DeVoy Perspectives on Theatre Series
The Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IV Perspectives on Theatre Series is a program made possible by a generous gift from the DeVoy family. The series brings leading professionals and major creative forces in theatre and the performing arts to Boston College on an annual basis to share their experience and their vision with the campus community and with interested alumni and members of the greater Boston arts community.
Previous DeVoy Lecturers
Mickey Rowe
A conversation with groundbreaking performer, artistic director, author, and speaker Mickey Rowe will be presented by Boston College’s DeVoy Perspectives on Theatre Lecture Series on October 4, 2023, from 7-8:30 p.m. His appearance on the Robsham Theater Arts Center main stage is free and open to the public.
Autistic and legally blind, Rowe overcame the perception that there were things he was incapable of doing and succeeded because of—not despite—his autism, according to event organizers. He has had a prolific and varied career as an actor, director, consultant, and public speaker sought both nationally and internationally.
Author of the award-winning bookFearlessly Different: An Autistic Actor’s Journey to Broadway’s Biggest Stage, Rowe was the first autistic actor to play the lead role in the Tony Award-winning play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” which will be staged next month at Robsham Theater. He also performed the title role in the Tony Award-winning play “Amadeus,” and founded the National Disability Theatre.
“In conjunction with ‘Curious Incident’ being performed October 19-22, we are happy to have Mr. Rowe speak in Robsham through the generous support of the DeVoy lecture series,” said Theatre Department Chair and Professor of the Practice Luke Jorgensen, noting that the play’s protagonist is a neurodivergent thinker who confronts—and eventually overcomes—various struggles and obstacles.
“Mr. Rowe knows these struggles well, both as a person who has played the role and as an autistic and blind author and performer,” said Jorgensen.
“Curious Incident” focuses on 15-year-old Chris, who is exceptionally intelligent but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. Chris falls under suspicion for killing a neighbor’s dog and sets out to identify the true culprit, which leads to an earth-shattering discovery and a life-changing journey.
“This play uses fully immersive storytelling, new music, projections, and a level of the performers’ physicality that will lift your spirits, as well as the actors,” said Jorgensen.
The Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IV Perspectives on Theatre Series is a program made possible by a generous gift from the DeVoy family. The series brings leading professionals and creative forces in theater and the performing arts to campus to share their experience and vision with the Boston College community, and with interested alumni and members of the greater Boston arts community.
Daniel Alexander Jones
Hailed byBackstage Magazineas “a true theatrical original,” byAmerican Theatre Magazineas an artist whose work will “change American stages for decades to come,” and by the Public Theater as “a boundary breaking visionary,” artist Daniel Alexander Jones is not one to follow the rules. Although Jones is a playwright, a performer, a recording artist, and a director— rather than conform to just one genre or role— he says that “energy is [his] true medium.”
In 2000, Jones received the inaugural grant fromCreative Capitalwhich “supports innovative and adventurous artists through funding, counsel, and career development services.” He was later granted the 2005Herb Alpert Award in the Artswhich is “given annually to five risk-taking mid-career artists [who are] respected for their creativity, ingenuity, and bodies of work.” In 2015 he received theDoris Duke Awardwhich honors artists “who have demonstrated artistic vitality in their work and a deep commitment to their field,” as well as theArt Matters Grantwhich “provides fellowships to individual artists working with social issues and experimenting in form.” Jones was a 2016United States Artist Fellow, which “celebrates artists who have significantly contributed to the creative landscape and arts ecosystem of the country.”
Jones’ critically-acclaimed original work,Black Light, is part ofAmerican Repertory Theater’s 19-20 Seasonand will be performed in Cambridge, MA at OBERON September 19-29, 2019. Commissioned by Joe’s Pub and produced by the Public Theater in 2017,Black Lightis described as “a spiritual revival for turbulent times. Jomama Jones invites us to the Crossroads to contemplate what we must choose at this moment in our own lives, in our civic relationships, in our country, and our world.” Jones describes Jomama as his “alter ego,” and has created three other original performance pieces for her:An Evening with Jomama,Radiate,andNight Flowers. Jomama has also recorded five albums of original songs. In an interview withMPR News(Minnesota Public Radio), Jones explained how Jomama appeared to him as a fully formed being: “…she arrived in a way that was very different from the other kind of characters that I’ve performed or written…It was an energy that was very big, extremely clear, and distinct from me.”New York Magazineaffirms that “Jomama [moves us] to go from Black Light back out into daylight with our senses somehow both sharpened and softened: more able to hear others [and] more able to see ourselves.”
