The 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were hosted at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles last night. Nine Tisch School of the Arts alumni were recognized for their outstanding achievements in television.

One Tisch professor received his Creative Arts Emmy at a ceremony held by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on August 21.

Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series: Mad Men
Carrie Audino ’97 (BFA, Kanbar, F&TV), CSA, Casting

Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie Or A Special: The Pacific
Jennifer Euston ’97 (BFA, Cinema Studies), CSA, New York Casting Director

Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special: The Pacific • Part Five
Daniel S. Irwin ’92 (BFA, Kanbar, F&TV), MPSE, Supervising Dialogue and ADR Editor

Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming: By The People: The Election Of Barack Obama
Sam Pollard, Professor (Kanbar, F&TV), Editor
Arielle Amsalem ’06 (BFA, Kanbar, F&TV), Editor

Outstanding Costumes for a Variety/Music Program or a Special: Jimmy Kimmel Live
Rodney Munoz ’92/’93 (BFA/MFA, Design)

Outstanding Comedy Series: Modern Family
Bill Wrubel ’93 (MFA,Kanbar, Goldberg DDW), Co-Executive Producer
Paul Corrigan ’94 (BFA, Kanbar, F&TV), Co-Executive Producer
Brad Walsh ’94 (BFA, Kanbar, F&TV), Co-Executive Producer

Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Steve Bodow ’95 (MPS, Kanbar, ITP), Supervising Producer

Summer Session II: June 28-August 6

Producing in the Digital Revolution
This is an interdisciplinary course, for film and non-film students. It is designed for aspiring film producers who want to better understand the industry and the historical and creative significance of digital cinema as well as anyone interested in exploring the brave new digital world. Some of the films discussed will include Miguel Arteta’s Chuck and Buck, Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, Brian  De Palma’s Redacted, Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble, David Fincher’s Zodiac, Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity, among others.

View the full summer course list for Open Arts.

Armed Robbers & Smoking Guns: Crime Cinema
As a genre of popular film, crime films play a significant role in the history of both French and American cinematic traditions. This course examines both the American crime film and the French policier – with specific focus on their gangster and heist variants – as cinematic mediations of their respective national cultures and as cultural markers of the sociological and political values of each nation.

View the full summer course list for Cinema Studies.

Playwriting II
The course covers the writing and completion of a full-length play. Required work in the class includes extensive scene work.

Screenwriting II
The course covers the writing and completion of a full-length screenplay. Students must come to the first class with an outline or treatment for a full-length film.

View the full summer course list for Dramatic Writing.

Theatre in NY: Cracks in the City
This course explores the ecology of artistic creation in the “downtown” New York scene. New venues, performance forms and modes of expression and distribution are attracting audiences to unconventional experiences in “the cracks of the city.”

Studies in Shakespeare: Shakespeare on Film
The study of Shakespeare on film offers an opportunity for observing actual historical artifacts (the films) in relation to the texts on which they were based (the plays). By engaging directly with performed versions of the scripts, it is possible to more fully consider how changing social, cultural, political and technological mores affect the performance and interpretation of seemingly fixed texts that are often the object of deep cultural reverence and a purist devotion to the “original.”

Stonestreet Screen Acting I Workshop
This course covers film and television training from the audition process to performance and production. All areas of film and television acting are covered: film (dramatic and comedic), dramatic series, sit-coms, soap operas, commercials, as well as vocal and physical work as it applies to film acting.

CAP 21: Summer Musical Theatre
This studio course provides young artists with the extensive technique and experience required by the professional field of musical theatre performance. This comprehensive six-week program trains you to become a balanced performer, powerful in all disciplines of musical theatre performance.

View the full summer course list for Drama.

The bright lights of Broadway took to Radio City Music Hall last night for The 64th Annual Tony Awards.

New York University Tisch School of the Arts congratulates our four winners for receiving Broadway’s most sought after prize:

Best Scenic Design of a Musical, American Idiot
Christine Jones ’92 (MFA, Adjunct Teacher, Design for Stage and Film)

Best Sound Design of a Musical, Fela!
Robert Kaplowitz ’95 (BFA, Drama)

Best Revival of a Play, Fences
Producer Scott Rudin (Tisch Dean’s Council member)

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, Fences
Denzel Washington (Tisch Parent)

Viola Davis and Denzel Washington in “Fences.” Photograph by Sara Krulwich for The New York Times.

