central Intelligence Agency compounds in Benghazi, Libya. The film tracks six security operatives, most of them former military, who defended the diplomatic compound and nearby CIA annex. The cast includes James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Max Martini, Toby Stephens, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa and Demetrius Grosse. In his review in Slate, film critic…

Hamilton Wins Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album

NY Times Critic Calls Art Exhibition by Rowland ’11 “Remarkable”

Award-Winning Film by Grillo ’80 in Limited Release Feb. 26

Fly Fishing Art by Corbin ’68 on Exhibit at National Sporting Library and Museum

Quah ’12 has ‘All the News on Podcasting’

Bush ’93 Receives Leadership Award from Tufts Medical Center

Runner ’79 Named President and CEO of Chicago Urban League

Kail ’99 Directs Musical Extravaganza Grease: Live

Wesleyan Recognizes Boger Family’s $20M Gift with Naming of Boger Hall

Lubell ’98, Lexton ’08, Marcus ’13 on Top National Noteworthy Lists

Mozart in the Jungle, Co-Created by Weitz ’88, Wins 2 Golden Globe Awards

Bay ’86 Directs New Film about 2012 Benghazi Events