Arts Interview with Nancy Kranzberg

Hana Sharif, the Augustin Family Artistic Director for The Rep, stopped by to speak with Nancy about her career and the upcoming season.

HANA SHARIF (Augustin Family Artistic Director) has enjoyed a multi-faceted theatre career, including roles as an artistic leader, director, playwright and producer with a specialty in strategic and cross-functional leadership. She served for five years as Associate Artistic Director at Baltimore Center Stage, where she oversaw the day-to-day execution of all of the mainstage and studio productions, and was the architect of the innovative CS Digital program: a platform that pushes the boundaries of traditional theatre and looks at the nexus point between art and technology. Her other achievements at Baltimore Center Stage include prototyping the Mobile Unit, strengthening community engagement, producing multiple world and regional premieres and helping to guide the theatre through a multi-million dollar building renovation and rebranding effort. In 2012, Hana served as the inaugural Program Manager of the ArtsEmerson Ambassador Program and launched ArtsEmerson Artist-In-Residency program featuring playwright Daniel Beaty. In addition to her work at ArtsEmerson, Hana leveraged her regional theatre experience to freelance produce for smaller theatre companies, looking to expand and restructure their administrative teams. Hana served as developmental producer and program manager for Progress Theatre in Houston, where she consulted with the Artistic Director on redefining the artistic vision and subsequent recasting of the ensemble company and lead strategic organizational planning focused on LORT market entry. During her decade-long tenure at Hartford Stage, Hana served as the Associate Artistic Director, Director of New Play Development, and Artistic Producer. Hana launched the new play development program, expanded the community engagement and civic discourse initiatives, and developed and produced Tony, Grammy, Pulitzer and Obie Award-winning shows. From 1997–2003, Hana served as the co-founder and Artistic Director of Nasir Productions, a theatre dedicated to underrepresented voices to challenge traditional structures. Her guest lecturer credits include Spelman College, Sewanee University, UT Austin, UCSD, Prairie View A&M, Emerson College, Maggie Flanigan Studio, Towson University, UMD, UConn, UMass and University of Hartford, among others. Additionally, Hana has directed acclaimed productions of Porgy & Bess, The Who & The What, Fun Home, Sense and Sensibility, The Christians, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pride and Prejudice (DCArts: Best Director/Best New Play), The Whipping Man, Gem of the Ocean (six CCC nominations), Gee's Bend (CCC Award Best Ensemble, two nominations), Next Stop Africa, Cassie, The Drum and IFdentity. Her plays include All the Women I Used to Be, The Rise and Fall of Day and The Sprott Cycle Trilogy. Hana holds a BA from Spelman College and an MFA from the University of Houston. She is the recipient of the 2009–10 Aetna New Voices Fellowship, EMC Arts Working Open Fellowship, Theatre Communications Group (TCG) New Generations Fellowship, and is a founding member of The Black Theatre Commons (BTC). She serves on the board of directors for the TCG, BTC, and the Sprott Foundation.

Sheila Suderwalla, Executive Director of Artists First, stopped by to discuss the good works of the organization, including the In View Mural Project. ---- 

Artists First's In View Mural Project provides the community (businesses, residences, and public spaces) with high quality, hand-painted, custom murals. The project provides artists with disabilities, veterans, and at risk youth with confidence-building opportunities, work experience, inclusion, and visibility. ----- 

Artists First is an inclusive, non-profit art studio empowering artists of all abilities. We believe in bringing art to the community as a means of integration, healing, support, and finding common ground. ---- 

As Executive Director of Artists First since 2013, Sheila has 20 years experience working with children, youth, and families in need. Her successes as a social worker have been featured in local and national publications such as the New York Times, the St. Louis Post Dispatch and Time Magazine. In 2017 Sheila was recognized as one of the "100 St. Louisans You Should Know" by the Small Business Monthly Journal. ​She is a national trainer and has been a social activist for 20 years. As a juried winning artist, Sheila has incorporated art into her work with individuals who have experience trauma. Sheila obtained her Masters in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis and a Certificate in Expressive and Integrative Therapies from Fontbonne University. ------ 

Meredith Malone, Curator at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, stopped by to talk with Nancy about the happenings at the museum. ----- 

