Yeah, that's what I like to hear. I heard a whoop. My name is Rob Johansson, and I have the privilege
of hosting today, today's NSAL awards ceremony. The NSAL means a great deal to me, and I'll talk a little
bit about why. I know it's a beautiful day.
It's gorgeous out. And here we all are in a dark room. And why are we here for a lot of great reasons?
Some of us are going to perform. Most of us are going to watch. And we're here to celebrate some really,
really wonderful performers and also celebrate people who support them. The NSAL, just in this room
alone, the winners today, let me make sure I get the figure right, I'm aging.
It's crazy. I think this is the first time I'm at a podium and I go, I should wear glasses. The winners
of today's competition are receiving awards of more than $26,000. Yeah. Really, really amazing. And
the mission of the National Society of Arts and Letters is to identify, encourage, and assist young people
that are talented in art, dance, drama, literature, music, and musical theater. Bloomington Chapter
is one of 17 in the United States that does that, and I'm keyed into the word assist. Some of you know
this and some of you don't, but last century, I was lucky enough to be a Bloomington Chapter winner,
And sometimes the fates all align and that was the year that the acting competition went national. And
I got to go to San Antonio and in 1994 I was lucky enough to win the national competition. And it was
honestly one of the most important years of my life because I luckily
had my chops going, and I was well prepared. And that competition introduced me to some people that
have been kind of very important in my career. So I look to the National Society of Arts and Letters
as a bunch of people that really care. And for the people that are performing today and for the people
who are here to pick up an award that aren't performing today, these are people that really, really
take your future
to heart. And I think that's a beautiful thing. So that's why we're in a dark room on a beautiful day.
All right? And it's a wonderful reason. And we'll enjoy the sunshine in a few hours, so I should shut
up. Also, I will say, I'm going to announce people. I probably won't be saying what they're performing.
It's in the programs. And that reduces the chances of me butchering names.
So let's just go with that, all right? So our first performer today is Julia Paige Thorne, who is in
her second year of musical theater BFA program at IU with a minor in arts management. Julia opens next
Friday in IU's production of The Drowsy Chaperone as Kitty, and is also working as the assistant
choreographer for the show. She was last seen in Roots to Wings,
Last Dance, choreographed by George Penny. She was also a tribe member at Herod's Girl in Jesus Christ
Superstar for IU Theater. Julia is from Crown Point, Indiana. Please welcome Julia to the stage.
or the add-on to Facebook like Farmville? Or what, like some stupid little app? But you, you take it
seriously. Seriously, you take it seriously? Jesus, you're one of those people? So you have like an
actual person that you call. Did your astrologer tell you that an awful man you love was going to break
your heart?
Did she tell you to not go to the fancy Italian restaurant that he yelped and got all excited about
because it's a setup that you will be ambushed? Did she happen to mention that your boyfriend is a fucking
power hungry fucking asshole who, by the way, clue number one, picks someplace special and expensive
so that you won't scream and cry? And he thinks you might, and he thinks he's being nice when he pulls
the plug and leaves you there to gasp for air and die? Weren't you wondering
sitting there like a dumbass, not breathing, not moving, as he says what he says, watching the truck
come at you, bam! There's a $45 entree and another glass of wine on its way, and he says graciously,
get whatever you want, it's all on me. And you wonder why you hadn't been warned by a fucking astrologer?
Instead you quietly sob with your head in your hands and people stare, but you, you don't make a sound.
Your ex just had a better planet in his house that day than you. I want to be brave. I want to be strong.
the people who are in the know on the pianist community, I was going to announce that Julia was being
accompanied by Brandon Porter. Unfortunately, last night, Brandon Porter broke his leg. Yeah, yeah,
so, and we're on the second floor, so it's not happening. So, Joey Vaz was the accompanist on that,
and we'll see Joey later today as well. It's improv, we can make the show happen.
Sorry. Is it Lala? Leila. Thank you. Thank you. Leila Hazelwood is our next performer. She began her
dance training in Indianapolis at Kenyatta Dance Studio under the direction of her mother.
Vanessa Owens. She is a 2013 graduate of Indiana University and is currently teaching an advanced
contemporary dance course at IU. She is the newest faculty member for the Indianapolis Ballet Conservatory
in Carmel, Indiana. This is also Leila's first season as our Associate Artistic Director for Kenyatta
Dance Company. And here she is.
Yang, an MFA candidate in fiction writing at Indiana University, and the associate editor of Indiana
Review. She was raised in Rochester, New York, near my old stomping ground, and received her BA from
St. Lawrence University in 2015. Her fiction has appeared in several literary journals, including the
Cossack Review, Kenyum Review, and Clock House. And she will be reading from her short story,
Runners. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much. I'm going to be reading the opening from my short story, which
was recently published in the Cossack Review. So if you would like to know how it ends, you can find
it there. It's called Runners.
