Alumni in the News

Alumna Dawn Davis Loring (BA, Dance, 1992) and Mosaic Dance Body present Danceopoly at the Big Range Austin Dance Festival. Danceopoly is a game involving both audience and dancers and "takes a snarky look at being a struggling artist through the lens of a cheesy reality game show."

Collaborators include Dawn Davis Loring, Jennifer Micallef, Tracy Sadler Machalek, Ivry Newsome, Cinnamon Barton and Dawnerin Wilkinson.

Danceopoly will be shown at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre on June 30th at 8pm and on July 1st at 2pm.

Mike McKinley (BFA, 1977) is currently writing a memoir on his time spent in the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the New York-based parody ballet company. McKinley spent around a decade with the company as his alter-egos, ballerina Tatiana Youbetchabootskaya (pictured left) and danseur Igor Teupleze. His memoir is titled Blood and Satin: Confessions of a Drag Ballerina. 

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo will perform at the Long Center Tuesday, February 7th at 7:30pm in Dell Hall. For more information on the performance call 474-5664 or visit www.thelongcenter.org.

This past spring Sally Bailey, MFA, MSW, RDT/BCT (UT BFA 1976) was promoted to full professor at Kansas State University where she has taught theater and directed the drama therapy program for the past 11 years.  Her recent book "Barrier-Free Theatre: Including Everyone in Theatre Arts -- In Schools, Recreation, and Arts Program -- Regardless of (Dis)Abililty" was awarded the 2011 Distinguished Book Award by the American Alliance for Theatre in Education in Chicago at its annual conference in July.  "Barrier-Free Theatre" is published by Idyll Arbor, Inc.

Rebecca Hewett (M.A. 2004, Ph.D. 2010) has been awarded a 2011 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Public Fellow at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) as a Cultural Programs Specialist. The Public Fellows program is an ACLS initiative placing recent Ph.D.s in staff positions at partnering agencies in government and the non-profit sector, aiming to demonstrate that the capacities developed in the advanced study of the humanities have wide application, both within and beyond.

Eric Vera (B.F.A., Theatre Studies, 2008) has just been named the Executive Artistic Director of The Camille Playhouse in Brownsville, Texas. It is a wonderful opportunity for Vera, as he returns to his hometown and leads the theatre that was integral to his early education.

Vera recently served on the Department of Theatre and Dance alumni committee for The Fantasticks 50th Anniversary. You can learn more about him on the alumni spotlight.

Fred Jones (B.A., Theatre and Dance, '08) and his acting partner, Paul Marino, were recently featured by The Wall Street Journal Online.  They are combing the subway lines underneath the streets of New York City in an interesting form of guerilla theatre – two-man scenes from Shakespeare.

Lisa D'Amour (M.F.A., Playwriting, '96) was one of three Pulitzer Prize finalists in drama for her play Detroit. Premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater in September 2010, Detroit is described by the Pulitzer jury as “a contemporary tragicomic play that depicts a slice of desperate life in a declining inner-ring suburb where hope is in foreclosure.” Detroit will be produced on Broadway in early fall of 2011 under the direction of Austin Pendleton. This marks D'Amour's Broadway debut.

Lauren Williams (BA Theatre and Dance ’09) is a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.

Marie S. Brown (M.F.A., Directing, 2010) just completed a very exciting project directing a collaborative group of artists called TRIIIBE in a major exhibition at the 808 Gallery in Boston, MA. A selection of pieces from this show were then moved to the Dodge Gallery in NYC where they will reside for another few weeks. Since then, Brown has been collaborating with several artists from this group on two different new projects: the production of a stop animation film and a reproduction of The Nomadic Dream Project at the Prague Quadrennial, which was first created by an ensemble of UT students for the 2009 Cohen New Works Festival.

Shaun Patrick Tubbs (MFA Acting ’10) was cast in The Book of Grace Written and Directed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks, at Zach. Opens June 2, 2011.

A South Texas family breaks through familial borders when a young man named Snake returns home, lured by his stepmother Grace, to reunite with his father, a border patrol agent. The prodigal son confronts his father, and fences are erected as everyday life erupts into a battle for personal survival. At once fiercely intimate and explosive, this surprising and truly original play finds three people bound together by longing, passion and ambition.