Poet, translator, and CalArts alum Don Mee Choi (Art BFA 84, MFA 86) received a call earlier this year that changed her life. On the line was the MacArthur Foundation, naming Choi one of the 25 MacArthur Fellows for 2021, an annual class of creative and inspiring individuals selected from all fields. Known colloquially as…

Isabelle Lutterodt (Photography MFA 01) was lounging on her couch on her day off when she received an important phone call in October. She discovered that, out of a sea of applicants, California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed her the new deputy director and chief curator of the California African American Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles….

Winning a Tony is something few people accomplish. Winning a Tony after Broadway was shut down amid a pandemic is even more unusual, but that’s how it happened for Justin Townsend (Theater MFA 03) at the 74th Annual Tony Awards. The ceremony, which had been delayed for several months, recognized the 2019-2020 shows that had…

If you’ve been to a reading by poet, librettist, and former CalArts faculty Douglas Kearney (Critical Studies MFA 04), you know that Kearney doesn’t merely recite and read poetry. He performs it, lives it, and breathes it on stage or at the lectern with an energy that’s more akin to hip-hop and jazz with varied…

When Sujin Kim (Film/Video MFA 20) first saw Jan Švankmajer’s 1988 film Alice, a dark surrealist interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, she was an undergraduate student in South Korea, entrenched in traditional art making. But watching the film ignited something inside of Kim, making her feel like she had taken her own…