Erin said the trick was to take only things that wouldn't be missed. An orange from an overcrowded fruit
bowl, two slices of bread from each loaf, a white nub of soap from the bathroom dish, a fresh bar already
waiting to take its place. That first house, a square brick home across from the middle school, Ivy
crawling over its face, I was jumpy and excited.
thrilled by the ease with which the back door had given under my cousin's touch. Hadville, New York,
was the type of town where the neighbors all knew the names of each other's dogs and few people bothered
with locks. It was so easy strolling inside and helping ourselves to whatever we needed that I imagine
the house was a regular grocery store, except the owners loved us so much they let us have everything
for free. I told Erin this and she laughed.
The sound raised a pleasant tingle along my skin. Erin had never laughed much when her dad,
my Uncle Roy, was around. Now that he'd gone, she'd become a light-hearted version of the brooding teenager
whose cool looks used to freeze me in my place. Why here have some broccoli, Miss Louise, she said,
bowing to me and offering the head in both hands. Why, thank you, Miss Erin, I said, bowing back.
And would you like a can of our superb tomato soup? Why, thank you. We went on like that for a bit until
the noise of the house resettling scared us and we bolted. Then the long walk back to Uncle Roy's truck,
which Erin had parked on a side street four blocks away. She only had her learner's permit, but she
was the best driver I'd ever seen. In all ways, Erin seemed older than her 16 years.
I was in awe of her. Though she attended the high school across town, during the day I often imagined
us bound together by an invisible line. When the teacher handed out the permission slip for the Geva
Theater field trip, I smiled, knowing how Erin would forge Uncle Roy's signature with a flourish. When
the other sixth graders snickered at my sloppy clothing and called me hunchback and dyke, I imagined
Erin's icy stare turning them to stone
After we got back to Roy's house, I heated up the tomato soup in two mugs and Erin boiled the broccoli
until it was soft. We worked in the white glow of the little light under the microwave. Erin said we
needed to conserve energy and make Roy's money stretch as long as possible. So we tried to only have
one lamp on at a time. We took two minute showers. Sometimes we even lit candles.
I loved those nights the most, when the flickering shadows blurred the edges of the room, and I could
pretend Aaron and I were the last two people on earth. Aaron set the broccoli on the table. She handed
me a steaming mug and raised her own into the air. In the semi-darkness, she looked queenly, hair cascading
around her shoulders, eyes brilliant on blinking. Before Aaron, I had never known brown eyes could carry
so much light.
To our freedom, she said. We clinked mugs and drank. The tomato soup scalded the roof of my mouth. I
moved in with Aaron and Roy after my dad, Roy's older brother, was killed by a delivery truck driver
on the highway. There was a settlement and some money stashed away for me once I turned 18. At first
it wasn't surprising that my uncle had gone. Roy had disappeared before.
Once when I was nine and again last year before Christmas, he just ducked out, vanished for a day or
two, and returned looking happy or as happy as he ever did. In appearance, Roy resembled his brother,
a small man with thin features and bristly black hair he tamed with gel each morning. But where the
memory of my dad radiated warmth and laughter, Roy seemed somehow curled in on himself.
Stunted. There was an ancient crabapple tree in the courtyard of Hadville Elementary that I had decided
resembled my uncle. Both had the cramped, anxious appearance of creatures that hadn't seen enough sun.
He did make his efforts with me. He used to clap his hand on my shoulder in a brusque, brotherly sort
of way. He never could seem to figure out how it was okay to touch me, never kissed or hugged me as
my father had.
And he rattled off questions about school, tried to turn my one or two word murmured responses into
fodder for more talk. Every once in a while he took me out to dinner. The best restaurants in town where
the food came in tiny portions and the plates were ringed with bits of inedible green or to the little
theater for artsy films I didn't understand. Aaron never came along on these trips.
She and Roy had a coolly functional relationship that allowed little space for direct interaction. Erin
cooked her own food, stayed up as late as she wanted, and cut class as it suited her. Roy remained locked
in his bedroom, which doubled as a home office most of the day. Neither seemed to sleep much. In the
middle of the night, I'd wake from the fold-out couch in the living room to hear Erin returning from
one of her walks or Roy muttering on the phone.
I'd been told my uncle designed websites for a living. Some part of me believed these late-night calls
were connected to his work, even as another part dreamily spun stories of exotic friends in different
time zones, women with accents trilling my uncle's name. Roy had kept a stern and spotless household.
Floors swept, shelves tidy, furniture arranged at right angles and regularly wiped of fingerprints.
In the weeks after his disappearance, the place began to gain a lovely, lived-in feeling. Trash amassed
in corners. Yellow stains blossomed on the counters and inside the kitchen sink. The yard grew unruly,
spiky weeds poking through the grass. I'd been living with Aaron and Roy almost three years by that
point. Now was the first time the place truly felt like a home.
Erin relocated to the master bedroom where her father had slept, and I vacated my fold-out couch for
Erin's bedroom down the hall. In the evenings, after we had both showered, I liked to visit her, sit
on the edge of my uncle's queen-sized mattress, and watch her comb out her long hair. It was slick,
dark hair, almost black, like my dad's and Roy's. I could only figure my tannish curls had come from
my mother.
