Dear Friends and Colleagues,
2025 has kicked off with lots of travel and programming here at home to keep my calendar full, and I wanted to share some highlights from the past month.
In January, I traveled to New York City, where we have students, alumni and faculty members showcasing work on major platforms. Studio Art Assistant Professor Scherezade García had work on view at the Brooklyn Museum as part of The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, which marked the 200th anniversary of the institution. A new work co-authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan (B.A., Drama, 1975) was showcased at the Under the Radar Festival. Under the Radar, one of the nation’s most significant experimental performance platforms, is the brainchild of another former student in our college, Mark Russell (B.F.A., Theatrical Design, 1978). Mark launched this annual event in 2005 after a 2003 beta concept debuted here on campus as a co-production of the Department of Theatre and Dance and New York’s Performance Space 122.
While in NY, I also met with alumnus J. Quinton Johnson, who is a swing in Hamilton on Broadway, and he shared that he’d be playing Alexander Hamilton that evening after our meetup. Another alumnus — Trey Curtis (B.F.A., Acting, 2017) — was unavailable to meet because he was performing in the Hamilton matinee show that same day. The New York Times wrote about this trio of Texas friends who all moved on to star in Broadway productions after college.
I also traveled to Lubbock for the Texas Fine Arts Deans' annual gathering to think together about how we’re advancing arts education, research and creative practice across the state of Texas. I believe we’re one of the most consequential contributors to the national standards in all of our fields, and UT leads in collaboration with all the other institutions across the state.
On the home front, I had the pleasure of seeing another alumnus speak to an Art History class. Zeke Peña (B.A., Art History, 2005) visited a graduate seminar on water histories, co-taught by Professors Ann Reyolds and Julia Guernsey. In his work, Zeke has addressed the crisis of water on the border with Mexico, often in comic book or graphic novel form, and he offered an artist’s perspective to students in the course.
Also on our campus, I enjoyed a sold-out performance of the UT Symphony Orchestra in Bates Concert Hall for a performance of a John Corigliano work featuring Flute Assistant Professor Ebonee Thomas and conducted by Assistant Professor Farkhad Khudyev.
This past week, I attended performances at OUTsider Festival, curated by our own Associate Dean of Community Engagement and Public Practice Laura Gutierrez. The festival included artists from Chicago and San Juan affiliated with the Puerto Rican Arts Initiative, alongside a roster of nationally significant performers and media artists.
We have so much to look forward to this spring, from exciting programming on the calendar to our spring Advisory Council meeting in Puerto Rico this month.
Sincerely,
