Recent Acting Alum Bios | california institute of the arts

Adam Hunter

BFA Acting, 2007

Since graduation I have been in a stage reading of "The Sequence" at the theater@Boston Court where I am currently in the west coast premiere of Carlos Murillo's Dark Play or stories for boys, (there are lots of reviews out, back stage, variety, LA weekly) Right out of school some classmates and myself created a company, Poor Dog Group, which will be featured at the upcoming REDCAT Studio. I am currently collaborating with a producer in efforts to create a festival where artists can share and work with artists of other mediums. I have a show that I wrote and directed in the festival, SHIPS, an insight to the twenty-first century and battles with identity. The festival is scheduled for Dec.8th.

For my fiscal-self I have been building sets at the Elephant Theater, Sacred Fools and The Hayworth to name a few. CalArts is an institute that offers more than a degree in acting, which is what I went for. The Institute fosters an individual’s growth as a culturally aware artist. I remember writing my "mission" statement my first year at eight-teen years old, saying, "In theater- there is a right way and a wrong way; white or black, no gray" and I have left the institute with a plethora of colors my favorite now being red. Recently received Best Featured Actor Award from LA Drama Critics Circle 2008 for Dark Play.

Jason Ball
MFA Acting, 2006

Jason Ball performed in Richard Foreman’s What to Wear! at REDCAT. He also performed in productions at Banshee Theatre and 24th Street Theater. He was cast in the Jeffrey DeChaussé film, Sperfect, which will be released in 2009. He founded a film production company called One Night Rider Productions. He has directed, composed, and produced three short films: Northing Left Here for Us, Peach Blossom’s Bench, and Hazy Gardens of Temptation. There are two more films in pre-production. He is also publishing a self-titled book of photography that will be available in December 2008.

Sonny Valicente
BFA Acting, 2008

Sonny graduated from CalArts in 2008 with a BFA in Acting.

He has performed at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, The NOW Festival at REDCAT, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. He is currently on tour with New York City’s The Acting Company, performing in Henry V, and the World Premiere of The Spy. He was recently seen on TNT’s new drama, Raising the Bar.

CalArts never painted anything one color. They gave me all the room in the world to explore. It was jarring at first, but I then saw I was given an opportunity to create a technique that is unique to me as a person. I was given the purest and most organic tools of acting that have proved themselves throughout time to build my technique.

My experience was a true collaboration between myself and the faculty. We worked all hours of the day to create a custom process that has proved itself time and time again.

I learned to act from a place of love. I was taught to look at myself before I could look at any character. I learned to listen to myself, and to allow growth as a person. Finding out that I am the character allows unlimited access to truth.

CalArts encourages truth, humanity, love, peace, and activation. I didn't just learn how to act ... I grew up in a sanctuary of art. I learned that art is life. Acting has become a religious experience.

Ali Ahn
MFA Acting, 2006

The most valuable aspect of my training at CalArts was the way in which it exercised and expanded my imagination as an actor. The opportunity to collaborate with working artists with diverse theatrical aesthetics taught me a flexibility that has proven vital both when auditioning and rehearsing. Upon graduation, my first job was through a director introduced to me while at CalArts. All the shows I've been lucky enough to work on have stemmed from the initial contact I made at CalArts. My first post-graduation job as an under-study in The Winchester House at Theatre @ Boston Court, led me to As You Like It at A Noise Within, which was guest directed by the artistic director of Boston Court. Chay Yew, the Obie-winning director, for whom I under-studied at Boston Court, then cast me in Naomi Iizuka's Strike-Slip at the Humana Festival. We worked together again in Chay's remount of House of Bernarda Alba at NAATCO in New York. I subsequently relocated to New York and performed in Lights Rise on

Grace at the NY Fringe, directed by Obie-award winner Robert O'Hara. CalArts has proven an essential link between my artistic and professional growth.

