General information

1980s

Leslie McCauley (MFA Acting 1988)

lives in Kenwood, CA. She is a full-time faculty member in Theatre Arts at Santa Rosa Junior College where she directed the world premiere of Watermelon Nights, adapted from the Greg Sarris’ novel. Leslie directed The Kitchen Side of the Door, Word for Word Theatre Company’s holiday show at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Leslie has also acted with the California Shakespeare Festival, Marin Theatre Company, Intersection for the Arts, TheatreWorks, Shakespeare at the Beach, and the Willows, among others. She directs and produces the Summer Shakespeare Program at Las Positas College in Livermore, and continues doing voice-over work, such as The Circumnavigator, a documentary for Fox Sports.

David Moon (MFA 1988)

was Production Manager/Lighting Designer/Instructor at Seattle University in Seattle, WA, but left for the land of Milk and Money (Switzerland). David spent 5 fruitful years freelancing in the lighting world, skiing, hiking and chasing cows. Currently he is over at the Mondavi Center, stage managing and coordinating events for campus departments and outside rentals. Looking forward to retiring in a couple years as well as heading back to the alps to teach cow tipping! Stop by and see me if you are in town.

Elaine Romero (MFA Playwriting 1987)

in 2001 attended an Urban Stages reading of her play, Barrio Hollywood, at the Mercantile Library in New York City. Barrio Hollywood was originally developed at San Diego Repertory through the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights. Elaine has been the TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist in Residence (Playwright in Residence) at the Arizona Theatre Company, where her full-length plays, Before Death Comes for the Archbishop and Secret Things, were presented as spring 2000 workshop productions. Her ten-minute play, Day of our Dead, was presented by The Working Theater and the Playwrights’ Theatre of New Jersey at the American Place Theatre. Her full-length drama !Curanderas! Serpents of the Clouds premiered in 2000 at the Invisible Theatre, Tucson, AZ. Her comedy, The Fat-Free Chicana and the Snow Cap Queen, is published in Puro Teatro: A Latina Anthology (Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez and Nancy Sternbach, eds. University of Arizona Press). Elaine was commissioned by The Working Theatre in NY and The Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey to write — for The Working Project — Fear of Extinction, about the playwright’s process.

Kathleen (Christenson) Orr (BA 1987)

reports that she loves reading the alumni updates, and especially would like news about “that whole bunch of ‘87 and ‘88 drama folks — they were great!” Currently, Kathleen is the director of music for Grace Presbyterian Church in Redding, CA, and also teaches music at a local elementary school. She has written several choral pieces and other contemporary music for her church and for surrounding churches and other community organizations.

Rakesh Solomon (PhD 1986)

associate professor of theatre history, theory, and literature at Indiana University-Bloomington, received an NEH fellowship to research and write a book entitled Culture, Politics and Performance in Colonial India, 1753-1947.

Nicola Amos (BA 1985)

is living in Seattle, WA and has been busy. She had a principal part in a Pacific Bell national commercial, and has done voice-over work on the animated series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Benjamin, and Silent Mobius. She also worked on two other TV shows, Lone Gunmen and Dark Angel.

Kathy Burleson (MFA 1985)

heads the theatre department at American River College. In 2002 she was nominated for three Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Alliance “Elly” awards. Kathy was named for best Lighting Design, Comedy for Thieves’ Carnival and received two nominations for best Set Design: Comedy — one for Thieves’ Carnival, the other for Harvey.

Constance Hoffman (BA 1985)

received the 2001 Young Master Award at the TDF Costume Collection/2001TDF Irene Sharaff Awards in New York City. In 2000, Constance was nominated for a Tony for The Green Bird. After graduating from UC Davis, Constance took an MA in costume design from New York University. She has worked in many regional theatres, and in television and film. She has designed numerous Shakespearean productions, especially for the Theatre for a New Audience and the Hartford Stage Company.

George Huckins (BA 1985)

is a sound mixer for several Broadway shows.

Paul Killam (BA 1985)

is an actor in San Francisco. Specializing in improvisational theatre, Paul has performed and taught all over the world. He currently teaches at the College of Marin.

Elizabeth (Ward) Land (MFA 1985)

was a member of the company in the Broadway tour of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Cathy Jo Lewis (MFA Directing 1985)

directed professional productions in Portland, Oregon, then taught and was Director of Theater at Dakota State University in South Dakota. Cathy took a JD from the University of Montana in 1997 and is now an attorney practicing civil litigation in Great Falls, Montana.