Jones’ other original performance works includePhantasmatron,Hera Bright,The Book of Daniel,Bel Canto,Earthbirths,Clayangels,Duat,An Integrator’s Manual, andBright Now Beyond, among others. Jones is a former Core Writer of thePlaywrights’ Center, and from 2003-2010 he was a Resident Playwright withNew Dramatists. He has written essays and conducted artist interviews forHowlRound Theatre Commons. And he is currently working on a book of creative nonfiction calledWAVES (A Manual for Bearing Light), which “chronicles his journey through a series of powerful lessons learned from pivotal mentors, places, and moments in time. Resonant with the call and response of Blackness, Queerness, Experimentation, Lineage, and Transformation, the book offers evidence of lives lived beyond binaries and boundaries…”
Jones did his undergraduate study at Vassar College (1991) in Africana Studies with a focus on literature and the arts, and graduate theatre study at Brown University (1993). He is currently an Associate Professor of Theatre at Fordham University where he teaches playwriting, solo performance, and theatre history.
The October 1st DeVoy Perspectives on Theatre Series lecture will focus on challenging the conventional “rules” of theatre; Jones will speak about the process for his experimental projects, and the value of having a diverse array of artistic mentors, particularly women and people of color. The lecture will be followed by an artist Q&A session.
Marcus Gardley
Award-winning Playwright Marcus Gardley to give lecture at Boston College in DeVoy Perspectives on Theatre Series
Playwright Marcus Gardley will give a lecture in the Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IV Perspectives on Theatre Series onThursday, October 11, 2018. The event will start at7:00pm in the Robsham Theater Art Center.
Described by the New Yorker as “the heir to Federico Garcia Lorca, Luigi Pirandello, and Tennessee Williams,” Gardley’s plays have been produced at some of the country’s most renowned theaters such as Arena Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater, and Yale Repertory Theatre, among others.
In 2009 Gardley was named one of “50 to watch” byThe Dramatistmagazine. He is the recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels award for Mid-Career Playwright (2011), which honors a “playwright whose literary achievements are vividly apparent in the rich and striking language of his or her work.” He is a former United States Artists James Baldwin Fellow (2012) for Theater and Performance, which recognized him as one of “America’s most accomplished and innovative artists.” He was also the 2011-2012 Aetna New Voices Fellow at Hartford Stage which provides “an artistic home for important playwrights of diversity and color.”
Gardley’s work- which often centers on African American history and allegory- challenges audiences by tackling complex social and political issues. He views his work as a form of activism, and has stated that he “can’t tell a story if there isn’t a political point.” In a 2015 interview with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Gardley affirmed that “What I intend for [the plays] to do, is cause conversation. From that conversation, [I hope] people are not only inspired to see more theater, but also inspired to do things in their community, so that the work is actually causing a spark for change.”
Winner of the 2010 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, a nominee for the Steinberg New Play Award, and a nominee for the Charles MacArthur Award for Best Play, Gardley’s playEvery Tongue Confessdepicts intergenerational tales of loss and redemption in the town of Boligee, Alabama by intertwining biblical stories and events from the town’s own history. In 2014, his playThe Gospel of Lovingkindnesswon the Black Theater Alliance Award (BTAA) for best play/playwright. Inspired by true events,…Lovingkindnessis a drama about faith, family, and loss at the hands of gun violence.
InThe Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry, the myth, folklore, and history of the Black Seminole people emerges in the first all-black U.S. town in Wewoka, Oklahoma. Following its premier run at South Coast Repertory Theatre,The Road Weeps…had a national tour andbecame a finalist for the 2014 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, which honors “a new play or musical each year that enlists theater’s power to explore the past of the United States, and to participate meaningfully in the great issues of our day through public conversation.”
Gardley’s play,The House That Will Not Stand, which recently opened off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in July 2018, earned him the 2014 Will Glickman Playwright Award and was a finalist for the 2015 Kennedy Prize. Regarding the world premiere production ofThe House That Will Not Standat Berkeley Repertory Theater, Artistic Director, Tony Taccone, stated: “Marcus’ unique voice- at once lyrical, rigorous, and humorous- gave us a look at a little-known part of our history, and the result was compelling and illuminating.”
