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Tom Bloom

News from the Chair
by Tom Bloom, Chair, Associate Professor, Scenic Design

I went up to New York on October 3 to see Assistant Professor Michael Rasbury's Max Understood that was produced as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.  What made the evening even more eventful was that many recent and past graduates of UVa Drama were there in attendance.  I spent a good hour curbside following the performance with several grads, including Juli Cooper ('79), Julia Debo ('09) and Morgan Geisert ('07).  Current students joining us were Jemy Chen and Kristin Freshwater, who are in the graduate program.  I know, too, that there were several other alums who came out in support of Michael's show. 

As those who live in New York are aware, there is quite a strong network of our students forging their way in the New York world of theatre.  The following day, along with my two graduate scene designers Kristin Freshwater and Jeff Kmiec, we spent several hours in the studio of noted scene designer Santo Loquasto.  We were invited to his studio by former MFA scene designer Jenny Sawyers who currently is Mr. Loquasto's Associate Designer.  Mr. Loquasto generously spent over a half hour with us before he headed back down to the Neil Simon theatre where Ragtime opens in preview on October 23.  For the next couple of hours Jenny pulled out models and drawings of past productions of opera, drama, and dance designed by Mr. Loquasto - what a visual feast it was!

All that weekend I kept running into UVa Drama folk - Alex Grubbs, Mauri Epstein, and Caroline Pugliese  seen at BAM, and on an earlier trip found myself sitting next to Ryan Bauer (MFA Lighting Design '08) on the L Train.  So needless to say there's quite a contingent of our people in the city - but also in other centers such as Chicago and Philadelphia - the network is widening.  So (here's the pitch) please take a moment to look over our alumni webpage located at: http://www.virginia.edu/drama/alumni.htm. Add your own info or make contact with someone you'd like to hear from.

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