As Curator at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Meredith Malone conducts research on the Museum's permanent collection, propose new acquisitions, and conceptualize scholarly exhibitions of modern and contemporary art that enrich learning and research for the Washington University community and beyond. She is particularly interested in diversifying the Museum's collections to include greater parity (race, ethnicity, gender, geographic location) and examining critical histories and theories of race, class, and gender in relation to the production, reception, and interpretation of art. Currently, she is working on exhibitions of artwork by two US-based contemporary artists who critically address issues of race and representation in their work: Nicole Miller, who explores the transformative capabilities of the moving image to recalibrate interpretations of self and culture; and Adam Pendleton, whose conceptual works draw on historical and aesthetic visual content to explore the ways context influences meaning. Meredith is also coordinating an exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery that includes work by artists from across the country offering perspectives on cultural identity, race, immigration, and mass incarceration, among other pressing topics. ----- 

Intermedia Artist Artist, Monika Weiss, stopped by to speak with Nancy about her exhibition monument|antimonument Nirbhaya.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Monika Weiss arrived to NYC in 2001 as a long-term artist in residence at the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. Since 2011, she divides her time between her studio in New York and her appointment as associate professor at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis. ------ 

She has been awarded numerous grants and residency fellowships, including BRIC, Harvestworks, US Embassy in Poland, New York Foundation for the Arts and YADDO. Recent publications about the artist's work include a chapter in Guy Brett's The Crossing of Innumerable Paths: Essays on Art (London: Ridinghouse, 2019) and a forthcoming bi-lingual monograph Monika Weiss – Nirbhaya published by the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko / National Institution of Culture, with texts by Griselda Pollock (Leeds University) and Mark McDonald (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), among others. ------

Nezka Pfeifer, Museum Curator at The Missouri Botanical Garden, Stopped by to speak with Nancy about the new exhibition at the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden.  ------

On view through March 2023, the Botanical Resonance: Plants and Sounds in the Garden exhibition at the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden explores how plants create and cause sounds in our natural environment and cultural arenas. The exhibition features different plants used to create musical instruments in cultures around the world, as well as how different plants make unique sounds throughout their lifecycles in nature and in the Garden. For the species used to make instruments, many often become jeopardized and threatened in their native environments due to the increasing production and demand for the desirable plant material. Botanical Resonance includes three contemporary artists who were commissioned to create artwork installations that interpret sound in several different ways: soundwalks by Annika Kappner, an immersive quilt installation by Brooke Erin Goldstein, and an immersive sound installation by St. Louis artist Kevin Harris.

Karen Lucas, Curator of the High Noon Series at the Hi Low Literary Arts Cafe, stopped by to speak with Nancy about the series. ----- 

Blueprint Coffee at High Low is open from 8 am-3 pm Monday – Sunday, every day. With online and walk-up ordering options, and both indoor and outdoor seating available, order from Blueprint Coffee's made-to-order drink program featuring coffee, tea, and specialty drinks, as well as a small assortment of fresh baked goods. ———

The High Low Gallery is open to the public during cafe hours (8am-3pm, everyday Monday – Sunday), no appointment necessary. To accommodate those who still would like a private appointment, they have 1/2 hr appointments available via Eventbrite. ———

Nestled in the heart of High Low is a 600-square-foot gallery space equipped with modern gallery lighting and professional hanging systems. Displays may extend beyond the gallery to the Listening Room, adjacent to the gallery when available. Artists and organizations exhibiting at High Low have the opportunity to utilize a projection system, pedestals, and vitrines if desired. ———

A 150-person event space is dedicated to literary arts-focused content including poetry readings, storytelling, literary series, and book signings. Featuring state-of-the-art audio and visual equipment, a full-service bar, and a professional box office, the space is available for expanded gallery exhibitions, installations, traditional and chamber music, and special events. ———

A dedicated office suite serves our resident companies and will be the future home to a writers-in-residence program that aims to uplift local and international writers. The program will be developed in partnership with our current resident organizations: St. Louis Poetry Center, River Styx Literary Magazine, Shirley Bradley LeFlore Foundation/Creative Arts & Expression Lab, St. Louis Poet Laureate Jane Ellen Ibur, St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts, Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, UrbArts, St. Louis Black Authors of Children's Literature ———

Vincent Stemmler is an interdisciplinary artist from St. Louis, Missouri whose work is often a contemplation on the interplay between identity, place, and loss. Vincent received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  Vincent is currently an adjunct professor at Florissant Valley Community College and University of Missouri, St. Louis, teaching ceramics, sculpture and drawing classes. Vincent's most notable recent exhibitions include two solo shows :  "Sticks In the Mud" and "The Garden of the Void"  and a nationally juried group exhibition at Miami University as a finalist in the 2019 Young Sculptors Competition.