His recent work, Black Odyssey, which blends Greek mythology and African-American folklore to form a new vision of Homer’s 8thCentury classic, received nine Excellence in Theatre Award nominations from the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, and won seven Theatre Bay Area awards (including “Outstanding Production of a Play” and the “Creative Specialties” award for Gardley’s adaptation of Homer’sOdyssey) for its August 2017 West Coast premiere production at California Shakespeare Theater.Black Odysseywill have its Boston premiere in April 2019, co-produced by Central Square Theater andThe Front Porch Arts Collective, “a black-led theatre company committed to advancing racial equity in Boston through theater.”
The Front Porch Arts Collective Executive Director (and this year’s Rev. J. Donald Monan S.J. Professor in Theatre Arts), Maurice Emmanuel Parent, and his professional partner, Front Porch Artistic Director Dawn M. Simmons, started the non-profit in early 2017 with an opening season that included a 7-part reading series of Gardley’s plays, including the worksThe House That Will Not Stand,Dance of the Holy Ghosts, andJesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, among others. "Marcus Gardley’s work is both relatable and sublime,” says Parent. “He blends magical realism with the particulars of the Black experience in a way that is impactful to members of our community and speaks to the essential humanity of all people.”
Wayne Wilderson ‘89 & Maile Flanagan ‘87
ActorsWayne Wilderson ‘89 & Maile Flanagan ‘87will give a joint lecture about their journey from Boston College to thriving careers in television and film onThursday, November 2, 2017 at 7:00pmin the Robsham Theater Arts Center on ֱ’s Chestnut Hill campus.
Wayne Wilderson, actor and comedian, hails from Minnesota and received his B.A. in Theatre Arts from Boston College. After graduating from ֱ in 1989, he attended Circle in the Square Theatre School in NYC, the only accredited training conservatory associated with a Broadway theatre. He is a longtime member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), which represents approximately 160,000 actors, dancers, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists, and other media professionals.
A veteran of the “small screen,” Wayne has madeguest appearances on some of TV’s biggest hits, such asThe Office,How to Get Away with Murder, The Big Bang Theory, Mom, The Middle, Two and a Half Men, Private Practice, CSI, Frasier, Seinfeld,and more than 30 other TV programs.He is perhaps best known for his recurring role in Season Five onVeep, for whichhe was nominated for a SAG awardfor “Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series” (2012).
Wilderson has appeared in the filmsEvan Almighty, Independence Day, and Disney’sSpace Buddies,among others. He is also a frequent commercial actor, having appeared in national commercials forFruit of the Loom(portraying the purple grape cluster!),MasterCard, Reebok, Yahoo!, Toyota,Chevrolet, Sealy, and PlayStation Portable, among several others.
Julie Burros
The Boston College Theatre department is thrilled to announce that Boston’s Chief of Arts and Culture,Julie Burros, will give a lecture in the Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IVPerspectives on Theatre SeriesonThursday, April 21, 2016. The event will start at 7:00 pm in Fulton Hall, room 511.
Appointed by Mayor Martin Walsh in December 2014, Ms. Burros has been steadfastly planning Boston’s cultural future as the primary advocate for the arts community. Burros was instrumental in launchingBoston Creates, Boston’s cultural planning process, which will create a blueprint for arts and culture in the City. Over the past year, Boston Creates has been engaging residents, visitors, and stakeholders to help local government identify cultural needs, opportunities, and resources and to think strategically about how these resources can help the community to achieve its civic goals. A primary goal of Boston Creates is to make Boston’s arts and culture ecosystem stronger, more accessible, more sustainable, and more diverse. The announcement of the City’s official cultural plan is expected in June of this year.
The 2016 DeVoy Perspectives on Theatre Series lecture, entitledBoston Creates: A Vision for the Arts, will focus on the role of City government in cultural planning and how the work of Boston Creates will impact the City’s cultural future which includes thousands of students, many of whom will go on to contribute to Boston’s vibrant creative community.
“Boston has so many cultural programs in need of the kind of recognition and support that Julie Burros will give them,” says Crystal Tiala, Chair of Theatre at Boston College. “It is encouraging that our city now has a steadfast advocate for the arts and for arts education. The potential for Boston’s cultural landscape to grow and change over the next ten years is truly exciting.”
One of Burros’ latest ventures was launching a new artists-in-resident program (Boston AIR), which connects local artists and City employees who work together to promote creative thinking about municipal government. The artists will work alongside a group of liaisons from city agencies, including: Public Works, Veterans' Services, Commission for Persons with Disabilities, Education, Women's Advancement, and the Boston Police Department, among others (cityofboston.gov). Other projects Burros overseas include public art installations, exhibits in City Hall, theMayor's Mural Crew, and more recently, the operation of the historic Strand Theater in Dorchester.
