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Visit The University of Toledo Theatre & Film Group on Facebook. |
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Matt Meindl (Film/Video ’06) recently completed a super 8 comedy short called T-shirt of Me. The film has screened at the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Detroit Shorts Festival, Boston Underground Film Festival and the United States Super 8 + Digital Video Festival where it received an Honorable Mention. Another of Matt’s shorts called Digital Underpants has been included in the Journal of Short Film, Vol. 15 www.thejsf.org along with six other films from around the world. Matt will be a juror in the Animation Division for this year’s Columbus International Film + Video Festival. He was recently interviewed for their blog http://ohfilm.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/matt-meindl-films/. |
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Jacob Christopher Green (Theatre 2002) is directing the Hubris Productions presentation of Bent in Chicago. Written by Martin Sherman, Bent brings to life the story of gays, lesbians and other marginalized groups that also suffered under the Nazis. Critic's Pick: The best of the best.
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Jacob and Patricia Savieo (Theatre 1992) are two of the three founding members of Hubris Productions (www.hubrisproductions.com) located at the Center on Halsted in Chicago. Jacob serves as Artistic Director, and Patricia as Print Communications Coordinator. In addition to an ambitious production season, the company will be working with at-risk youth through the office of outreach at the Center. Their mission statement: |
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Gino Donatelli (former student Film/Video) Gino is now living in New York, NY. He recently earned a promotion and is now an Associate Director for a division of Cablevision, working for the channels AMC, WE, & IFC. |
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(Keith Kolasinski in the UT production of Dragon) |
Holly, Keith Kolasinski |
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Pete Cross (UT Theatre 2004 – 07) is in his second year in the MFA Acting program at the California Institute of the Arts. Working as a private acting/speech/voice coach in the L.A. area, Pete is also teaching Voice and Speech for Stage Managers at Cal Arts. As a result of performing under the direction of Cornel Gabara in UT's 2006 production of Action, which was the closing presentation of the 7th Annual International Festival of Drama in English held in Debrecen, Pete's Hungarian connections allowed him to return to Debrecen in March of 2008, directing, performing, and teaching a theatre workshop. In May of 2009 he will be touring Hungary for a third time with Karen Hartman's Troy Women as well as teaching workshops during the festival, joined by UT theatre alums Nikki Soldner and Mark Leasor. Pete will also be seen at Cal Arts in November of 2008 in the premiere of Carl Hancock Rux's Smoke Lilies and Jade. In addition to teaching and performing Pete is also currently an associate editor for Paul Meier's IDEA website of international dialects of English. |
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Dyrk, |
| Jonathan Bartholomy, (Communication/Minor in Cinema Studies & Disability Studies, Fall 2006) Jonathan has been accepted into the masters program and appointed as a graduate fellow in the American Culture Studies (ACS) MA program at Bowling Green State University for the academic year 2008-09. The graduate fellow appointment includes a stipend, health care reimbursement, a waiver of instructional fees, fee surcharges, general fees, and parking fees. His assistantship assignment will either be as a teaching assistant or a research assistant. Jonathan extends his gratitude to his former professor, Dyrk Ashton, "I want to thank you for writing me a letter of recommendation. I am very thankful for your support and influence and look forward to telling you how this develops!" |
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Seth Shaffer (Theatre/Film 2006), shown here as Lancelot in the Spring 2006 UT production of The Dragon, will be touring with Madcap Puppets http://www.madcappuppets.com in the fall of 2007. “The show I will be touring with is the Long Lost Stories. 2 actors run the whole show. I play actor 1 who performs 7 different characters in the 45 min show,” says Seth. |
| Lauri Donahue, former film student in the Dept. of Theatre & Film and instructor for the UT College of Law, wrote a screenplay "Whiplash" which won the First Prize in the MORE Magazine Screenplay Contest, competing against more than 1,000 other entries. The script was also in the top 30 (out of more than 5,000 entries) in the 2007 Nicholl Fellowship Screenplay Competition. The prize included: $5,000 cash, at least one meeting with the development director at a prominent film production company and/or prominent movie agent, a workshop of her film at the Austin Writers' Ranch, early 2008, producer-level badge to the Austin Film Festival, October 2008, press and online attention, spa getaway and other prizes. She was also invited to Los Angeles for a lunch with the judges at Chateau Marmont on December 10. LOGLINE for "Whiplash:" To bring her brother's killer to justice, a young woman disguises herself as a man and works her way across the country as a stagecoach driver, pursued by a jaded ex-Confederate officer who threatens to expose her true identity -- and steal her heart. (Based on a true story.) |
