Category Archives: Alumni
Searching for Stars and Stripes
Only a few days after Robert Carley C’82 stood in his Connecticut office on Sept. 11, 2001, watching plumes of white smoke envelop New York City, he noticed a single bright spot sparkling through the nation’s tragedy and panic. It … Continue reading
Filed under Alumni, Visual Art
Remembering author Leslie Esdaile Banks W’80
In today’s issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, fashion columnist Elizabeth Wellington offers up a moving tribute to her friend, author Leslie Esdaile Banks W’80, who died yesterday morning. Banks wrote more than 40 books that spanned a multitude of genres: … Continue reading
Filed under Alumni, Written Word
New show on its way from the ‘Prince of Broadway’
Alumnus Harold (Hal) Prince C’48 Hon’71 holds the record for most Tony Awards in the business. (Twenty-one, if you’re wondering.) Since the 1950s, he has produced and directed some of Broadway’s best-known musicals—Fiddler on the Roof, Damn Yankees, Cabaret, The … Continue reading
Alumnus John Legend’s surprise Philadelphia performance
The well-known musician/songwriter John Legend C’99 has been winding his way through the country lately as the opening act for Sade’s North American tour. A few weeks ago, that tour brought him back to Philadelphia, where he surprised the Calvary … Continue reading
VIDEO: What do some 360 doodled-on cups look like in person?
For the new July|August 2011 issue of the Gazette, I interviewed Gwyneth Leech C’81, an artist who spent six weeks inside a New York City display window drawing on used paper coffee cups. When I visited her studio last month, … Continue reading
Filed under Alumni, Visual Art
Suggested summer reading from Penn alumni-authors
You’ve read about their work in the pages of the Gazette (and in some cases, on this very blog), but what do some of Penn’s author-alumni like to read themselves? We asked several to share their summer reading suggestions. ______________________________ … Continue reading
Filed under Alumni, Written Word
Days from the Tonys, a conversation with musical-theatre historian Larry Stemple Gr’79
In the Gazette’s May|June 2011 issue, book critic Dennis Drabelle G’66 L’69 reviewed Showtime. Written by musical theatre historian/scholar Larry Stemple Gr’79, the book provides an in-depth (as in, 826 pages) history of musical theatre. With the 2011 Tony Awards … Continue reading
SNL featured player to Annenberg seniors: “Be prepared to work hard and pay your dues.”
I’ve mentioned Vanessa Bayer C’04 on this blog before, and the most recent Gazette includes a profile of the new SNL performer. Now, you can also watch her speech from the Annenberg School for Communication’s graduation ceremony on May 15. … Continue reading
Filed under Alumni, Television
C’08 alumnus curates museum exhibition centered on the written word
Matthew Abess C’08 has a really cool job. He told me so the other day while standing beachside in Miami, only a few blocks from his office in the Wolfsonian-FIU museum. He also said that the Wolfsonian’s collection is “extraordinarily … Continue reading
Filed under Alumni, Museums, Visual Art
Stephanie Harzewski Gr’06 on “Chick Lit and Postfeminism”
While it began as a playful nickname for Princeton University’s Female Literary Tradition course in the 1980s, “chick lit” has since evolved into something much broader. In the 1990s, it referred to an avant-garde movement in women’s fiction; in the … Continue reading
Filed under Alumni, Heard on Campus, Written Word