I'd never met her. She was gone before I started forming memories. And my dad, when asked, only distracted
me with goofy stories about mom sprouting fins and moving into the sea. A similar fate seemed to have
ensnared Erin's mom, of whom there was not a single photograph in Roy's house. Perhaps this was why,
in the beginning at least, I didn't make a fuss over my uncle's absence.
Ours was a family where people simply disappeared. Thank you. Soprano Caitlin Johnson is pursuing a
master's in vocal performance at Indiana University's Jacob School of Music under the guidance of Heidi
Grant Murphy.
She spent last summer as a young artist with the Prague Summer Nights Festival, performing the role
of Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni. She's a 2015 cum laude graduate of Rice University's Shepard
School of Music. Kaitlin's from Atlanta, Georgia, and she will be accompanied by James Maverick.
This is worth being inside on a nice day. Wow. Oh, boy. Ryan Klaus is a senior at IU from Cleveland,
Ohio, majoring in theater with a minor in contemporary dance. I had the good fortune of having Ryan
in class when I was teaching down here, and he is a fiercely passionate student. And I had the good
fortune of performing with him up in Indianapolis last summer.
He was recently seen as Ferdinand at IU's production of the Duchess of Malfi. So please welcome Ryan
to the stage. Boards you. Boards you. Christ Almighty.
trying working for you for a living. The talking, talking, talking, Jesus Christ, won't he ever shut
up? Titanic, self-absorption of the man. You stand there, trying to look so deep, when you're nothing
but a solucistic bully, with your grandiose self-importance, and lectures, and arias, and let's look
at the fucking campus for another few weeks. Let's not fucking paint, let's just look.
You know, not everything has to be so goddamn important all the time. Not every painting has to rip
your guts out and expose your soul. Not everyone wants art that actually hurts. Sometimes you just want
a fucking still life, or landscape, or comic book, or soup can, which you might learn.
If you ever actually left your goddamn dramatically sealed submarine here with all your windows closed
and no natural light because natural light isn't good enough for you. But then nothing's ever good enough
for you. Not even the people who buy your paintings. Museums, our mausoleums, galleries are run by pimps
and swindlers and art collectors are nothing but shallow social climbers.
So who is good enough to own your art? Anyone? Maybe. No one's worthy. That's it, isn't it? We've all
been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting. Even as one heat, another heat expels, or as
one nail by strength dries out another,
so the remembrance of my former love is by a newer object quite forgotten. Is it mine or Valentine's
praise, her true perfection or my false transgression that makes me reason thus to reason thus?
She is fair, and so is Julia that I love, that I did love. For now my love is thawed which, like a waxing
image against a fire,
no impression of the thing it was. Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold, and that I love him not as
I was wont. Oh, but I love his lady too, too much, and that's the reason I love him so little. How shall
I dote on her with more advice that thus, without advice, begin to love her? It is but her picture I
have yet beheld, and that hath dazzled my reason's light. But when I look on her perfection,
You know, a lot of these guys back here today, I've been back there and they've got the performance
jitters and
These next two don't have to worry about that because they're on video. Yeah. I don't remember ever
having that option. So we've chosen to show them this way because of the great expense that renting
a special floor for them to dance on, it would just cost so much. And it's much better to put that money
into awards for these performers. So you will meet Rachel and Anna, though, during the awards ceremony.
Here they are on video.
Rachel Schultz, is that where we are? That was Rachel for those who don't know. She began her training
in ballet at the age of eight and since then she's trained under many reputable teachers all over the
world. Rachel's competed in the last four Youth American Grand Prix regionals where she placed
and most recently second place in the senior classical age division. Rachel's currently a freshman in
the ballet department at IU Jacobs School of Music. All right, are we ready for honor?
is a sophomore at Indiana University pursuing a BS in ballet with an outside field in Italian and a
BS in finance. She is going to be well versed in everything. She's hoping to graduate and continue dancing
with a professional ballet company in the coming years. All right. Are we ready for pianist Philip A? Yes?
Born in South Korea, started playing piano at the age of five. He graduated summa cum laude in piano
performance from Seoul National University College of Music.
And as a result, he had the chance to perform at the 78th Chosun Ilho Debut Concert at Sejong. I hope
I'm not butchering that. Too much center, Korea. He's won awards and has performed not only in Korea,
but in France, Poland, and the United States. And here he is now.
Thank you.
stage manager for performing emergency surgery on that piano or else we wouldn't have heard that beautiful
piece of music. Let's take a 10-minute intermission and we'll come back and hear some more wonderful
things. Thanks. 10 minutes, everybody. Hi, everybody. All set for part two. All right. All right.
Thank you. All right. So let's get started.
