Alumni News

UC Irvine Alum Joe Wein Brings Survival Story to Newport Beach Film Festival

76 Days Adrift directed by Joe Wein ’91 to screen at the 2024 Newport Beach Film Festival UC Irvine alumnus Joe Wein ’91 (B.F.A. theatre, B.S. psychology), will showcase his latest documentary, 76 Days Adrift, at the 25th Annual Newport Beach Film Festival on October 20, 2024. The film...

Art & Legacy

Young Chung (studio art, ’96) celebrates his late UC Irvine mentor, fellow Korean American artist Yong Soon Min By Greg Hardesty Back in his undergraduate days at UC Irvine in the early 1990s, after he switched his major from philosophy to studio art, Young Chung recalls seeing the professor...

Curating Connections

  Virginia Arce, M.F.A. ’17, a OC Arts Awards 2024 Emerging Arts Leader, shares her curatorial philosophy at the Irvine Fine Arts Center: A Q&A session   UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA) alumna Virginia Arce, M.F.A. ’17, will be honored as an Emerging Arts...

Celebrating Alumni in the Arts

Alumni Appreciation Month at Claire Trevor School of the Arts August marks Alumni Appreciation Month at UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA). This initiative honors the achievements of graduates in the fields of art, dance, drama and music. This year, we are excited to...

UCI Arts names 2024 Lauds and Laurels recipient

UC Irvine Alumni Association to Honor Darcy Prevost M.F.A. ’09 with Distinguished Alumni Award Recognizing Darcy Prevost’s, M.F.A. ’09, exceptional contributions to the field of set and production design for theatre, film and television, the UC Irvine Alumni Association names Prevost the 2024...

Marching to New Heights

UCI alumna Jenn Colella M.F.A. ’02 earns Drama League nomination for Suffs By Chiara Guastella Jenn Colella (M.F.A./Acting ’02), is captivating audiences in the Broadway hit Suffs. The Tony-nominated musical, produced by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, brings to life the inspiring...

The Sound of Success

A sound design company founded by UCI alumni is making waves in themed entertainment By Christine Byrd Even if you’ve never heard of Ears Up Sound Design, their work is heard by millions around the globe — from the music that sets the tone at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium to the soundscape of...

Embracing Artistic Risks

Mike Davis, who runs the West Hollywood art gallery of Hauser & Wirth, says UCI connections are critical to his success By Greg Hardesty Mike Davis considers himself a risk taker. “And I owe that to my father,” says Davis, a studio art major (B.A. ’08) and now a senior director at the...

Arts Advocates: Reza Jahangiri

RISK TAKER Q&A with Reza Jahangiri Reza Jahangiri ’00 is the founder of American Advisors Group, a pioneer in the reverse mortgage industry. A lifelong music lover, he serves on the Dean’s Arts Board in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts as well as the board of the Pacific Symphony. He...

CTSA Awards the 2023-24 Research & Innovation Grants

The Research and Innovation Advisory Committee (RI Committee), composed of esteemed faculty members representing each department within the Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA), rigorously evaluated an influx of 33 research proposals requesting a total of $152,000 for the 2023-2024 academic...

The Page is a Stage

Alumna Julia Cost publishes an illustrated children’s book that drew upon her UCI dance education Julia Cost (M.F.A. in Dance, '11) said there are parallels between her UCI studies and the picture book she just published, The Girl and the Boat. “The book is wordless,” said Cost, raised and...

UC Irvine Celebrates Guggenheim Fellowship Awards for Gina Osterloh and Lorraine O'Grady

The Claire Trevor School of the Arts is proud to share that UC Irvine Department of Art graduate alumna Gina Osterloh, M.F.A. ’07, and former faculty member Lorraine O'Grady have been honored with prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation selected 188...

Doubling Down

CTSA students embrace risk as they pursue careers in arts and other fields By Christine Byrd Living the artist’s life requires embracing risk. Unlike medicine or business, there is no clear-cut pathway to a successful and stable career in the arts. But in the quest to create art by taking...

ICIT Turns 15

A weekend to remember On March 8-9, 2024, the Department of Music celebrated the 15th anniversary of its graduate program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology (ICIT) with a weekend-long series of events. These events included experimental music and innovative musical research...

The Encounter That Put the Pianist Kelly Moran on an Unexpected Path

The Encounter That Put the Pianist Kelly Moran on an Unexpected Path The 36-year-old musician helped introduce the prepared piano to fresh audiences. Amid personal upheaval, she abandoned it and found a new voice. By Grayson Haver Currin | March 27, 2024 | The New York Times EXCERPT...

Masters of Production

Meet the Creatives Behind Every Theatrical Production By Christine Byrd Behind the scenes of every musical, play, opera and dance production put on by Claire Trevor School of the Arts is a hardworking team of production professionals. They sew the costumes, build the sets, create the props,...

L.A. artist Alexis Smith, a pioneer of art fusing image and text, dies at 74

Los Angeles Times | January 3, 2024 | by Barbara Isenberg (Excerpts) Alexis Smith, the clever, much-exhibited Southern California conceptual artist who winningly combined found images and smart phrases since the 1970s, died Tuesday morning at home in Los Angeles, according to her studio...

Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood: A Masterclass in Comedy Brain Magic

  By Professor Joel Veenstra, Department of Drama   On December 1, 2023, the Irvine Barclay Theatre transformed into a hub of laughter and creativity with Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood’s nearly sold-out improvisational comedy show, Scared Scriptless. The duo, renowned...