News
Tony Award-winning playwright and director of the graduate playwriting program David Henry Hwang has a lot to celebrate this month. His play, Soft Power, just won six Ovation Awards including best production. It was also recently announced on Deadline that he has been hired by Disney to write Hunchback, a live-action musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel. Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz will write the music.
The Last Day Of School, written and directed by current student Gabriele Urbonaite, will have its US premiere at The Santa Barbara International Film Festival on January 31. The film will play as part of the Shorts Program in the Dramatic Shorts category.
Alumna Amy Feltman '16 released her debut novel Willa & Hesper, published through Grand Central Publishing. Book launch and reading dates are coming up in February.
Associate Professor, Deborah Paredez was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her poem “A Rock and a Hard Place” which appears in the current issue of Poet Lore.
Writing Chair, Sam Lipsyte released his latest novel Hark to much praise.
Into the Night: Cornell Woolrich and Film Noir
Programmed by Rob King, Film and Media Studies, Columbia University School of the Arts
Writing alumna, Tracy K. Smith '97, poet laureate of the United States, will receive the Harvard Arts Medal at the opening event of the University’s annual Arts First festival on May 2, 2019. Smith won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for her collection Life on Mars; she is known for her lyrical, meditative poems. Her most recent collection, Wade in the Water (2018), is her most political.
Nonfiction creative writing alumna, Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman '09 has her first book, Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir, coming out February 12 through W.W. Norton.
The four-part documentary Showtime series, Enemies: The President, Justice & The FBI, associate produced by alumni Diana Golts '15 and Julie Seureau '14 premiered last November to rave reviews.
Sam Charles Ross '13 has his debut collection of poetry coming out this February, titled Company. Company was selected by Carl Phillips as the winner of the Four Ways Books Levis Prize in Poetry.
Film Independent’s Next Generation: Project Involve welcomes 30 new fellows for 2019, including Columbia film alumni Apoorva Charan ’18, Rammy Park ’11, current film student Johnson Cheng, and poetry alumna Stephanie Adams-Santos ’09.
This past December Playwriting alumnus Santino DeAngelo ’18, who according to the New York Times has a “gift for engaging melodies,” co-wrote and directed Porn Awards: The Musical at The Rockwell in Los Angeles. The production is a wacky vaudeville act and comedy burlesque about a small-time musical theater producer, Max, who tries to bring his dream of hosting a sexy award show to the big time. Along the way, Max introduces the audience to his famous Hollywood friends such as Susan Sarandon, Liza Minelli, Jennifer Coolidge, and more (all…
The next thesis production, Medea directed by Miriam Grill, premieres January 23rd at The Flexible Performance Space at Lenfest Center for the Arts.
Alumna Dana Schutz '02 is has a solo exhibition at Petzel Gallery in Chelsea from January 10 through February 23, 2019. Entitled, Imagine Me and You, the exhibition is her third at the gallery and features paintings and sculptures. The exhibition will mark the first time Schutz has exhibited sculptures.
Alumna Emily Mae Smith '06 is in a solo exhibition with Le Consortium, their first ever institutional exhibition devoted to the artist. Running through April 14, 2019 at Le Consortium in Dijon, France, the exhibition gathers over 40 pieces made between 2014 and 2018 to present in one retrospective.