Columbia University School of the Arts Class Notes 2023-2024

Writing alum Kathy Fagan ’82 published her sixth collection of poems, Bad Hobby—a perceptive collection focused on memory, class, and might-have-beens.

A new novel by Film alum Krishna Candeth '88, All Stray Dogs Go to Heaven, was launched earlier this year at the World Book Fair in New Delhi.

Visual arts alum Midori Curtis '89 exhibited monoprints and woodblock prints for her 2023 exhibition, Improvisations, at the Knox Gallery in Monterey, Massachusetts. 

Visual arts alum Sue Johnson ’81 was featured in EAT ME!, an exhibition at Collar Works (Troy, NY) running until July 15, 2023. EAT ME! examines cultural, societal, and personal relationships with the things that we eat. 

Visual arts alum Sue Johnson ’81 had an exhibition, External Reflections| Internal Identities, at The Delaware Contemporary until August 27, 2023.

Theatre alum Christian Parker ’98 dramaturgs Another Marriage at Steppenwolf.

Columbia University Entertainment, in partnership with the Black Alumni Council, hosted a second Showrunners Panel the evening of Monday, June 26 in Beverly Hills—this time with Courtney Lilly (CC '97)(ABC's Black-ish) and Raamla Mohamed (CC '03) (Onyx Collective's Reasonable Doubt). The panel will be moderated by Theatre alum Chris Maddox '03 (Writer/Producer: CW's Dynasty, ABC's A Million Little Things), and will cover their professional journeys and creative process. 

Visual arts alum Derrick Adams '03 was profiled by Galerie magazine in his Crown Heights studio. 

Theatre alum Harrison David Rivers ’09 writes The Salvagers at Yale Rep.

Theatre alum Jocelyn Bioh '08 writes Jaja's African Hair Braiding at Manhattan Theatre Club. 

José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes '03 published a poem titled “Self-Portrait as Derivatives Trader” in The Slowdown.  

Theatre alum Kyle Haden '02 directed Parental Advisory: a breakbeat play, which ran from September 26 to October 29, 2023, at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Stiemke Studio. 

Under the title Paula Wilson: Toward the Sky’s Back Door, visual arts alum Paula Wilson '05 showcased paintings, prints, collages and videos in her solo exhibit at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College from July to December 2023. 

Theatre alum Pirronne Yousefzadeh '09 directed The Ants at Geffen Playhouse.

Theatre alum Rachel Chavkin ’08 directed Gatsby at American Repertory Theater.

Theatre alum Saheem Ali '07 directs Fat Ham at Geffen Playhouse and Buena Vista Social Club at Atlantic Theater.

Visual Arts alum Vesna Pavlović's ’07 work is being featured in the Woven Wind exhibition at Hiram Van Gordon Gallery (Nashville, Tennessee) until June 9. 

Theatre alum C. Quintana's ’13 has released a new Audible Emerging Playwrights commissioned play, The 126-Year-Old Artist, which is now available on Audible. 

Writing alum Chris Molnar '18 published two reviews in The Los Angeles Review titled “No Monuments: On Ian Penman’s 'Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors'" and “Someone Always Takes Me Home: On Howard Fishman’s 'To Anyone Who Ever Asks.'”

Film alum Claire Fowler’s '11 US TV directorial debut dropped on Netflix on June 2 as part of Manifest S4 Pt 2 (Episode is 414).

Writing alum Dennard Dayle '17 published a humor piece titled “Profiling the Profile Writer Profiling Me” in The New Yorker.  

Visual arts alum Dineo Seshee Bopape’s '10 first solo museum exhibition in New York is on view at The Museum of Modern Art in the Museum’s street-level gallery from July 1 through October 9, 2023.

Writing alum Erin Pesut '15 published an essay titled “Tailored Congruence” in Raft Magazine. The essay is a part of The Paddle, Raft's series of personal essays about the ups and downs of the creative life.

Visual arts alum Esteban Cabeza de Baca's ’14 exhibition Alma ran June 8-July 21 at Garth Greenan Gallery in NYC.  

Francisco Gonzálezm '19 was awarded a Steinbeck Fellowship, which offers writers of any age and background a $15,000 fellowship to finish a significant writing project. Named in honor of author John Steinbeck, the program is guided by his lifetime of work in literature, the media, and environmental activism.

Grayson Cox '10 was featured in the group exhibition FEEDER at Good Naked (Catskill, NY). FEEDER circled around ideas of exchange and offering, consumption and participation.

Work by Jackson Polys '15 was at Counterpublic in St. Louis, MO until July 15. Counterpublic 2023 was one of the nation's largest public art platforms, bringing 30+ new artist commissions to life in public parks, gardens, historic houses and museums around St. Louis. 

James Gortner's '10 exhibition Terra Incognita was at Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial Practice (New York, NY) May 18–August 12, 2023. 

