The Idyllwild community and the campus have a unique symbiotic relationship which truly takes a village to be successful.
Our community of Idyllwild can take pride in seeing so many of our IAA students leave the fold and take flight to accomplish their goals — they further the notoriety of our town and campus along with their own.
Joey Jennings, a 2010 IAA alum from the Musical Theatre Department, is now appearing in a national TV commercial for McDonald’s that you may have seen. Below is a YouTube link, Jennings is the actor on the left with the glasses. Watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1YRqgigh4vc
“Joey has joined the ranks of working actors in Los Angeles,” proudly notes his former IAA instructor, Theatre Department Chair Howard Shangraw. Jennings has also appeared in various projects including a critically acclaimed production of The Fantasticks.
Here’s a heads up for autograph seekers. Jennings will be returning to Idyllwild this summer to appear with Howard Shangraw in Red, a play by American playwright John Logan being produced by the Isis Theatre Company. The project is funded by an IAA Arts Enterprise Laboratory grant awarded to current IAA theatre student and local resident Grace Haggard.
64th Annual Summer Program
Registration for the 64th Annual Idyllwild Arts Summer Program is humming along swiftly. The legendary Summer Program which draws students from around the country, offers more than 100 art workshops and runs from June 16 through Aug. 11.
The rich and varied schedule features 2-day to 3-week-long, hands-on arts workshops for passionate practicing professional and nonprofessional artists, children, youth, and families.
The Summer Program is unique in that it provides intensely-focused arts instruction in small classes (average class size is 10 students) by professional artists-instructors. A few of the disciplines that offer enriching workshops include the following: music, sculpture, dance, painting, theatre, mixed media, Native American arts and jewelry.
Among the more than one hundred art workshops being offered this summer is a special opportunity to participate in a hands-on workshop with local Idyllwild furniture craftsman Pete Holzman. Holzman’s Furniture Making & Design workshop (July 8 through 12) is sure to be a popular highlight of the Summer Program.
Annual gala will have a touch of Hollywood glamour
The 2013 Idyllwild Arts Gala will be Sunday, April 14, at the famed Millennium Biltmore in Los Angeles and is poised to be a memorable gathering of Hollywood luminaries.
Based on the tickets sold thus far, it may also set an attendance record for the gala. Not surprisingly, the two honorees of this year’s gala are the reason.
Academy Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer, and longtime Idyllwild Arts board member and benefactor, Earl W. Fisher, will both receive Idyllwild Arts’ Life in Arts Awards, and are both singularly deserving of this recognition.
Many of Zimmer’s Hollywood pals and supporters will attend, as will a legion of Earl Fisher’s friends and fellow board members.
The annual gala is Idyllwild Arts’ major fundraising event. If you are interested in attending the 2013 Idyllwild Arts Gala on April 14, or want to support the Scholarship Fund, please contact IAA’s Development Department at 659-2171, ext. 2338.
Postscript
We recently reported on IAA Moving Pictures student, Katherine Hearns’ film “A Family Like Mine” having been screened during KCET’s 15th Annual Festival of Student Films — the only high school student’s project accepted.
Her film has now been accepted at NFFTY (pronounced “Nifty”) which stands for “National Film Festival for Talented Youth” — the largest youth film festival in the world. The annual festival will take place this April in Seattle. Expect to hear more about this budding filmmaker.
