Cornell Performing & Media Art

🎉 Senior Spotlight: Adowyn Ernste 🎉 College Scholar and English major Film, Music, Fine Arts, and Media Studies minor 🔹What are some highlights of your involvement in PMA? ➡️ Designing music and projections for the SHED dance presentation in Spring 2025 and editing last year’s PMA Studios film, Milkshake Kiss. 🔹 What are some favorite memories of PMA or of Cornell? ➡️ The red armchair in the Schwartz Center basement, late-night film editing, and getting to know all of the kind, wonderful people here who make everything tick. 🔹If you could talk to your Freshman self now, what would you say? ➡️ Follow what drives you forward! The rest will fall into place. 🔹Is there anyone in particular you’d like to thank? ➡️ Thank you so much to Professor Cross for sharing a small sliver of his seemingly-endless knowledge on sound, soldering, and everything else.

🎉 Senior Spotlight: Izzy Falchuk 🎉 Performing and Media Arts major 🔹What are some highlights of your involvement in PMA? ➡️ making my thesis film taking courses like film 1 and 2, directing, acting 1 and 2, screenwriting, playwriting, cages and creativity with bruce levitt where we learned about the arts and how they impact incarcerated individuals -- having the opportunity to take so many different courses and becoming a more well rounded artist and person because of it 🔹What are some favorite memories of PMA or of Cornell? ➡️ definitely making my thesis film this year and collaborating with my peers in the pma community and seeing everyone come together to make my vision a reality 🔹What are you looking forward to doing after graduation? ➡️ i am looking forward to continuing to make art and use everything i learned in PMA to continue creating 🔹If you could talk to your Freshman self now, what would you say? ➡️ i would say don't try to fit into any kind of mold that you think you should or other people think you should. do what you love and stay true to that because that is what will make you happy and fulfilled. 🔹Is there anyone in particular you’d like to thank? ➡️ jeff palmer, aoise stratford, my advisor ellen gainor, my parents brad and suzanne, and all of my peers in pma who I have collaborated with

🎉 Senior Spotlight: Owen Reynolds 🎉 Architecture major Theatre and Fine Arts minor 🔹What are some highlights of your involvement in PMA? ➡️ Writing, directing, and producing my own show Saving for 17 at the Schwartz and being a part of the first cast/crew of PMA Studios. 🔹 What are some favorite memories of PMA or of Cornell? ➡️ Dressing the set of Milkshake Kiss, the entire HumaNatures show, and just being around the shop staff in general. 🔹If you could talk to your Freshman self now, what would you say? ➡️ Spend less time stressing over deadlines, and go audition for more shows. 🔹Is there anyone in particular you’d like to thank? ➡️ A special thanks to Tim, Savannah, and Fritz in the shop, yall are a special group <3 🔹Anything else you'd like to include? ➡️ The university needs to put more emphasis on PMA, it’s a wonderful group of people, and an incredibly accepting and talented cohort every year.

🎉 Senior Spotlight: Zoe Buddie 🎉 Performing & Media Arts and Psychology major 🔹What are some highlights of your involvement in PMA? ➡️ The Family Copoli '23, Love and Information '23, Orlando's Gift '24, Directing 1 & 2, and every student film I've worked on! 🔹 What are some favorite memories of PMA or of Cornell? ➡️ Filming Top of My School, Bringing The Family Copoli to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Waking up in the Green Room to find all of my favorite people pacing with varying levels of urgency 🔹What are you looking forward to doing after graduation? ➡️ I'm looking forward to enjoying an Ithaca Summer and eventually making the big move to LA. 🔹If you could talk to your Freshman self now, what would you say? ➡️ Just keep doing the next right authentic thing for yourself, and it will all pan out. You are doing enough. It's better to do less really well than burn yourself out trying to give a little energy to everything. 🔹Is there anyone in particular you’d like to thank? ➡️ I'd like to thank more people than I could possibly write out in one sitting. My family, my girlfriend Cece, Liv Virginia Licursi, Jeff Palmer, David Feldshuh, Ellen Gainor, Andy Colpitts, and so SO many more!

