Gabriel Barcia-Colombo Teacher ITP
Gabriel Barcia-Colombo is a New Media artist based in New York City. His video sculpture work has been featured in shows across the globe. In 2008 he was awarded both the Concordia Career Opportunity Advancement grant and the New York Foundation for the Arts grant in video. He is a 2012 TED fellow and recently gave a TED talk entitled “Capturing Memories in Video Art” at the 2012 TED conference in Long Beach California. In his spare time Gabriel curates new media art shows and creates interactive window displays all over New York City. He is currently serving as an artist adviser on the board of the New York Foundation of the Arts. Barcia-Colombo received his Bachelor’s degree in film production from the University of Southern California and his Master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.Sean Curran Associate Arts Professor Department of Dance
Seán Curran (Tisch SOA '83) was a leading dancer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and an original member of the New York cast of "STOMP!” The Seán Curran Company has appeared at such venues as the Duke on 42nd St, the Joyce Theatre, Jacob's Pillow, and Dance Theatre Workshop. Curran has choreographed and/or directed for Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and on Broadway. He was awarded a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award as a performer, and was recently nominated as a choreographer. Janet Grillo Assistant Arts Professor Undergraduate Film & Television
Janet Grillo, Emmy Award winning producer, award winning filmmaker and Executive at New Line, launched the cult classic HOUSE PARTY, and filmmakers David O. Russell and Ted Demme. She won an Emmy for AUTISM: THE MUSICAL. Her own first feature, FLY AWAY, premiered at SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST, won Best Film at Arizona Film Festival, received excellent reviews from NEW YORK TIMES, HUFFINGTON POST, NEW YORK OBSERVER. LA TIMES called it “most overlooked for an Oscar.” Vondie Curtis Hall Associate Arts Professor Undergraduate Film & Television
Vondie Curtis Hall is an award winning director, writer and actor. He has worked in over fifty film and television shows, with film directors from Francis Ford Coppola to Werner Herzog and with television producers from Steven Bochco and David Kelly to Steven Spielberg and John Wells.As a filmmaker, he was the writer/director of Waist Deep, which earned him a Black Film Award nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Motion Picture. His film Redemption, starring Jamie Foxx, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and earned Mr. Hall a Black Reel Award for his direction; the film also received Golden Globe, Independent Spirit, Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild Award nominations.
Mr. Hall was the writer/director of the feature film Gridlock’d, which also premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and for which he received the National Board of Review Award for Excellence in Filmmaking. For television, he has helmed episodes of such series as Firefly, Gossip Girl, The Starter Wife, The Shield, Sleeper Cell, Boston Legal and ER
He is presently in post-production for his latest film The Carlina White Story.
Pato Hebert Visiting Associate Arts Professor Department of Art and Public Policy
Pato Hebert is an intermedia artist whose work explores the aesthetics, ethics and poetics of interconnectedness. His practice shifts across a range of media including photography, installation, sculpture, performance, language, light, temporality and graphic design. Progressive praxis, spatial dynamics and the spirit of social topographies are of particular interest. Hebert received a 2010 Mid-Career Fellowship for Visual Artists from the California Community Foundation. In 2008 he received the Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award from Center in Santa Fe. He earned his MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and his BA from Stanford University.
Sam Helfrich Visiting Assistant Arts Professor Graduate Design for Stage & Film
Bio coming soon!Jessie Keyt Associate Teacher Department of Dramatic Writing
Jessie Keyt is a New York-based writer and story consultant whose credits include the award-winning feature film SKIN, starring Sophie Okonedo, Sam Neill and Alice Krige, and The Boatman, which received a development grant from Euroscript/MEDIA II. She has consulted on several projects for filmmakers and production companies in the US and UK, including Working Title Films, Elysian Films, Alicia Keys’s Big Pita Lil’ Pita as well as the critically acclaimed documentary To Be Heard. Her plays have been performed at New York’s Cherry Lane Theater and as part of the International Writers’ Workshop in Havana, Cuba, and she recently completed a memoir about the 13 months she spent on a remote farm in Wales. She has taught screenwriting and playwriting at Columbia and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Jessie holds an MFA in dramatic writing from Tisch and a BA in creative writing and drama from Dartmouth College.Frank Lantz Associate Arts Professor Game Center
Frank Lantz is the Director of the NYU Game Center. For over 12 years, Frank has taught game design at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He has also taught at the School of Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Design. His writings on games, technology and culture have appeared in a variety of publications.In 2005 Frank co-founded Area/Code, a game design studio that created cross-media, location-based, and social network games. In 2011 Area/Code was acquired by Zynga and is now known as Zynga New York, of which Frank is the Creative Director. He has worked in the field of game development for the past 20 years. Before starting Area/Code, Frank worked on a wide variety of games as the Director of Game Design at Gamelab, Lead Game Designer at Pop & Co, and Creative Director at R/GA Interactive.
Over the past 8 years, Frank helped pioneer the genre of large-scale realworld games, working on projects such as the Big Urban Game, which turned the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul into the world’s largest boardgame; ConQwest, which featured the first major application of semacodes in the United States, PacManhattan, a life-size version of the arcade classic created by the students in his Big Games class at NYU, and many other experiments in pervasive and urban gaming.