Jerry Reinhardt (MFA Design 1985)

has had a colorful career since leaving UCD. (So colorful, in fact, that he now spells ‘colour’ the British way!) He took a job as technical director for the University of Oregon directly after graduation and spent three years there, then broke into the rock-and-roll lighting industry and spent more than a decade touring the world. He worked as a lighting director, programmer/operator, and production manager for a myriad acts, touring with Cher, Neil Diamond, Chicago, Van Halen, Steely Dan, Huey Lewis and the News, The Grateful Dead, Al Jarreau, David Sanbourne, Mikhail Baryshnikov, The Superstars of The Bolshoi, and many more. On his travels, he reports, “I met a woman in Perth, West Australia while I was working as lighting director for Cher. I fell madly in love and now call Perth my home.” Jerry worked for three years as Production Design Manager for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and is now the Technical Manager for the Perth Concert Hall and holds a seat on the board of directors for the Events Industry Association of West Australia. Check the Perth website at: http://www.perthconcerthall.com.au/. Happily married with two beautiful sons, Jerry intends to remain in the land of Oz. His rock & roll past, he says, has given way to a love of classical music.

Carol Wolfe Clay (MFA 1985)

is a scenic designer and professor at Seattle University.

Inga Ballard (BA 1984)

recently completed a multicultural run of Oklahoma at the Weston Playhouse in Weston, VT in the role of Aunt Eller. She has also appeared as Marvelous in Familiar at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington DC and Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray at the Argyle Theatre in Babylon, NY. She has voice overs running for Heinekin and AARP. She also completed Promos for WSBTV in Atlanta for the 40th Anniversary of the Atlanta Child Murders. 

Peter Mohrmann (BA 1984)

is an award-winning actor in Sacramento, regularly appearing on stage in critically acclaimed, ground-breaking productions and popular shows. Peter, who took his MFA in acting from DePaul University in Chicago, is a founding member of the Sacramento production company, Synergy Stage. He acted in that company’s first production, Fortune’s Fool, and directed the second, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Delta King Theatre. Peter comes from a theatrical family — his father, the late Gerald P. Mohrmann, was a professor in the UC Davis theatre department in the early 1960s. Professor Mohrmann was a member of the UC Davis company that in 1963 inaugurated the Wyatt Pavilion Theatre with a production of Shakespeare’s Richard II.

Maggie Morgan (BA 1984)

is on the faculty of the UC Davis Theatre and Dance Department, where she teaches costume design for stage and film. Maggie continues her own design work, and designed the costumes for the Theatre and Dance Department/UCD Symphony/Davis Comic Opera Company’s spring 2003 production of HMS Pinafore, directed by Granada Artist Glen Walford. As a visiting artist at UC Davis, Maggie created the wild costumes for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, directed by William Gaskill. Classmates will recall that Maggie, in a remarkable instance of prefiguring, wrote the play Picture You in a Padded Bra: A Shopping Nightmare that was staged in UC Davis’s 1984 Premiere Season. (In another bit of dramatic foreshadowing, the cast of Padded Bra included Constance Hoffman [BA '85], who is now an award-winning costume designer in New York City.) Maggie took her MFA from Yale and has designed shows all over the country, on and off Broadway, and at regional theatres such as at the Pasadena Playhouse, South Coast Rep, Matrix Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, New Jersey Shakespeare Festival and Yale Rep. She has won many prizes and awards. Her film projects include the independent features Alex in Wonder and Breathing Hard. She was assistant costume designer on many films, including A Bronx Tale, Apollo 13, Casino, Wag the Dog, Men in Black and How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

Scott Morgan (BA 1984)

hosted Dream Builders on Home and Garden Television (HGTV), a gig especially apt for Scot, who in college had his own house-painting company and combined his early theatre career with building solar homes in California. He has also been in some feature films, including Species 2, Pecker, and Cecil B. Demented. An avid athlete, Scott spends his free time training for triathlons.

Audrey Sochor (MFA 1984)

is an artist working with a form of interactive art using lighting, viewer operated dimmers, and double curtains of sheer fibers embodying the moiré phenomenon.