2008 Update: I moved to New York in 2007, and did a show with Partial Comfort called, Lights Rise on Grace that won Outstanding Play at the Fringe Festival. After that, I worked with Second Generation on Twelve, which is their New Works Festival, and did an Off-Broadway production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Pearl. I also worked with some CalArts alums over the summer (Madeleine Bernatchez, Efren Delgadillo and Samantha Yonack) on a new piece called LaSantas, which we did at the Ontological Hysteric. Since then, I’ve started recording books on tape and later this year, I will be at the Pearl Theater again as Viola in Twelfth Night.

Alison Brie
BFA Acting, 2005

Alison Brie graduated from the CalArts Theatre School with a BFA in acting in 2005. During her time there, she participated in a number of theatre productions, working with such guest directors as Karin Coonradon The Visit of the Old Woman and Chen She-Zhing on the world premier musical Peach Blossom Fan which was performed as the inaugural theatrical production at Disney’s REDCAT Theatre Downtown. She was fortunate to have been able to participate in the foreign exchange program, studying a semester abroad at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland. She also took part in the school’s annual New Works Festival, contributing to a number of student written and produced projects. Since graduating Alison has been working consistently in all mediums, including theatre, film, and television. She has performed at local Los Angeles theatres including The Odyssey, The Write-Act, and in Hollywood with the Blank Theatre Company. Notable Regional perform-ances include work at The Rubicon Theatre in The Diary of Anne Frank as Margot and Hamlet as Ophelia, for which she was honored with an Indy Award for Performance from the Santa Barbara Star. Upcoming film releases include the horror flicks Parasomnia and Born, the latter an official selection of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Currently she can be seen on the hit new AMC series “Mad Men” as Trudy Campbell. “I cherished my time at CalArts. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”

Alison Heimstead
MFA Peppetry, 2006

Since graduating from CalArts I’ve worked on a number of performances. I re-mounted my senior thesis project, a puppet adaptation of The Saint Plays written by Erik Ehn. With most of the original cast, we performed in Los Angeles and toured to the Open Eye Figure Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I co-created MILK, a multi-media event employing flat screen monitors as animated objects and landscapes, at St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY. MILK was created as a collaboration with Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, Shannon Scrofano and a handful of other brilliant CalArts alums. I directed Episode 4 of the Sunset Chronicles -- a marionette serial created by the Little Fakers Ensemble. I am currently working on a commissioned adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for The Los Angeles Music Center’s International Toy Theater Festival.

As a designer I worked on Mycenaean, written and directed by Carl Hancock Rux (first performed at CalArts), as co-scenic and mask designer at Brooklyn Academy of Music and PICA’s Time Based Art Festival. I worked with director Juliette Carrillo on Lorca’s Blood Wedding designing puppets and scenic for her production with Ten Thousand Things Theater in Minneapolis. I assisted puppet artist Susan Simpson as a co-scenic designer for her piece: Lead Feet and Nothing Upstairs. I designed and painted a Cantastoria for Erik Ehn’s Letters From a Small House, illustrating the story of the Unabomber’s origins. It was performed as part of Theatre of Yugen’s eight-hour event The Cycle Plays. Collaborating with Nana Projects, I designed two forty foot towers to hold their cinematic-scaled shadow screen for the outdoor performance of Lantern Towers and Magic Shadows. Most recently, I have been asked to participate as a visual designer with Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis) on a developmental workshop during winter of 2008.

My time at CalArts was full of work and experimentation. Through this intensity, we let go of the pretenses of the form in order to get to the harder questions of what theater is and what it should become. So that was my experience of CalArts - this rigorous re-examining. I am grateful for the depth and commitment to the work that the community, faculty, and students have.

2008 Update: In June, I was commissioned to create a toy theater adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for the Los Angeles Music Center’s first ever International Toy Theater Festival. I worked with playwright Sibyl O’Malley and many other CalArts alums to create a new and tiny version of this classic. Also during the summer, I collaborated with Shannon Scrofano on a workshop version of our work in progress: The Ronald Reagan Love Story. This media enhanced puppet show was performed at The Manual Archives space in Los Angeles. It was funded in part by the Jim Henson Foundation. I have continued my collaboration as puppet-dramaturge with playwright Deb Stein and Peter Brosius of Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis) on a piece about Darwin’s life and laboratory. This fall I consulted on the development of various puppet projects with Disney Creative Entertainment.