Mr. Washington made history last night, along with best actress Viola Davis, as the first time a Tony was awarded to two black performers in a play for the same theatre season. He was also the first black actor to win for a leading role in a play since James Earl Jones won in 1987 — for the original Fences, playing the same role, Troy Maxson.

Additional alumni and other members of the Tisch community performed or presented at the 2010 Tony Awards.

Read about the evenings festivities and get a full list of nominees and winners in The New York Times.

Ever watch a movie and wonder ‘how did they do that?’

Tisch School of the Arts course Special Effects Make-up for Film and Television, recently featured in Fangoria Magazine, takes the wonder out of sculpting, molding and applying prosthetics; creating silicone molds; graphic violence simulation; and skin-safe molding procedures. The course also covers make-up effects for bruises, black eyes, blood, scabs, scars, wounds, burns, and decayed flesh.

Robert Benevides has taught this course at Tisch for the last 17 years. Some of his work can be seen in “Clean,” “Shaven,” “A Gun for Jennifer,” “I Shot Andy Warhol,” and “Fever.”

Special Effects Make-up for Film and Television: May 17-June 25 and June 28-August 6
Learn more and register.

Tisch School of the Arts summer high school program alumnus Ethan Corn will have his film “In the Beginning” screened at the Harvard-Westlake Film Festival on Friday, March 19 at the Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood.

The 7th annual high school film festival kicks off with guest speaker Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy Award winning director of  “The Hurt Locker,” in conversation with Jason Reitman, director of  “Up in the Air.”

Ethan’s film is one of 17 films selected for the festival.

New York University Tisch School of the Arts congratulates some of our own in Dublin for their wins at The Irish Times Theatre Awards.

Michael West, Tisch instructor for Playwriting in Ireland, accepting his award at The Irish Times Theatre Awards.

Best Production
No Worst There Is None by The Stomach Box in association with Poetry Ireland.
Directed by Dylan Tighe, (tutor for Tisch program How Arts Create the World: Dublin), and composed by Seán Óg, Scenography by Phil MacMahon.

Best Supporting Actor
Bryan Burroughs, (director in the Tisch Dublin Summer High School Program), for Barabbas’ production of Johnny Patterson: The Singing Irish Clown by Little John Nee, directed by Raymond Keane.

Best Director
Annie Ryan, (Tisch alumna), for Corn Exchange Theatre’s production of Freefall by Michael West.

Best New Play
Michael West, (Tisch Playwriting in Ireland instructor), for Freefall produced by Corn Exchange Theatre.

Molly Nussbaum went to London with New York University Tisch School of the Arts in fall 2009 and was part of the Television Production with the BBC program.

Here she shares her experiences and what sets this program apart from all the rest:

Some chief attractions of study abroad programs are the opportunity to travel, the chance to be immersed in a new culture, and the freedom of being cut loose in a new city—it’s an adventure, an experience. But I firmly believe in the maxim, “Experience isn’t what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you,” and I believe this ideal is what sets the Tisch London Program apart from the rest. While it absolutely provides the exciting freedom of a semester away from New York and the incredible opportunities to explore and travel while living in Europe, it does much more than that. It provides an experience that is not contained unto itself but keeps its participants constantly looking forward and finding new ways to build on these experiences. The classes taught at the ICA strengthened the foundation I felt I had built at NYU, and the world-class opportunity at the BBC not only challenged and stretched me, but gave me new confidence in the skills I was sharpening and that foundation I came in with. And these are not your average film school experiences! Directing a thirteen-minute live broadcast in a professionally staffed three-camera television studio is rarely elsewhere your average Friday afternoon. And I doubt you will find anything else like the attachment program at the BBC. It’s an insane opportunity to work on a show currently in production, and be thrown in as a team member at one of the world’s most respected television companies. My attachment on BBC2’s ‘The Culture Show’ was an awesome experience. Being able to say “I shot and directed interviews for the BBC” is not something a lot of 21 year olds can do.