Stella Bella is an MFA candidate in poetry at Purdue University. Her work has previously appeared in
Juked, Crack the Spine, and Rust and Moth, among many other publications. She's an alumni of Carnegie
Mellon, where she studied creative writing and professional writing. Hannah is a native of Bayonne,
New Jersey, and she'll be reading her poems Seven Hungers and Saturday Afternoon,
thrown in the living room. Here she is. First poem I'm going to read is called Seven Hungers. One. Goose
flesh after a whisper of skin on skin, the way each hair on my arm strains
towards more of his touch, even years deep in his tiny Brooklyn apartment. Two, to grin at just the
sight of him. What a pain to have my cheeks ache from smiling. To punch him lightly in the arm, foe
yell until he kisses me where it hurts. Three,
The way his mouth moves towards the right side of his face when he speaks. It almost looks like he has
three front teeth. But something in that tug of skin, or perhaps the ease of the smile that blooms there,
precious as anything coaxed alive from dirt. Four. When I press my cold hands,
against the strange heat of the small of his back. That hallowed shadow dip in the expanse of brown
skin, the way this boy, this trained engineer explains it away as just his Latin fire. Five, the simple
heat of his body next to mine. Six,
The softness of his voice in sleep talk. The sureness with which he declares his nonsense to me. Everything
spoken in a sigh. Stories from television to workplace nightmares to a conniving sandwich thief. When
I recount them in the warm yellow of morning, he groans and pulls the covers over his head.
until I burrow into that private darkness with him. Seven, to kiss the mouth that feeds me comfort even
some thousand miles away. The warm liquor of his voice, the static electricity of every message received.
How many days until you meet me at the airport?
and scoop me into cupped hands while the traffic cops of Newark let their whistles drop from their lips.
The second poem is called Saturday Afternoon, Prone in the Living Room. I am melted ice cream on the
floor, me in my worst form. I wish I could put myself
in a freezer until I regained my consistency, but instead I keep staring at the ceiling fan. I am spreading
my fingers and unspreading them like a child making snow angels. The carpet doesn't hold impressions
from the motions, but I like the futility. It's a Saturday.
A great day for letting my brain be ransacked by the black horse flies of existentialism. They climb
in my ears and buzz smugly. I hum along having learned their song at a young age. I arch my back using
my muscles to remind myself I have a body.
It can be easy to forget what's real when I sleep for 18 hours a day. Isn't it nice? Sure, it's not
what one could call coping, but it's not the worst thing I could do to myself. Thank you.
Cameron Barnett, our Chapter Career Award winner in Contemporary Dance, is a sophomore BFA majoring
in dance at Indiana University. Originally from Bloomington, he's passionate about both performing and
creating. Since Cameron began studying at IU, he's danced in works by Kyle Abraham, Andrea Miller,
Jose Limon, and Jerome Robbins. Cameron's own work
questions the boundaries of dance and theater, drawing inspiration from such sources as musical form,
mathematics, and the patterns of everyday life. He'll be performing Five, which is one of his own works.
Here he is. I would like to talk to you about the number Five.
And the thing that I like most about the number five is that there are only five platonic solids. This
is a regular polygon, it's a regular triangle, and it has the same number of triangles meeting at each
corner. The definition of a platonic solid is a shape where you've got sort of different sides to the
shape, but all of the sides are the same shape. That shape is a regular kind of polygon, so like a square
where all the sides are the same length and the angles are all the same.
and every corner looks the same. So those are the conditions. And this is, in fact, called a tetrahedron.
It's like a pyramid, but it's got a triangular base, not a square base. So a tetrahedron is four triangles.
This is the octahedron. It has eight oct, eight triangular faces. So if I get two of those and stick
them together, you'll see that I also get the same corner everywhere else. And this is an octahedron.
So unlike our tetrahedron, this has
four triangles meeting at each corner. And this is one of my favourite platonic solids. This is called
an icosahedron. You can see every single corner has got five triangles meeting at it and all of the
faces are triangles and in fact you get 20 triangles. So this is an icosahedron. This one over here
My marvellous props. Well, Brady, what's that? That is a cube. Yeah, it's a hexahedron. Well done. So
a hexahedron has six square faces. So I'm happy with that. And I'll put a cube on my list. And that
is six squares. At this point, I would jump to pentagons. I don't have any pentagons, unfortunately.
But you can fit three pentagons around a point. This is the dodecahedron. Dodec means 12. It has 12 pentagon.
faces and at each vertex we have three pentagons. Where does a sphere fit into all of this? A sphere
isn't a platonic solid because it doesn't technically have faces. I guess in some sense the sphere is
kind of the limit of having more and more faces like if you get enough faces eventually the faces are
all of size zero but it's not counted as a solid
of any shape because it's not got kind of individual faces that are a shape.
Also a Bloomington native, Felix Murbank is a freshman at Indiana University who strives in every step
of his life to fulfill the artistic moral precedence of life that his mother, Althea, set forth to him
at an early age. Without her journeys in conveying her experiences through different artistic lenses,
Felix would never have grasped the importance of acting and performing in his own life.
Felix is now. What a damned epicurean rascal is this? My heart is ready to crack with impatience. Who
says that this is improv and jealousy?
My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is set. See the hell with having a false woman.