Stephanie Weissberg, a curator at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, stopped by to speak with Nancy about the Pulitzer and the current exhibition, Assembly Required.

Assembly Required features eight artists whose work invites your active participation. You may build, shape, and use these artworks, collaboratively or on your own. The artists were selected based on a shared belief that public action is vital for transforming society.

Created between the 1950s and the present, the artworks respond to distinct social and political moments, from unrest in the United States during the Vietnam War to Peru's military dictatorship. The artists offer unique perspectives on social change, addressing the need for optimism and hope in the face of global tensions.

Throughout this immersive exhibition, members of the public will interact with the artworks and each other while sharing new experiences. Ultimately, Assembly Required poses questions about how art allows us to imagine new ways of being in the world.

Assembly Required includes work by Francis Alÿs, Rasheed Araeen, Siah Armajani, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Yoko Ono, Lygia Pape, and Franz Erhard Walther.

Cynthia Prost, President and CEO of the Arts and Education Council, stopped by to talk about the organization and their upcoming gala at the Chase on May 23rd. ----- 

The Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis is a unique asset in our community. The Arts and Education Council is our region's only united arts fund supported by private contributions from individuals, corporations, foundations and institutions committed to the value and benefit of the arts to our community. ------- 

The Arts and Education Council serves as the base - the root, if you will - through which funding, training and collaboration happens for nearly 100 arts organizations that enrich the cultural landscape of St. Louis each year. ------ 

Arts and Education Council grantees not only produce and present great art, they also maintain viable, impactful arts education and outreach programming for K-12 students throughout the bi-state area. Research continues to show that children who participate in the arts enjoy greater academic success, higher self-esteem, improved discipline, higher graduation rates and broad, creative thinking skills necessary for advancement in the world beyond school.

Cynthia Prost has over twenty years of nonprofit leadership experience and currently serves as President and CEO of the Arts and Education Council since 2008. In this role she oversees all institutional matters including fundraising and grant making.  She received her bachelor of arts (magna cum laude) and a master of arts in management from Fontbonne University in St. Louis. Prost is an adjunct faculty member at Fontbonne University in the Nonprofit Management graduate program, teaching courses in fundraising, philanthropy, grant writing, strategic planning and board governance and management. ------

Dr. Judy Mann, Senior Curator or European Art to 1800 for the St. Louis Art Museum, stopped by to talk to Nancy about the exhibition, Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred 1530–1800.

About the Exhibition: In 2000 the Saint Louis Art Museum purchased Cavaliere d'Arpino's Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, an exceptional painting on lapis lazuli. The acquisition of the small, stunning work of art spurred extensive research that culminates in Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred 1530–1800, the first systematic examination of the pan-European practice of this unusual and little-studied artistic tradition. ———

By 1530 Italian artists had begun to paint portraits and sacred images on stone. At first artists used slate and marble. By the last decades of the 16th century, the repertoire expanded, eventually including alabaster, lapis lazuli, onyx, jasper, agate, and amethyst. In addition to demonstrating the beauty of these works, Paintings on Stone explains why artists began using stone supports and the role that stone played in the meaning of these endeavors. ———

Bringing together more than 70 examples by 58 artists, Paintings on Stone represents major centers of stone painting and features 21 different stones. ———

Judith W. Mann, the senior curator of European art to 1800. Since joining the museum in 1988, she has reinstalled the collections of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and 18th-century European painting and sculpture three times, and organized two major international exhibitions. In 2022, the museum will organize a major, international exhibition curated by Mann that examines the art of painting on stone, a practice that flourished in Europe—particularly Italy—in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 2015, the Association of Art Museum Curators and the American Academy in Rome awarded Mann the Samuel H. Kress Foundation AAMC Affiliated Fellowship in order to allow her to continue her research into painting on stone in Rome.——-

Mann curated "Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi: Father and Daughter Painters in Baroque Italy," which opened at Rome's Palazzo Venezia and later was seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Art Museum, as well as the 2012 exhibition "Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master," which was presented at the Saint Louis Art Museum and the National Gallery, London. In recognition for her scholarship relating to the Barocci exhibition and catalogue, Mann received the Association of Art Museum Curators' Outstanding Monographic Exhibition Award. She holds a graduate degree and doctorate from Washington University. ———