PMA Associate Professor Christine Bacareza Balance was interviewed on This Filipino American Life (TFAL) podcast about Here Lies Love, a musical about the life of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, with concept and music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. The project began as a song cycle, premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2013, and then was staged as a Broadway musical in 2023. It recently had a run at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles where the TFAL podcast hosts are based. Balance has been following the production, since its inception, for her current book project, Making Sense: Poetics, Performance and Philippine Martial Law. “As much as Here Lies Love is publicized as a ‘revolutionary musical,’” Balance says, “it is not. It draws upon familiar musical theater forms like the love triangle, or the Pygmalion figure of Imelda Marcos, in order to tell the history of dictatorship in the Philippines. There are lots of projected images and flashing lights. The idea is, we want to immerse the audience straight in this history, but instead the visual serves as historical and narrative shorthand. Unless you know what these images contain and what they signify, it’s an overwhelming sensorial experience, curated and guided by the show’s artistic team. There’s not much space to think critically about what you’re viewing and experiencing.” Read the full interview at the link in bio

🎉 Graduate Student Spotlight: Andy Colpitts 🎉 Area of Study/Research: Theatre & Performance Studies. Specifically, I study the way rural identity and space is constructed and understood in and through theatre. 🔹What are some highlights of your involvement in PMA? ➡️ There have been so many! Directing The Family Copoli was absolutely a dream come true-- I learned so much with and from the actors, designers, and crew. I loved TAing The American Musical and teaching FWSes. I also have deeply appreciated taking pedagogy studies in Acting, Directing, and Playwriting with Theo, David, and Aoise, respectively. Across the board, I have so appreciated being supported to think as both an artist and a scholar. 🔹 What are some favorite memories of PMA? ➡️ Dancing to Motherwort at the Ithaca Department of Arts and Futures. Wandering through Kelly's incredible set for Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments. Getting together with the other grad students after PMAPS. Opening night of The Family Copoli. 🔹If you could talk to your first-year grad self now, what would you say? ➡️ Get involved with artistic projects ASAP. Meet everyone in the department: they rock! 🔹Is there anyone in particular you’d like to thank? ➡️ Gosh. So many people! First and foremost, my committee: Ellen, Sara, and Beth. Also Gerard Aching from Romance and Africana Studies for jumping in last minute. My artistic mentors: David, Aoise, and Theo. The many staff members who have helped me with creative projects: Chris Riley, Chris Christensen, Fritz, Andrew, Savannah, Katt, Tim, Youngsun. The wonderful students! A special thank you to Debra Castillo, who was a member of my committee until her sudden passing last fall. She was a brilliant and caring mentor, and she is deeply missed. 🔹Anything else you'd like to include? ➡️ Arriving in 2020 at the height of COVID, when everything was online, it was hard to get a sense of PMA. Events were all virtual and the future of live theatre in the department seemed incredibly precarious. In the years since, however, I have been so bouyed to see students in the department bringing live theatre back with tremendous passion and skill.

PMA Professor J. Ellen Gainor will be delivering her paper, "The Echoes of Closing Doors, or, Why is the American Theatre Still Obsessed with Nora Helmer?" at the conference "Of Mutability and Malleability: Reimagining the Contours of US Theatre and Drama" to be hosted by the University of Toulouse in June. “My paper considers the American theatre's ongoing obsession with Henrik Ibsen's play "A Doll House" (1879) and why US playwrights post-1970 have repeatedly crafted sequels to, and modernizations and adaptations of, this influential modernist text,” said Gainor. Read more at the link in bio