My bed shall be abused, my paupers ransacked, my reputation non-act, and I shall not only receive this
villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him who does me this wrong.
Terms, names, Mamon sounds well. Lucifer, well.
Barbason, well, yet these are the devil's additions, the names of fiends. But Cuckold? Whittle? Cuckold?
The devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass. He shall trust his wife. He shall
not be jealous.
I would rather crust a Fleming with my butter, Parsons use the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman
with my aqua vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my England gilded than my wife with herself. And then
she ploughs, and then she ruminates, and then she devises. Eleven o'clock the hour, I shall prevent
this, detect my ways,
Get my revenge on Falstaff and Lafette Page. I'll be about. Better three hours too early than a minute
too late. Five, five, five. Cuckholds, cuckholds, cuckholds.
walking down the street and they come upon me like they're important to something, you know? And then
they just start pushing me down this alley, but it's not like an alley, it's more like a dark hallway,
you know? And then they just punch me and kick me, you know? So I curl up on a ball and move, so they
can't hit me or nothing, you know? You know, I just thought if I wanted you guys to have some friends,
it doesn't have to be you, I mean,
I mean, I mean, I mean, just a couple of buddies, just a couple of guys, just a couple, a couple,
a couple, a couple, a couple, a couple of big guys and some, some, some fighters, you know, just to
show my couple buddies too, you know, and, uh, and I'm on edge right now and I'm, I'm, I'm flying high
and I gotta talk, but, but I'm serious about this, you know, you know, just a couple of guys, just a
couple of, a couple, a couple, a couple of big guys, some, some, some fighters, you know, and maybe
they leave me alone cause, uh, cause the guys have been after me too, you know,
Oh, they kicked me a pretty bad, you know? And if I weren't high and itched, I mean, I'd have pain soon
throughout my body, and then walking around here late, I mean, I'm constantly scared, because you never
know what's waiting for you around the corner, you know, just to jump, you know? It's not like I'm protecting
myself or nothing, you know?
Some guys, some vibes, you know. Some guys that if you're walking around with them, you can do anything.
I miss Bloomington. Dang, it's a good place.
Sehee Hwang, a 21-year-old harpist from South Korea, has received global attention from receiving the
fourth place award at the 10th University International Harp Competition, as well as many other international
awards. She graduated from Yewon Art School, the leading school of music and dance in South Korea.
Currently, she is pursuing an artist diploma at the IU Jacobs School of Music, and I think I talked
just the right amount of time. Here she is now.
Oh, Scott Van Wye is somebody else I had a lot of fun with by the time down here. He's a junior BFA
student in musical theater from Indianapolis. And he's had a very nice career on stage at IU, as a lot
of folks here have. He's performed in such shows as Jesus Christ Superstar, Occupants, Mr. Burns, Romeo
and Juliet, and The Mystery of Edwin Drew.
And he's also performed at IU Summer Theater and at Cardinal Stage. And he is this year's third place
winner in the NSAL Drama Competition. And Scott will be accompanied again by Joey Voss. Here's Scott.
The person who would still talk to me is Jenny. We were out at dinner one night and she's talking to
me and I'm not listening because I'm working on my case. I'm writing down ideas I have on a napkin and
I'm writing down diagrams of the cars, what lanes they were in and how fast they were going in what
directions, the laws, the other driver, and the numbers that I'm gonna call to get my case fixed. And
I'm getting so upset and so worked up that I'm actually marking over my own handwriting, tearing up
the napkin and marking the table
and Jenny just looks at me and she says, what are you doing? And I look at her and I say, well, what
part of this napkin don't you understand? And then Jenny looks at me and says, Mike, you're right, but
it's only hurting you. And I'm just so glad that you're alive. And I think we should focus on that.
to say it once. And I dropped the case. I paid for Dad's car. June 26, 2007, Jenny and I go to City
Hall and get married. And I still didn't believe in the idea of marriage. And I still don't. But I believe in her.
and I've given up on the idea of the right.
Thank you, Joey Voss, for being an emergency fill-in today. Yeah, we had a couple of last-minute curveballs,
you know, pianists going down with broken legs, and we have one more curveball. We end our program today
with Andres Acosta, who is a second-year graduate student at the Jacobs School of Music, where he studies
with Carl Venice. The Miami, Florida native received his undergraduate degree
from Florida State University, interesting theme, Florida. He made his IU Opera Theater debut as Alfred
in Deflater Mouse. So, Florida. He actually was just in Florida at a competition and, as I speak, remains
in Florida.
Yes, and I was gonna make, I was gonna try and pretend that we had him via satellite. It's not true,
we just have a video. So here he is via the magic of video, Andres Acosta.
and congratulations to everybody for the awards you won for this year's NSAL. I am about to turn the
program over to Ruth Albrecht. I just want to say thank you for letting me share this with you guys.
I have to run in a few minutes back to a rehearsal up in Indianapolis. But I do want to say that for
the performers, hopefully you'll be able to take some time and thank
the members of NSAL, the people that take the time and donate their money and their efforts to promoting
our careers. It's a wonderful thing. And I've been a proud member of NSAL for 10 years because I believe
in their mission. And I say to all the performers, find a way to pay it forward. So Ruth, I turn it
over to you. Thanks everybody.
