Features
Last April the School of Communication assembled a star-studded cast for A Starry Night. The evening performance brought together some of Northwestern’s most famous entertainment alumni, including Ana Gasteyer ’89, Heather Headley ’97, Brian d’Arcy James ’90, Richard Kind ’78, Harry Lennix ’86, Tony Roberts ’61 and, of course, Stephen Colbert ’86, ’11 H, who hosted the night of merriment.
Students, from left, Michael Smith ’70, ’72 MA, Steve Colson ’71, Dan Davis ’69, ’78 MA/MS and William Eric Perkins ’70 appear onscreen during the premiere of the Northwestern University Black Alumni Association–commissioned documentary The Takeover: The Revolution of the Black Experience at Northwestern University. The film, which was screened at the NUBAA Summit and Salute to Excellence Gala in May at Chicago’s Swissôtel, examined the May 1968 Bursar’s Office takeover by more than 100 African American students protesting inequitable campus policies and attempting to improve awareness of African American students’ experiences.
I love fall at Northwestern. A new academic year kicks off, and it’s about a lot more than parking lots getting more crowded or the lines getting longer at our campus eateries: It’s about that renewed burst of energy that the whole Northwestern community gets, from Evanston to Chicago to Doha, Qatar.
It’s August 1967. My father is home from a yearlong tour of duty in Vietnam.
Eli Finkel started out thinking he was writing a requiem for marriage. His book was going to be called The Freighted Marriage, a bleak warning that we are demanding so much from our spouses — that they be everything from our best friends to our romantic ideals to our social networks — that the institution of marriage is buckling under the strain.
Get ready to clutch your pearls! Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications graduate Robin Thede’s late-night show, The Rundown with Robin Thede, with its mix of political commentary, black cultural observations and a body roll or two, is quite possibly the stuff Emmys are made of.
Stephen Colbert was hosting a live TV special on Nov. 8, 2016, armed with an arsenal of jokes reflecting what nearly all of America expected — the election of the country’s first female president.
Why has Northwestern generated such a wealth of talent in the late-night news-comedy arena? While Stephen Colbert ’86, ’11 H and Seth Meyers ’96, ’16 H cite the influence of professors, and Robin Thede gives credit to the journalism program for teaching her to write, cross-pollination of students and classes in different fields may also be key.
Last fall, when costume designer Sanja Manakoski was charged with creating a 21st-century version of Don Quixote’s suit of armor for the Glencoe, Ill.-based Writers Theatre’s production of Quixote: On the Conquest of Self, she turned to the knight errant himself for inspiration. “Our Don Quixote is no regular knight,” explains Manakoski ’17 MFA, who recently earned a master’s degree in stage costume design.