Kelvin Tsao (BA 1984)

is a classical music announcer at Capital Public Radio (KXPR Sacramento), working under the on-air name of Luke Reinhart. When you’re in the listening area, tune in to his show, normally broadcast Monday through Friday noon to 3 pm. Kelvin got married in May 2001, meeting his future wife when he was playing in the 2000 Sacramento Theatre Company’s production of Velina Hasu Houston’s Kokoro, directed by Peggy Shannon. He has also done some industrial video work and, in his first directing assignment, helmed Edward Sakamoto’s play Manoa Valley for InterACT in Sacramento.

Roxanne Femling (BA 1983)

is the Costume Shop supervisor at the UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance, but still finds time to design and to work outside the university. In spring 2002, Roxanne designed Esailama Gedo Diouf’s new dance, Sauce, and the UC Davis production of Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer-prize-winning play, Wit. She also designed the costumes for American River College’s Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Roxie won a Hollywood Drama-Logue award for her designs for George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman produced by A Noise Within in Glendale, CA in 1992. Her young daughter, Megan, keeps Roxie busy at home.

Scott Koué (1983)

is a freelance sound designer for film and video, currently living in San Francisco. Scott has a long list of sterling credits to his name after 20 years in the business. He has designed for Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ACT, Berkeley Rep, MAGIC Theatre, American Stage, Oakland Ensemble, etc., etc. His film work includes Sound Supervisor on Every Child is Born a Poet (When in Doubt Prod.), Pasporto al la Tuta Mondo, Here Dies Another Day, Captivation, and others; as Editor for Miramax’s The Legend of the Drunken Master and Twin Dragons, Dialogue editor for PBS’ Reaching Out, Supervising Assistant for Fox/Paramount’s blockbuster Titanic and for Miramax’s 54. Scott has done commercials for American Express, Nike, HP, Amazon, IBM, Intel, and so on. His awards include a Golden Reel for Titanic and an LIAA prize for Sound for his Nike-’Gladiator.’ He has taught courses in “Sound for Video” at the East Bay Media Center and in “Sound Design for Theatre” at UC Berkeley.

Anne Fajilan (MFA 1982)

is a member of the faculty of the Theatre Arts Department at City College of San Francisco, where she is supervisor-advisor for the Drama Club and also peer-mentors Service Learning Oral Histories. Anne has developed a long list of credits as a director in northern California, helming shows for Teatro Campesino, Asian American Theater Company, Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, Chinese Cultural Center, Davis Musical Theater, Garbeau’s Dinner Theater, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, City Summer Opera and many others. Her professional credits also include numerous stints as production manager (Magic Theatre, Coyote Circle at Baker Beach, A Traveling Jewish Theater, Chaikin Project … etc.) and stage manager A.E.A. (Magic Theatre, Teatro Campesino, Theater on the Square, Intersection, Theater Bay Area Galas… et al).

Robert Louis Kempf (MFA 1982)

is living and working in Los Angeles. Catch his act in the Emmy Award-winning television comedy series, Will and Grace, or see him in reruns of Seinfeld, ER, Caroline in the City, etc. He has also done voice-overs in the Cowboy Bebop anime. Commercials include work for US West and Old Milwaukee. On stage, he acted in The Great Magoo at the 24th Street Theater.

Malcolm MacDonald (BA 1982)

is enjoying a sabbatical back in his hometown of Chico, CA. After graduating UC Davis, he attended the Medical School at UC San Diego. Malcolm completed his residency in Family Medicine at the University of Minnesota and joined the faculty as Assistant Director. After returning to Northern California, he was the Medical Director of a three- county Native American health program. In 2011, he founded a primary care and Native Hawaiian health program on the Hawaii Island. Malcolm eagerly awaits his next adventure.

Ivan Sandoval (MFA 1981)

is living in Sacramento and continues acting. His name appears often in the arts pages of regional newspapers, usually in the context of excellent critical notices. He is a leader of the theatrical community and is past president of the League of Sacramento Theatres.

View all UCD Arts departments and programs

Melody Chiang

Art
History

Melody Chiang

Art
Studio

Melody Chiang

Cinema and Digital Media

Melody Chiang

Design

Melody Chiang

Music

Melody Chiang

Theatre
and Dance

Melody Chiang

Performance Studies

Melody Chiang

Mondavi
Center

Melody Chiang

ARTS ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP

Melody Chiang

Home:
UC Davis Arts