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 John Roberts MFA
1985 DesignStill in Florida now 14 years on with Disney. Oldest son will attend University of Florida in '07 and will major in Aerospace Engineering. Youngest now in middle school and creating havoc for batters when he pitches for his AAU baseball team. Now married 18 years and it seems like only yesterday I was in Grad School. Time Flies. Would love to hear from any of the folks who were there when I was in the early 80's. Elizabeth Bernard BA 2004 Drama (Lighting Design) After graduation, I spent a short period of time in Chicago continuing to work for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and various other Chicago playhouses before deciding to follow (and marry!) my beau Scott Sommers to Washington for training as a US Diplomat. We are currently living in Ouagadougou (wah-gah-doo-goo), Burkina Faso in West Africa on Uncle Sam's dime, and we'll be working at the Embassy here until June of 2007. After that, it'll be a new country every two or three years. My career as a fine art photographer (to oversimplify: it's just static lighting design, right?) has been going full tilt boogie since our arrival here with expat event photography, field photography for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and art shows. No theatre for me at this post, but maybe next time... Cheers to all the sparkies! Kristin Chebra BA 1997 Drama and Government I am an Entertainment Manager at Walt Disney World. It's the greatest job in the world,I get to work where people play. Drop me a line if you're headed down to Orlando! Andrea (Haggard) Wakely BA 1993 Biology/Drama (Costuming) Studio Art Minor I started a costuming company in 2000 called Twin Roses Designs and offer in-stock and custom ordered costumes to individuals and groups. Our website is http://www.twinrosesdesigns.com if you’d like to check it out! Bannon Puckett BA 1993 Drama & English Upon graduating from UVA, Bannon lived in Los Angeles for a year working at the headquarters for Samuel Goldwyn's national arthouse chain Landmark Theatres. In 1996, he completed his M.Ed. in English Education at the University of Georgia. After a stint as a Managing Editor for a small electronic publishing company, he moved to Seattle to be a Marketing Communications Manager at Microsoft, where he helped launch the web site for the Xbox. Since 2002, Bannon has been bringing together his theater, marketing, writing, and education experience as the Senior Advertising Copywriter for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. In early 2006, he bought his first condo in Alexandria, Virginia, and continues to hang out with his trusty beagle Salinger. See what our alumni
have been doing by visiting our alumni
page. Support the
Department of Drama
Click here to give online Or you can give by mail: Send a check with "Dept. of Drama" in the subject line to: University of Virginia PO Box 400807 Charlottesville, VA 22904 Be sure to indicate your gift is for the Department of Drama! |
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Back to main page... I’m driving along Rugby Road, heading to my 9:30am class in B006. Guys are crawling out of the frat houses, strapped into book bags, clutching coffee mugs. Three sorority sisters are huddled under one umbrella sharing a notebook, quizzing each other for this morning’s 20-per-cent-of-my-grade after an all-nighter…. it’s raining, a drizzle…fits my mood. You’ve been there…typical September day in C’ville on Rugby Road. I turn the corner at Culbreth, past the bridge….”Stay classy Trish!! Happy Birthday from the boys!!!”…in orange and blue paint, with a touch of pink. ”Who are these boys?” I’m musing when I sense first, then see something that would stop you all. Let me see if I can picture it for you…. Massive trunk, twisted limbs, leaves scattered everywhere…as if an ancient, sweet old lady had fallen in her backyard, all alone.
David sees me, shakes his head. Penny smiles and tells me to look at all the dry, dead roots. Martin laughs his laugh and cheers us up with, “That’s it, the tree fell down, I quit.” I walk around the pit, exchange some words with the guy installing the new elevator, who saw our oak fall. “Strange,” he snorts, “two short cracks and then not a sound, landed right at my feet. You should have felt the wind coming off of it…” I walk up those stairs you’ve walked up hundreds of times and the mind drifts to the young Roger, Stacy, David, Penny, LaVahn, MF, Art, Ginger, George and Margaret…when the oak was younger. Ed Steele and David Cupp and Jerry Caplin drift into the brain….Colleen Kelly, Kathryn Rohe …I know you’ve got your folks, too….I remembered Tina Fey doing some Shakespeare scene around that handsome oak trunk…James Weber rolling into the pit doing Beckett…you’ve got your scenes, and classes, and lunches, and bitch and moan sessions under the oak limbs, I’m sure.
I say: “Hey, you see the tree?” Tom shakes his sandy head. “Sad, surreal,” he whispers, “but look, there’s a lot more light in the office now…and you can see the front of the building a lot better…maybe we should put up some banners for the season out front on the patio….and I was looking at the pit out there…what if we fill it in, and put the new thrust theater right where the tree was….hell, we can connect it with the lobby…what do you think?” I’m thinking, “Thanks Tom.” Needed that...to make sense of it all. It goes on. It goes on. A theater where our tree used to be…” |
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And there on the side walk, three people. Two tall men with
a slender, elegant lady between them. Silent, still, like a
wake.
Just when I feel like wallowing in this sea of sentiment for the
rest of the day, Tom Bloom passes by the office, leans on the door
frame, and the rest goes something like this… |
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Last Updated on December 9, 2011 |
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