Delta had not canceled Andre's 5.30 AM flight back from Florida. We could all have hugged him here,
because he's very huggable. I don't know. My 23-year-old friend tells me that everybody checks their
email in the middle of the night. But hey, I don't think many people my age do. But I did check at about
2.30 this morning. And there was his email saying that he was
Well, I don't think weathered in. I think Delta's had a system breakdown. Anyway, he was not here, but
we were able to see him sing, and that was exciting. And it's just really exciting to recognize so many
wonderful young artists this afternoon at our 51st Annual Showcase of the Arts. I was trying to figure
out, we have 51 winners. 14 were represented today, so we could have had, we could have at least three
more of these programs.
I don't know after all the things that went wrong with this one that I am up for that, but between Brandon
Porter breaking his leg and Andres remaining in Florida. The judges agreed this year that the talent
was just phenomenal. We're just delighted. Erin, could you turn the house lights up? I wanted to introduce
Judy Park, who is our national...
National President of the National Society of Arts and Letters and I thought maybe she could just stand
up and wave so that if any of you wanted to talk to her at the reception later you could. We are delighted
to have her here. She's a big fan of our chapter and she visits us frequently. It's really just a pleasure
to help these young people pursue their dreams. I love them all and
So now we're going to present their awards, the $25,950 in cash and 800 in Pygmalion's gift certificates.
My thanks to chapter members and other wonderful donors who've made this possible. And my thanks to
the judges and chairs. Without them, none of this would have been possible. Right now I want to introduce
Suzanne Halverson and Robert Kingsley.
who are the chairs of the visual arts competition. We actually had that exhibit was here in the Waldron
in January. It was a wonderful exhibit. And we're happy to be able to show the winners' works as the
awards are presented today. Erin, I think we need more light. Thank you, Ruth. As Ruth just said, the
exhibit was in the Waldron
Rosemary P. Miller Gallery of the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center today. There were 100, or this January,
there were 120 pieces submitted for jury, and there were 35 pieces selected for the exhibit, so everyone
who was in the exhibit is a winner. Today we will be honoring the award winners, but in fact,
I wish that all of the artists could be here today to be recognized. I would like to thank Bob Kingsley,
my co-chair, and Catherine Rohrer-Johnson, who did a lot of work all the way from Boston to make this
happen. I would also like to do a slight correction to the program today. Martha McLeish, Amy Breyer,
myself, and Bonnie Skolarski were the judges. I would also very much like to thank Julie
Julie Roberts, who is the director of the John Waldron Art Center Gallery. She met individually with
each of the artists to make sure that the presentations were as they had wanted them to be. And as the
first gallery director here in the 90s, I know how much work that was. So I would like to ask the award
winners to come down and Bob will present the awards to the winners.
So just come down all at once. It would be nice if you were all down here and then we could line you
up and give you your awards. Okay. Our top award winner,
today is Letitia Merkel. She won the chapter award for her video, Flourish. Why don't we hold our applause
and just applaud for everyone when it's done. Luke Huling won the Alma Eichermann Memorial Award for
his sculpture, Archie. Yu Yan
won the Ilkner P. Ralston Memorial Award for her painting, untitled. Armand D'Agruriel won the Klein
Merit Award for his sculpture, Reflection from the Abyss. Sarah Bagdadi won the Nelda Christ Memorial
Award for her photo, untitled, Simon.
Mary Claire Namath won the Grace L. Dyer Memorial Award for her wall piece, Daydreams. Emily Teague
Sinnott won the Grunwald Merit Award for her painting, Re 359.
Taryn Dickerson won the Pygmalions Art Supplies Award for his painting, Black Girl Magic 3, 10, 1, 16.
Jenica Brown won an award from Pygmalion Art Supplies for her painting, View from the Roca Maggiore,
number 2. Braden Raymer won
a Pygmalion's Art Supplies Award for his monotype, Duck. And Amaris Boden won a Pygmalion Art Supplies
Award for her painting, Liz. L-E-3, oh, I wrote it down, L-E-3, L-I-3, sorry, L-E-3. Thank you very
much and congratulations.
I'd like to introduce now Karen Butcher, who's the chair of the ballet competition. Karen actually won
an NSAL award in dance several years ago and has become an NSAL member to help other young dancers pursue
their dreams. Karen? Good afternoon. I'd like to have Rachel and Annalisa come on down, please.
Ballet competition this year, we had an amazing talent of young women and a gentleman this year, actually.
And Annalisa and Rachel are the recipients of these two awards that we're about to present. I do want
to tell you a little bit about the judges that we've had this year. Uwe Kern from Louisville Ballet.
He's the senior ballet master there.