Writing alum Jenessa Abrams '17 was named an Emerging Critics Fellow for the National Book Critics Circle’s 2023-2024 cohort. 

Writing alum Kristi DiLallo Osorio ‘17 was named the winner of the Indiana Review 2023 Creative Nonfiction Prize for her essay “The Sound of Burning.”

Annex, written and directed by Writing alum Maddox Pennington '15, is having its World Premiere at the 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

As part of the Autry Museum of the American West's Native Voices New Plays Festival, Central Standard Time by Writing alum Maddox Pennington '15 will receive a public reading in Los Angeles at the Autry on June 10th, then a week of workshopping and revision, and a reading at the La Jolla Playhouse on June 18, 2023.

Winner of the Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Prize, Writing alum Matthew Gellman '18, published his chapbook titled Night Logic with Tupelo Press in August 2023. 

Writing alum Samantha Childs '14 published Henri and the Magnificent Snort : A Children's Book about Bullying, Belonging, and Love, in July 2023, with Sea Lavender Publishing. 

Smoking Tigers, screenwritten and directed by film alum So Young Shelly Yo '18, won Best Screenplay in a U.S. Narrative Feature, Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative, and a Nora Ephron Award Special Jury Mention at Tribeca Film Festival 2023.

Film alum So Young Shelly Yo’s '18 feature debut Smoking Tigers is among Variety's 9 Must-See Movies at Tribeca Festival. According to Variety, "What makes Tribeca so exciting is that it’s a springboard for bold new voices (keep your eyes on So Young Shelly Yo, making her feature directorial debut)."

Writing alum Stephen Cicirelli '10 published a flash fiction piece titled “Adversity is the Parent of Virtue (in Bed)” in Okay Donkey Magazine.

Theater alum Tiffany Vega-Gibson '12 launched Evolution Management Consultants (EMC) as partner & co-founder. 

Canusa Street, a sitcom television pilot written & directed by Film alum Zack Morrison '18 and produced by Film alum Carver Diserens '17 had its world premiere at Dances With Films in Hollywood, on July 1, 2023 at the Chinese Theater.

Adrián Pérez ’20 published a short story titled “The Sinkhole” in Booth. 

Theatre alum Alle Mims ’23 did a reading of a new work in progress, The Strip Club Manifesto, at Pete's Candy Store on June 19, 2023. The reading was a part of the reading series Play Date at Pete's. 

Congrats to Writing alum Ariel So '23 for publishing a poem titled “Tender White Desk” in Sinking City.

Theatre alum Colm Summers '22 directed Every Brilliant Thing at Geffen Playhouse.

The 8th Annual National Women's Theatre Festival runs from June 21 to July 1, 2023 in Raleigh, NC. Theater alum Emily Boyd Dahab '20 serves as the artistic producer of the festival. Zizi Majid '20 will give a talk at the Conference called "Elevating Women Playwrights of Color."

Tending to change, a solo show by Visual Arts alum Jacq Groves '22, opened June 17, 2023 and ran until August 6. In this exhibition, Groves honors processes of transformation and the care to incite change. 

Visual Arts alum Kevin Cobb ’23 had work featured in The I Has to Travel at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery. This exhibition explored whether we are doomed to replicate the past or if we can take stock of our history and begin anew.

Sound Art alum Lauren Covey '21 led a symposium where she discusses her new work, “a sonic family portrait,” and shares her process of working with sound as a mental health tool. 

Writing alum Mark Lopez '20 published Laura from the Valley, a short novel about a little girl whose parents die, and she's forced to live with her Uncle Hector, who surrounds her with drugs and prostitution.

As part of the Center for Book Arts’s 2023 group exhibition Visual Volumes: Contemporary Explorations in Book Arts, visual arts alum Roni Aviv ‘21 displayed work embodying interdisciplinary approaches to creative book practices.

Visual Arts alum Susan Chen's ‘20 exhibition Purell Night & Day was at Rachel Uffner Gallery (New York, NY) July 13–August 18, 2023. With Purell Night & Day, Chen continued a long-standing tradition of artists exploring a seemingly mundane subject in seriality and in the process, uncovering undiscovered meaning below the surface. 

Dominus, a debut poetry collection by Writing alum Tiffany Troy ’22, is forthcoming with BlazeVox in September 2023. The book challenges the inner workings of the capitalist bureaucracy with what Cyrus Cassells calls the “irreverence and snap-crackle-pop allusiveness of Alan Dugan’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning first book.

Film alum Tony Yang ’20 was selected to participate in Sundance Institute's Producers Intensive. The Producers Intensive provides early career rising producers from traditionally underrepresented communities the opportunity to enhance their craft in a two-day concentrated workshop by offering creative, strategic, and professional development support.