Eddie Lopez
BFA Acting, 2007

In the last few weeks of school I was in the heat of performing of my self-motivated and self-realized production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch complete with professional quality lights, sound, costumes and musicians, in the Coffee House Theater at Cal Arts. While that was happening I was called by a director that saw the LA showcase to audition for a world premiere musical by the name of Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings by composer Eric Whitacre. The project, being produced at Southern California’s renowned Theater @ Boston Court in Pasadena, was a rave/electronica opera with anime, taiko drumming, mixed martial arts, and of course classical and rock vocals. A piece that I actually felt comfortable auditioning for in every aspect due to the extraordinary training I received at Cal Arts.

After the closing of Paradise Lost I began working as a field manager and canvasser for the Human Rights Campaign, doing my part as a responsible citizen and making some needed money in the meantime. During that time I got a call from the casting director for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. She had seen my understudy performance of the lead role in Paradise Lost and wanted to call me in to audition for the next year’s season. After two auditions I got a call that offered me a ten-month contract with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival! Ten solid months of work as an actor! Doing theater at one of the best repertories in the nation! I of course accepted the invitation to join the company and am now waiting to begin work in Ashland in January 2008.

The most recent events in my life are no doubt only the initial rewards I am reaping for my time spent at Cal Arts honing my craft. I don’t know how else to describe my four years at Cal Arts without saying that it was truly an intense, life changing experience. Every class, be it Voice, Speech, Movement, Acting Studio, World Theater History, Performance Art or Thai Chi gave me an invaluable insight to my work, my art and most importantly myself. Cal Arts has given me a toolbox overflowing with tools for my craft and a passion for performance that ranges from the commercial musical theater to the unique, innovative and challenging world of experimental theater.

2008 Update: I have completed a thrilling first season with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival performing over 170 times in three shows: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Comedy of Errors and The Clay Cart. I have been invited back for a second season in 2009, to perform in The Music Man and Henry VIII.

In the meantime, I am off to trek through Southeast Asia to explore the culture, religion and cuisine of a vastly different part of the world, feeding my other passion in life: travel.

Matt Steiner
BFA Acting, 2005

The fours years at CalArts were made up of doing any project that I could get my hands on, be it Mainstage, Studio, Coffeehouse, New Works, or REDCAT. The opportunity to be in constant motion as an artist and the exposure to work ranging from Classical to Contemporary to New Work, Traditional to Experimental, Community-based to Inter- national has nurtured in me the idea of the actor not just as an entertainer but as activist, historian, and healer as well. The most memorable of my experiences at CalArts was playing Emperor Fu opposite CalArts faculty members Mary Lou Rosato and Fran Bennett in REDCAT's inagural production of Peach Blossom Fan.

Since graduating two years ago and moving to New York, I've gone on two national tours and performed Off-Broadway in productions of Jane Eyre, The Three Musketeers, and Macbeth with The Acting Company, starred Off-Off Broadway in the world premiere of Stan Richardson's AND/OR, and regionally I've played Damis in Tartuffe at Two River Theatre Company and am currently starring as the lead in A.R. Gurney's Indian Blood at Buffalo's Studio Arena Theatre.

The transition to New York was made much smoother due to the knowledge that I had contacts with working directors and artists such as Karin Coonrod, Chen Shi-Zheng, Ken Nintzel, and Stew. All of whom I had worked with at CalArts. And my work with The Acting Company would not have been possible without the encouragement and recommendations of Acting Company Alumni and CalArts’ Faculty members Mary Lou Rosato, Denise Woods, and adjunct faculty member Mary Joan Negro.

Robb Martinez
MFA Acting, 2007

I found CalArts to be an amazing place to train as an artist. I was constantly surrounded by individuals who shared a passion for theatre. The Theatre department consistently brought in exciting guest artists who are changing the face of theatre as we know it. By allowing students to work with these artist gave us the opportunity to grow in unexpected directions. While at CalArts, I was able to perform roles such as Duke Senior in As You Like It, Polonius in Hamlet and Lear in Lear to name a few. I also was able to work with directors like Mary Lou Rosato, Lenka Udovicki, Everett Quinton, Luis Alfaro, Lewis Palter and playwrights like Erik Ehn and Brian Bauman. I don't know of another school that would have given me the opportunity to work with such a vast group of characters and artists. I cannot recommend CalArts enough.