Hisham Ormadeen from Ballet Met in Columbus, Ohio. He is the senior ballet master. Olivia Clark, who
was a former principal ballet dancer at Ballet Met. And we had Sasha James this year teaching the master
class, which was part of the competition. Rachel Grace, who's a freshman, very impressive freshman,
won the Marina Svetlova Memorial Award
and the Joanne Athanus Memorial Award for ballet. Rachel. And Annalisa Wilkins, she will represent the
Bloomington Chapter at the National Ballet Competition in Boca Raton.
Once again, the talent in these two young women is very impressive and I can't wait to see what they
will give to us in the next three years. Well, three years for Rachel and two years for Anna here at
IU. Annalisa is the recipient of the Joanne Avanis Memorial Award and the Katherine P. Borkenstein Memorial Award.
Thank you. Our next category is Contemporary Dance and Celine Carter is the Chair of Contemporary Dance
and will present those awards. Thank you, Ruth. Could I invite the Contemporary Dance recipients to
join me on the stage, please?
It's such a pleasure to witness young artists in this time. And I can't say enough about how the Cash
Award really helps artists, especially in dance. It's the difference between being able to attend a
workshop, a master class, travel to an audition. It's a really helpful, helpful gift. So I'm grateful
to be a part of NSAL, and I'm just so honored
to witness these dancers. So Emma DeLillo received the Marina Svetlova Memorial Award. Corey Boatner
also received the Marina Svetlova Memorial Award.
Meredith Johnson cannot be here, and I will give her award to her tomorrow. And it is a great honor
for me to present this award to Leila Hazelwood, who received the Reeva Shiner Memorial Award. She is
a former Chapter Career Award, and she is doing phenomenal things in Indianapolis right now. And I'm
just so proud of the leadership she's taken to continue to develop contemporary dance
Indianapolis, so I'm thrilled to present this award. Thank you. And finally, the judges were so impressed
with this recipient's choreographic voice, as well as his performance of his work, and that is the Chapter
Career Award in Contemporary Dance to Cameron Barnett.
Thank you. Our next category is drama, and Chair Drew Bratton will present those awards. Thank you,
Ruth. If I could have our drama winners join me on the stage.
I'd like to start with our first awardee who was unable to join us this afternoon, who is receiving
the Brighter Merit Award in Drama, and that is Caleb Curtis. And our second award winner also was unable
to join us today. Winning the Reva Shiner Memorial Award is Courtney Reala.
Spivak. And now for the phenomenal five that are with us today. The Albert Rusink Memorial Award goes
to Nicholas Jenkins. Winning the Helen and Linton Caldwell Memorial Award, Emily Sullivan.
winner of the Dr. Frank Hersmolus Memorial Award, Scott Van Wye. You saw him perform today. The winner
of the Laura and Reva Shiner Memorial Award, Ryan Klaus. And the winner of the Lineth Brockett
Carol Moody and Fran Snake Memorial Award in Drama for 2017, Felix Mirbach. Thank you very much. When
Scott Van Wye won the musical theater competition,
we had this dream that he would also win the drama competition and perform in both halves of the showcase.
It didn't quite happen, but he was third in this competition, so it almost happened. I'd like to introduce
Rick and Lois Hall, who are literature chairs, and we'll present those awards today.
Again, this year we had wonderful judges and wonderful contestants. Yes, all the literature winners,
please. Sue Chow won the Josephine Piercy Memorial Award and
Paul Eisenberg is also contributing to that award. Sue Chow. And Lisa Lowe. Lisa Lowe won the David
Albright Memorial Award. If she's here.
Tessa Yang. She won the Hayate Merritt Award, and the check is not in the mail, it's in the envelope.
And Hannah DellaBella won the Chapter Career Award in Literature for 2017, and we're glad to give her
the award.
Thank you all. I thought our literature winners did a great job of reading from their work this year.
It's not easy. I mean, it's a lot easier to be a song and dance person than it is to read from your
literature at the showcase.
We had two wonderful competitions in music this year. Ilya Friedberg, who's a PhD student at IU Jacobs
School of Music, was the chair of the instrumental competition, and he will present those awards now.
Ilya is a former NSAL winner, having won an award for his piano playing in 2012, and now he's an associate
award member of our chapter. And here he comes.
the sun when there's so much shine, huh? There used to be a time when children were born into a safe
world when they knew that their life will be provided and they didn't have to worry about finding a
job. Those are not the days now. So I'm so glad to be a member of NSAL and I would like to thank you,
to thank Ruth
that we are able to provide some kind of safety and some kind of confidence to the performer, that the
future is not so, that the future is bright and you need to be you and that's what we want. We want
the winners to know that we love who you are and we're so happy to have a chance to meet you.
So please, whoever is here, we don't have too many, but the winners of instrumental competition, please
come on stage.
announce all of the winners. And the ones that are not here, I'll just keep their check. Too bad. He
has the recital today. He's a doctoral student as well. So he cannot be here with us. And he's a winner
of a Taylor Merritt Award, Lindner, Stroman. Then the Christoph Wagner.
Also not here, he's playing in the orchestra today, in Evansville, and he's receiving a McDonald's Merit
Award. And the next one is Layley, who's receiving the Donald Neal Memorial Award. Congratulations.