As the Mayor’s cabinet-level commissioner for the arts, Burros plays an essential role in the future of Boston’s theater scene, leading decisions as wide-ranging as affordable artist housing, resources for sustainable funding for non-profit companies, renting City spaces for rehearsals and performances, and working with the leaders of the Huntington Theatre to find the company a permanent home. When asked byTheBoston Globein February 2015 what her “number one” performance choice would be, Burros responded: “...between an opera or a concert, a poetry reading or a gallery opening, or a play-- I’m almost always going to choose the play.”
Before arriving in Boston, Burros worked for 15 years as the Director of Cultural Planning for the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events with the intention of “building on the arts community that was already there, and moving it forward” in order to make Chicago a major cultural destination. While there, Burros led the creation of the Chicago Cultural Plan, which was awarded the 2013Burnham Award for Excellence in Planningfor “visionary planning efforts with demonstrated results in the Chicago metropolitan region” from the Metropolitan Planning Council (metroplanning.org). Her leadership in Chicago also included the 2009Burnham Pavilions in Millennium Park, which featured architectural exhibits designed by artists from London and Amsterdam. Additionally, Burros worked for more than a decade as a Chicago Architecture docent, developing and conducting tours and serving as an interpreter of Chicago’s architecture and history.
Ms. Burros is also familiar with university life, having taught for 13 years as an adjunct faculty member teaching Cultural Policy in the Theatre School at DePaul University, and Metropolitan Planning and Development at DePaul’s Graduate School of Public Service. She earned her M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia University, completed the Career Discovery program in Urban Planning at Harvard University, and received a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.
Julie Burros is the third speaker in the Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IV Perspectives on Theatre Series, a program made possible by a generous gift from the DeVoy family. The series brings leading professionals and major creative forces in the arts to Boston College on an annual basis to share their experience and their vision with the campus community and with interested alumni and members of the greater Boston arts community. The inaugural DeVoy lecture was presented in April 2014 with American theatre visionary, director, and authorAnne Bogart, followed by Tony nominated Actor and humanitarian,Bryce Pinkham, in March 2015.
Bryce Pinkham
Chestnut Hill, MA (October 30, 2014) The Boston College Theatre department is pleased to announce that Broadway actor and Tony Award Nominee,Bryce Pinkham, will give a lecture in the Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IVPerspectives on Theatre SeriesonMonday, March 23, 2015. The event will start at 7:00 pm in the Robsham Theater Mainstage.
A stage and television actor, Pinkham is currently starring in the title role in the Broadway production ofA Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Starting in February 2015, he will play the role of Peter Patrone in the Broadway revival ofThe Heidi ChroniclesalongsideMad Menstar, Elizabeth Moss.
During his visit, Pinkham will be a guest artist for two Theatre department courses, and his evening lecture will focus on the life and career of a Broadway actor, and the importance of creating educational and social change through the arts. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Pinkham is the second speaker in the DeVoy Perspectives on Theatre Series, a program made possible by a generous gift from the DeVoy family. The series brings leading professionals and major creative forces in theatre and the performing arts to Boston College on an annual basis to share their experience and their vision with the campus community and with interested alumni and members of the greater Boston arts community. The inaugural DeVoy lecture was presented in April 2014 with American theatre visionary, director, and author Anne Bogart.
“Bryce Pinkham is a gifted artist and devoted humanitarian,” says Crystal Tiala, Chair of the ֱ Theatre department. “At the stage door after a performance ofA Gentleman’s Guide…Bryce not only took the time to greet his fans but also made his way through the crowd to give special attention to a child in a wheelchair sitting on the sidelines. That is how I always picture Bryce: a beautiful mix of talent, kindness, and joy. It is that model I hope our students will follow.”
Pinkham’s acting credits include the original Broadway cast ofGhost: The Musicalin 2012 andBloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson(2010, debut). He has performed at Lincoln Center Theatre, the Guthrie Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, and Williamstown Theatre Festival, as well as in Shakespeare in the Park’sLove’s Labour’s Lost(2013). He has also been seen on television in episodes ofThe Good WifeandPerson of Interest. In the past six years he has shared various New York stages with the likes of six-time Tony Winner Audra McDonald, five-time Tony nominee Keli O’Hara, Oscar winner Anne Hathaway, and three-time Tony nominee Kate Burton. He is also a faculty member at New York University’s Meisner Studio.