Since graduation, I spent a month over the summer assisting Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director of the Sundance Theatre Lab, in Sundance Utah. I was present during the reworking, rehearsal and readings of seven new plays by some of today's most promising playwrights. I have also moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. I became a working actor in my first week in New York. I was cast in the Acting Company's 2007-2008 Season and National Tour. Mary Lou Rosato was INSTRUMENTAL in getting me noticed by the Acting Company.

After the tour, I worked with CalArts 2006 alumni, Joy Tomasko, on a staged reading of one of her new plays as well as performing the role of Shabelsky in Ivanov for Columbia University.

Elaine Avila
MFA Playwriting, 2004

Since CalArts, my plays have premiered/been work shopped in Western Canada (Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton); London, England; Northern California; Tulsa, Oklahoma and Albuquerque, New Mexico. I won some awards: Best New Play from the Victoria Critic’s Circle, and New Works for Young Women Award/Residency from Tulsa University. I have been recently hired as the Robert Hartung Endowed Chair of Dramatic Writing at the University of New Mexico, heading up their MFA Program in Dramatic Writing.

Before I came to CalArts, I was working professionally as an actress, director, producer and playwright. The CalArts Program enabled me to focus completely on writing, a wonderful gift. CalArts is an incredible place, a big building burgeoning with fantastic artists; not only a brilliant theatre faculty and student body, but topnotch animators, musicians, dancers, theorists, video and filmmakers. Gamelan music is practiced right outside the writing/acting studio, African dancers and drummers practice in the main gallery on the way to the cafeteria, where you have lunch on a deck surrounded by eucalyptus trees. While at CalArts, I got to work with or meet the country’s most innovative playwrights: Suzan-Lori Parks, Erik Ehn, Brian Freeman, Alice Tuan, Bridget Carpenter, Luis Alfaro, Jose Rivera. I also got to study screenwriting with Lewis Klahr, puppetry with Janie Geiser, Acting with Marissa Chibas and to design my own emphasis, which included Billy Woodbury’s “History of World Cinema” and a class you could only take at CalArts -- “Screenwriters on Screenwriting” -- one week you see the film, the next week, you meet its screenwriter.

Because CalArts is a great grand experiment in creating a community of artists,(see its spiritual predecessor, Black Mountain College, one of the most fabled experimental institutions in art education and practice), you are free to do what your art requires without having to justify its presence in an academic context. This enabled me to focus on writing as an ongoing discipline, which I began to feel as a spiritual practice. Suzan-Lori Parks said to me that perhaps Chekhov saved more people as a writer than he ever did as a doctor. This gorgeous thought allowed me to validate artistic practice as something very valuable in our increasingly troubled world.

When I left CalArts, I did many things to re-invigorate my career, but the most important thing I did was follow a little interior voice that said “give what you want to get.” This still small voice inspired me to found a program for young playwrights (16-18 years old) at one of the largest theatres in Vancouver, BC. It was a lovely way for me to continue to meet artists interested in doing my plays, but even more importantly, it allowed me to share the many gifts I had been given at CalArts: wonderful ways to begin, jumpstart, maintain an innovative writing practice. My program, LEAP, is still going on, and takes young playwrights who represent the full diversity of Vancouver, which will plant seeds to help the mainstream become ground-breaking and representative. The best playwrights in North America (many of whom I met at CalArts) sent in their”Advice to a Young Playwright” — Check it out at www.artsclub.com/education/leap-advice.htm. And here are some photos of my recent premiere in London, produced by CalArts MFA Producing Alum, Tanja Raaste: www.qualitytheplay.co.uk/gallery.html

Cheers! All best wishes,

Elaine Avila

Robert Hartung Endowed Chair of Dramatic Writing,

University of New Mexico

Printer-friendly version

» Recent Acting Alum Bios