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Scott Gleine (Film 2007 - Department Outstanding Student 2006/2007) looked for work in LA for exactly one week before landing a full time job at Clairmont Camera. He says he'll be doing lots of equipment organizing and testing, and credits his experience in the Equipment Room as a prime reason for his new job. |
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Joe Lehman (Theatre 1995) is working as an Equity actor, based in Chicago. Most of his recent appearances have been in regional equity houses such as Greenbrier Valley Theatre in West Virginia or in Illinois theatres such as New American Theatre in Rockford. In 2007 he returned to this area to appear with the Jewish Ensemble Theatre in West Bloomfield in a musical review based on the song parodies of Allan Sherman. |
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Bob Uhl (Theatre, 1988) is a Project Manager and Systems Designer for Vincent Lighting Systems in Cleveland, Ohio. |
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Jessica Lopez (Film 2006)is now working at Panavision in Hollywood. UPDATE: Laid off from her job at Panavision because of the Writer's Guild strike, Jessica Lopez found herself in the same boat as everyone else in the industry - unable to find work. One day “a light bulb went off” and she began to think of her predicament in a new way. Together with Clay Chaszeyka (Film 2007) Jess began shooting a documentary on the Writer's Guild strike and its impact on folks in the industry. Thanks in large part to contacts she had developed at Tiffen and Panavision, they were able to land some amazing interviews with producers, directors, and cinematographers. Jess was particularly thrilled to get the chance to interview Haskell Wexler, whose work she had studied (and greatly admired) in Film II. Jess had this to say about their project; “This documentary is in no way trying to take sides. It's a non-biased documentary. I want to record everyone's opinions and issues, from the writers down to the dry cleaning companies. The documentary will be a compilation of thoughts and expressions. I think this can be an honest way to visually represent what is going on instead of relying on the media. This is a historical moment in time. I want the people in the film industry and the general American audience to see it. Everyone in the entertainment industry has the right to protect their work.” |
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Brian Pearson (Theatre 2006) is now with Carnival Cruise Lines as the onboard lighting tech for the Inspiration. |
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Zachery Durnell (2006) Things for me have been very exciting these last few months almost as if they were a blur. Florida Studio Theatre basically went into downsize mode and needed to eliminate a position or two. Unfortunately, that meant that I was on the chopping block. Luckily, call it instinct, but I knew it was coming. I was fortunate enough that the box office manager at FST had some connections in The Berkshires of Massachusetts. I spent the summer at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and used my off time to apply for year round work here in the Northeast. Thanks to ArtSearch I was able to find something in my back yard so to speak. I accepted a position at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts. Surprisingly I was hired on without any knowledge of dance. After all selling a ticket is selling a ticket. I of course will have to pick up some nuances here and there that the dance world uses. I have been here almost 2 months and love it. The leaves just hit there peak over the weekend and now are slowly falling off. There is talk of some snow with accumulation in the Mid-Adirondacks and the Green Mountains and maybe even in northern Berkshire county. We shall see though. I am excited to see winter once again. All the best, |
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Lino Stavole (Theatre 1996) works in Los Angeles with Howard Berger and Tami Lane who won the Academy Award for Achievement in Makeup for their work on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lino made molds for many of the prosthetic devices used in the film. He lives in L.A. with his wife, Nicoletta (also a department grad), and their two children. |
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Brie-anne Murphy (Theatre 2005) played the part of Bombularina in the Westco Production of CATS at the Irvington Town Hall Theatre in New York. |
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Rose Bachtel (Theatre 2005) is teaching English classes in Santiago, Chile and also assisted in Alba Emoting training workshops in Cachagua, Chile with Dr. Susana Bloch, the founder of the method. One was a three-day intensive workshop for actors and the other a one-day introduction for psychologists to the method. She helped with warm-ups and translation for the participants. |