In addition to his rigorous performance schedule, Pinkham works on a number of art and social responsibility projects. He currently serves as the Executive Director ofZara Aina(a Malagasy phrase that means “share life”), a company he co-founded in 2012 with fellow Broadway actor, Lucas Caleb Rooney, to help children in developing countries expand their capacity for achievement through theatrical performance and storytelling. He is also a recurrent collaborator withOutside the Wire, a theater company that uses performance and a variety of other media to address pressing public health and social issues, such as combat-related psychological injury, prison reform, and domestic violence. Recent projects with Outside the Wire have been in Kuwait, Guantanamo Bay, and Japan.
A proud Boston College Alumni in the Communication and Theatre department’s Class of ’05, Pinkham went on to earn his MFA in Acting from the Yale School of Drama. Soon after graduating from Yale, Pinkham was identified by the Leonore Annenberg Foundation as one of a limited number of “exceptionally talented” actors and was awarded the prestigious and highly selective Leonore Annenberg Fellowship for the Performing and Visual Arts (2012). Up to 10 Arts Fellows are selected each year with the goal of helping individuals in their early career become successful so they may someday serve as leaders in their field.
Anne Bogart
Chestnut Hill, MA (April 1, 2014) -- The Boston College Theatre department is pleased to announce that stage director, educator, essayist, and theatre visionary Anne Bogart will give the inaugural lecture in the Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IV Perspectives on Theatre Series on Wednesday, April 30, 2014. Bogart's presentation—titled "What's the Story: the role of storytelling in the theater of the 21st century and beyond"—will take place at 7:00pm in Gasson 100 at the center of Boston College's main campus.
Anne Bogart is one of three Co-Artistic Directors of the SITI Company, the innovative ensemble theatre that she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. The SITI Company's mission focuses on the creation of original theatre work, professional performance training, touring nationally and internationally, and collaborating with leading artists and writers from other disciplines. Bogart has directed the vast majority of SITI Company creations, including three productions seen in the Boston area:The Trojan Women (After Euripides)(2013) andCafé Variations(2012), both presented by ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage, and Marivaux'sLa Dispute(2003) at the American Repertory Theatre, for which she received the Elliott Norton Award for Outstanding Direction.
Bogart and the SITI Company's most recent project isSteel Hammer, a collaboration with Bang-on-a-Can composer Julia Wolfe and four playwrights based on the folk legend of John Henry.Steel Hammerreceived its world premiere at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New Plays in March 2014.
Bogart is also a Professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University, where she heads the MFA graduate program in Directing, and the author of several widely read books about creativity and theatrical process, includingAnd Then You Act(2007),The Viewpoints Book(with Tina Landau) (2004), andA Director Prepares(2001).
Anne Bogart is the inaugural speaker in the new Matthew R. DeVoy and John H. DeVoy IV Perspectives on Theatre Series, a program made possible by a generous gift from the DeVoy family of Newton, Massachusetts. The series will bring leading professionals and major creative forces in theatre and the performing arts to Boston College on an annual basis to share their experience and their vision with the campus community and with interested alumni and members of the greater Boston arts community.
"There is no better person than Anne Bogart to launch the DeVoy Perspectives on Theatre series," says Scott T. Cummings, Chair of the Boston College Theatre department. "As director, teacher, author, and instigator of collaborative conversations, her influence on the American theatre is profound and wide-ranging. What she is thinking about is always of interest."
Bogart's DeVoy lecture at Boston College is based on her forthcoming book from Routledge,What's the Story: Essays about art, theater and storytelling, which is due for release within days of her talk at ֱ. In chapters with such one-word titles as "Spaciousness," "Heat," "Error," and "Sustenance," Bogart explores how contemporary theatre artists can renew their connection with the primal impulse to tell stories as a way of making sense of the world. Her thoughts derive from her extensive reading in neuroscience, sociology, and performance theory, as well as her 35 years of practical experience as a theatermaker.
Bogart's ֱ career in the American theatre has included a year as the Artistic Director of the Trinity Repertory Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island (1989-90); a term as President of the Theatre Communications Group (1990-92); and teaching appointments at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the University of California, San Diego. She is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, the Rockefeller Fellow from the USA Artists Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Career Achievement Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, two Obie Awards, and a Bessie Award. She is a graduate of Bard College (B.A.) and New York University (M.A.).