Claire, Long and Dyke,
is unable to be with us, unfortunately. And she's the winner of the Hagerty Merit Award. So we can just
clap for Claire. The next one is Nayang Kim, and she's the winner of NSAL Bloomington Chapter and Merit Award.
next we have a lot we have eight we had an amazing competitions and we just we were very happy too bad
we could only select eight maybe we can next year select more the next one is Zoe Martin Doik she won
the Ham Merit Award next one is Phil Hobie
And you heard him today playing the Godowsky paraphrase on the flutter mouse. He's the winner of Donald
Trout and Paula Sanderman Award. And the Chapter Award winner is Sihi Huang.
Thank you all, and I hope you take a chance to talk to the winners and to get to know them. Thank you.
The longtime chair of our voice competition is Mary Alice Cox, who will present those awards and perhaps
make an interesting announcement.
Can we get everyone to come down, please? We also had an amazing competition this year. There were 28
people in the voice competition, and they were all terrific. And we were able to award seven awards,
and we have four people here today. So we will get started. The winner of the Stephen Pak and David
Blumberg Award is Ann Sloban.
Actually, all of the voice winners are very huggable, so. The winner of the Herbert Kubler and Phil
Evans Award is Yuji Bae. The winner of the Koronek Merit Award and Jacobi Merit Award is Alejandra Martinez.
The winner of the Donald Traub Memorial Award could not be here today. He's actually performing
professionally with Pittsburgh Opera. And his name is Terence Chin Loy. The winner of the Lauren, or
excuse me, the winner of the Helen and Linton Caldwell Memorial Award is Lauren or Liz Culpepper. And
she is working backstage at Music Man this afternoon.
The winner of the Mary Alice Cox and Jim Cook Merit Award is Caitlin Johnson. And lastly, our Chapter
Award winner, Andres Acosta, who is in Florida. I have another special announcement about him.
This year, our parent NSAL organization has the first annual
Lincoln, Dorothy, Smith, Classical Voice Competition. And all of the chapters across the country are
allowed to submit two entries to that. Caitlin and Andres were our submissions. And there are three
awards given, and Andres actually placed second. So we're pretty proud of that.
George Pinney is our longtime chair of musical theater and he's retiring this year after 30 years at
IU. At this very, very moment he is rehearsing for his role as the man in the chair for the IU production
of the drowsy chaperone. I read in the paper this morning that in 30 years this is his first acting
job at IU. He's been directing all those 30 years. Anyway, it opens on Friday and I think you should all
want to see it, it's probably going to be lots of fun. Anyway, stepping in to present those awards is
our drama chair, Drew Bratton. Lest you think that we didn't have a fabulous drama competition this
year, we did as well as the musical theater competition. And yes, it is true that George cannot grace
the stage for you today, but as Ruth
said you should all come and let him grace the stage at the Ruthen Halls Theater and celebrate him.
Our competition for musical theater is ripe with cast members from the Drowsy Chaperone as well. There
are a few of the musical theater winners here today. If they will join us on stage. And as you look
to the rest of your program, you will see that the ones that we are missing
are definitely at their 10 of 12 today, getting ready for opening on Friday. So we will start with the
Scott Burgess Jones Tribute Award winner, and that is Emily Rosman. Unable to join us today, the winner
of the George Penny Tribute Award, Michelle Zink,
The Hagerty Merit Award and George Penny Tribute Award, Meadow Nui, also unable to join us. The winner
of the George Penny Tribute Award, Robert Lee Tombs, unable to join us today. The Kovner Merit Award
winner is Janie Rose Johnson, also in the cast of The Drowsy Chaperone.
And you saw her perform earlier today, the Robinson Merritt Award winner, Julia Paige Thorne, who left
to rejoin the rehearsal for the drowsy chaperone. But that brings us to the Mrs. Granville Wells Memorial
Award winner for 2017, Scott Van Wye.
Thank you to all of you for applauding and for rewarding these students that work with us and show us
such great talent. We appreciate you. Let's give these winners all one last round of applause.
I'd like to thank my behind the scenes crew. We had a few little snafus along the way. We had a great
rehearsal yesterday and I've always heard that if you have a bad rehearsal, you'll have a good performance.
So I was a little worried because our rehearsal was good and I thought, you know, is the reverse true?
Well, as it turned out, you know, people broke their legs, people got stuck in Florida.
Et cetera. So anyway, a big thanks to the stage managers, Josiah Brown and Kate Peters, and to our lighting
and sound technician, Aaron Bowersox, who had a whole lot more to do this year.
than he expected with all of our visuals. And I also wanted to thank Ivy Tech Community College, who
is an educational partner to the Bloomington Arts community, and they're a big help in what we were
able to do here. Last but not least, I would like to thank all of you for coming today and supporting
these young artists. And please join us now for a reception downstairs, one flight down, we will be
having a reception for the young artists and it's a great time for you to come and meet them. Thank
you so much for coming.