Kasi Lemmons Associate Arts Professor Graduate Film
Kasi Lemmons began her career as an actress, working with such distinguished directors as Spike Lee, John Woo and Jonathan Demme, in the Academy Award winning “Silence of the Lambs.” Lemmons' directorial debut, "Eve's Bayou," became the highest grossing independent film of 1997. The film won the Independent Spirit Award for "Best First Feature" and received seven NAACP "Image Award" nominations, including "Best Picture." In addition, Lemmons received a special first time director award, created just for her, from the National Board of Review. She also won the "Director's Achievement Award" at the 9th Annual Nortel Palm Springs Film Festival. Her second film, "The Caveman's Valentine," starring Samuel Jackson, opened the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Lemmon’s third feature “Talk to Me”, starring Don Cheadle, was released in July 2007 to widespread critical acclaim. She received the 2008 NAACP Image Award for outstanding directing. The film also earned a Gotham Award for best ensemble cast, and Chiwetel Ejifor took home an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor. Currently Ms. Lemmons is developing a film adaptation of the gospel musical, “Black Nativity” for Fox Searchlight. Lemmons has served as a longtime advisor for the Sundance Screenwriter and Filmmaker Labs and is on the Executive Board of Film Independent. In June 2012 Ms. Lemmons was invited to be a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.Cheri Magid Associate Teacher Department of Dramatic Writing
Cheri Magid writes about desire. For radio, Lydia or the Girl at the Wheel, about 19th century burlesque, for NPR Playhouse and Yeah, We Got That for Playboy Radio. For stage The Tavern Wench (developed at New Georges) an erotic Scheherazade story and The Virtue of Raw Oysters (developed at Primary Stages) about the early, dirty days of the phonograph. For film, Story of D, about the writing of Story of O, for Nicole Kidman. She is writing a TV pilot Hamtown with Julie Powell (Julie and Julia). Rekha Malhotra Teacher Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music
Rekha Malhotra aka DJ Rekha is a producer, curator, & educator based in New York City. Named "Ambassador of Bhangra" by the New York Times for her internationally acclaimed club night, Basement Bhangra. Her work includes sound design for Broadway & NPR Radio. Her debut album, "DJ Rekha presents Basement Bhangra" was released in 2007. In 2009 she was inducted into the New York City's Peoples Hall of Fame. She has a degree in Urban Studies from Queens College. She is a full time teacher at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music.Scott Miller Associate Arts Professor Graduate Acting
Scott received his Juris Doctorate from Geroge Washington Law School where, while studying to be a criminal defense attorney, first started acting. After a brief stint in professional baseball, via Mexico, Scott came to NY and trained with Sanford Meisner and Uta Hagen. In the twenty years since, Scott has acted, written, produced and taught. His communications company, Treefa World, produces both independent film and a multi-lingual early childhood literacy series. After a decade of research in Tisch's Graduate Acting Voice Department he developed The Miller Voice Method, an actor's kinesthetic approach to vocal integration. The work is taught here and abroad by teachers certified in his method.
Alexander Reed Visiting Assistant Arts Professor Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music
S. Alexander Reed is an author, theorist, composer, and songwriter. He holds a Ph.D. in music composition and theory from the University of Pittsburgh, has released several albums, and is an experienced remixer. His musical work has appeared on programs such as Gossip Girl and MTV's Cribs. Professor Reed's book Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music is available early 2013 through Oxford University Press. He is also chair and co-founder of the Popular Music Study Group of the American Musicological Society. Before coming to NYU, he taught at the College of William and Mary and the University of Florida.Liz Swados Arts Professor Department of Drama
Perhaps best known for her Broadway and international smash hit Runaways, Elizabeth Swados has composed, written, and directed for over 30 years. Some of her works include the Obie Award winning Trilogy at La Mama, Alice at the Palace with Meryl Streep at the New York Shakespeare Theater Festival and Groundhog, which was optioned by Milos Forman for a film. Her work has been performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, at La MaMa, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, and locations all over the world. She has also composed highly acclaimed dance scores for well-known choreographers in the US, Europe and South America. Ms. Swados has been creating issue-oriented theater with young people for her entire career. This work has culminated in a theatrical extravaganza for New York University, The Reality Show, about the trials and tribulations of college in New York City. The piece uses rock and roll, dance and edgy humor and is performed each summer by NYU students at Madison Square Garden.Recent productions include Kaspar Hauser: a foundling’s opera at the Flea Theater, Atonement, a theatrical oratorio presented by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an adaptation of S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk at NYU/Tisch, Spider Operas at PS122 (with Mabou Mines), and Political Subversities, a political revue that has been presented in two Culture Project festivals as well as at Joe's Pub. Ms. Swados recently wrapped a new children's CD, Everyone is Different, in conjunction with Forward Face. The CD is circulating in schools around the country. Currently, she is working on several new musicals, including a translation of Lorca’s Yerma.
Ms. Swados has published novels, non-fiction books, children's books and poetry to great acclaim, and received the Ken Award for her book My Depression. Her theater textbook, At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater, was published by Faber & Faber in June 2006. Her first book of poetry, The One and Only Human Galaxy, has just been published by Hanging Loose Press.
Awards: Five Tony nominations, three Obie Awards, Guggenheim Fellowship, Ford Grant, Helen Hayes Award, Lila Acheson Wallace Grant, PEN Citation, and others. Most recently Ms. Swados received a special grant to record selections from her years of work.
John Warren Teacher Department of Drama
John Warren has numerous screenwriting credits, including Naked in New York, produced by Martin Scorsese and Major League: Back to the Minors, released by Warner Bros., which Warren wrote and directed. His teaching experience spans a WGA sponsored workshop in La Rochelle, France, ‘screenwriting to promote literacy’ in the New York City Public Schools and working with learning challenged 7th and 8th graders at the Gateway School in New York. In 2010, Warren became an adjunct professor at NYU/Tisch. This September Warren teaches Storytelling Strategies as well as begin his new appointment as Head of Operations and Planning.