Join PMA for the Honors Thesis Screening on Thursday, May 7, at 5:00 pm in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. This exciting showcase of honors film projects by the Cornell Senior Class will feature Undone by Izzy Falchuk ’26, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Ann Robinson by Justin Lee ‘26. Experience outstanding storytelling and gain insight directly from the student directors during a Q&A session following the event. Free and open to the public. Tickets are not required. Undone, directed by Izzy Falchuk ’26, follows a young woman rebuilding her life in New York after a devastating betrayal shatters her sense of love and safety. She must confront the question she’s been running from: Who is she without her trauma? Undone is a tense, intimate character drama about trauma’s afterlife, and the moment healing stops being an idea and starts becoming a choice. (25 min) The Extraordinary Adventures of Ann Robinson, directed by Justin Lee ’26, follows the titular character through three separate stories that each investigate the absurdity of human existence across varying genres. The film explores themes of existentialism, absurdism, identity, and rebellion, whilst pushing the stylistic and formal bounds of film. (25 min) Listen to PMA Podcast Episode 71 with Izzy Falchuk & Justin Lee - Honors Thesis Film Screening here: https://pma.cornell.edu/news/pma-podcast-ep-71-izzy-falchuk-justin-lee-honors-thesis-film-screening --- Day 1 of the Student Film Screening will follow this event, at 6:30 pm, in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Day 1 (May 7) will include films from students in PMA 4585: Film and Video Production II. Day 2 (May 8) will include films from students in PMA 3508: Material Filmmaking, PMA 3570: Film and Video Production I, and PMA 1410: Media Production Laboratory.

Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for the Student Film Screening, on Thursday, May 7, at 6:30 pm, and Friday, May 8, at 5:00 pm, in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. The Student Film Screening will showcase unique, empathetic, and collaborative works from students. Day 1 (May 7) will include films from students in PMA 4585: Film and Video Production II. Day 2 (May 8) will include films from students in PMA 3508: Material Filmmaking, PMA 3570: Film and Video Production I, and PMA 1410: Media Production Laboratory. Let's come together and share a magical evening of storytelling through the language of cinema, 24 frames per second. This event is free and open to the public. First-come, first-served. Tickets are not required. Content warning: For mature audiences only. Films contain material that may be triggering to some audience members.

PMA Professor Bruce Levitt will be giving a talk called “The Spaces in Between: Serendipity, Storytelling, and Transformation in the Carceral State” to the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine on May 18. This talk explores the way a single story traps the incarcerated individual in a traumatic environment while at the same time, that same story is employed to reinforce the necessity of the carceral state in the public's mind. Through a very brief gesture to the ontology of space and our reliance on "concrete knowledge" that limits our perceptions, this talk takes a deeper dive into storytelling, transformation and the Phoenix Players Theatre Group at Auburn Correction facility, and, by so doing, suggests ways and methods to create alternative stories about prisons and those who are confined in them. Finally, the talk makes the claim that artistic practices in prisons are fundamental to altering the narrative that most incarcerated individuals internalize during their incarceration. Read more at the link in our bio.

Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for Sub-Basement Docs: Rock, Flight, Light on Wednesday, May 6, from 5:15 pm to 6:30 pm, in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Free and open to the public. Tickets are not required. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers, Suraj Kushwaha, Meena Haribal, and Esther Brenner. Hosted by PMA/Anthropology Assistant Professor Natasha Raheja. Sub-Basement Docs: Rock, Flight, Light features three short films by student filmmakers who are also practitioners in the worlds they depict—moving between insider and outsider perspectives. In Legends, Suraj Kushwaha, a climber, traces questions of land and struggle at Oak Flats; In Incredible Birds and Birders of Finger Lakes, Meena Haribal, a birder, evokes the wonder of birding in the Finger Lakes; and in seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Esther Grace Brenner, a painter, reflects on how to render landscape and natural light onto canvas. Across climbing, birding, and painting and questions of land struggle, citizen-science, and art, the films explore different ways of encountering and representing landscape. Presented by Advanced Documentary Production (ANTHR/PMA 4401/7401).

✨Sub-Basement Docs: Rock, Flight, Light Spotlight✨ Incredible birds and birders of Finger Lakes directed by Meena Haribal Finger Lakes region is one of the most beautiful regions in New York state, with lovely deep long lakes, stunning waterfalls, and rich natural habitats with over 360 species of both migrant and resident birds - making it a unique destination for birdwatching. The experience is enriched by the area's longstanding birding tradition and the presence of Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (30 min) 🎬 Sub-Basement Docs: Rock, Flight, Light 📅 Wednesday, May 6 ⏰ 5:15–6:30 pm 📍 Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts 🎟 Free & open to the public | Q&A with the filmmakers to follow Join PMA and Anthropology for an evening of short documentaries featuring three short films by student filmmakers who are also practitioners in the worlds they depict—moving between insider and outsider perspectives. Presented by Advanced Documentary Production (ANTHR/PMA 4401/7401).