I’d spend a paragraph singing the praises of the city of London, but that seems silly. It is not British New York. It is a city that oozes its incredible history down every winding block; that lives and breathes its own stories, art, sports, and people; it is an inexhaustible place. What you seek you will find. As I type, I find myself pining for the National Portrait Gallery. You’ll be surprised what you come to miss the most.

I’m afraid some people write off the program by saying, “I don’t want to do television.” Do you want to write? Because you leave with a full-length, original pilot. Or are you a director? Because you shoot single and multi-camera projects with entirely professional, BBC crews. If editing is your thing, you can log and cut sequences for “Invisible Worlds.” And if you hope to be a producer, you can chat about programming with a series producer. If you want to do any of these things, and you want to do them with professionals at arguably the world’s greatest media producer, then I can’t stress enough how much this program is for you.

We were given the chance to try a wide range of different things—from writing and directing, to research work and understanding multi-platform media—while being asked by different people what we hoped to do, if this lesson was helpful, etc. This air of introspection makes the program that much more meaningful and engaging, as you can see how every assignment and training course is contributing to your cinematic arsenal. Meetings at the end of the semester drive this point home, where professors and administrators ask where we hope to go from here, how this experience has helped us, and so on. That forward focus is what I think makes this program so much different than any other—it’s not just for people who are interested in having experiences, but even more so for people who are interested in taking experiences and running with them.

Applications for Television Production with the BBC for fall 2010 will be accepted until March 1. Apply today!

What a difference a semester with Tisch makes!

In 2009 Jourdan Hurst was a student in the Spring at Tisch program. Today, she’s back at The University of Texas at Austin, reminiscing about the semester that changed her life.

The West Village in New York City.

Here’s Jourdan’s letter to Angela Pietropinto, director of the Open Arts Studio: Acting for Stage and Screen:

Dear Angela,

I hope you’re having a great start to 2010 and are off to a wonderful new semester at Tisch. As I begin my spring (and last!!) semester, I cannot help but be reminded of where I was a year ago and how much I’ve grown from an incredibly naive, thin-skinned southern gal to a self-assured, independent adult (arguably). My time spent with Spring at Tisch was beyond fulfilling and full of memories I still love to reflect on. I entered my senior year at UT [University of Texas at Austin] with more confidence than ever before, and a much better idea of where I want to be in the industry. My decisions to pursue entertainment law and get back to the city that stole my heart away largely have to do with the experiences I have been able to draw upon from your program. Furthermore, such experiences and fun-filled stories have served me well in several internship and employment opportunities in Dallas and Austin.

Again, thank you for some of my fondest memories. I just wanted to let you know the profound impact you and the other instructors had upon me. Honestly, I don’t think there’s a day that goes by where I don’t recall some exciting aspect of last spring. Take care!

Warmest Regards,
Jourdan V. Hurst
BS, Corporate Communication
The University of Texas at Austin

Spring at Tisch is an opportunity for undergraduates at other colleges and universities to spend their spring semester at New York University Tisch School of the Arts in New York City and study acting, dramatic writing, filmmaking, photography, or the moving image in cinema studies.

Need to be in New York City? Watch these videos.

Angela Pietropinto discusses life in New York City.

What’s the best thing about going to school in New York City?

Hannelore Williams, instructor for the Tisch School of the Arts Open Arts Curriculum course Acting for the Camera, was recently cast in a guest starring role on the new television series Louie. The show stars the comedian Louis C.K. and will air on FX starting in March.

More details to come.

Anna K. Jacobs, at right, works on the musical "Pop!" with fellow members of the creative team

Anna K. Jacobs, a 2008 graduate of the MFA program in Musical Theatre Writing at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, was recently featured in the New York Times for her role as composer of the new musical “Pop!,” currently in performance at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

Prior to becoming a feature in the theater’s 2009-10 season, the musical was part of the school’s summer institute, and, according to the Times it “struck such a chord with James Bundy, dean of the drama school and artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theater, that he and his associates decided to mount a full-scale production of ‘Pop!’ there this season,” and that “it will be the first new musical at the theater since ‘Thunder Knocking at the Door’ and ‘The Triumph of Love’ during its 1996-97 season.”

The article quotes Anna as saying that the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program at Tisch School of the Arts “felt like being part of a community…like a little Warhol family.”

Those interested in being  part of this collaborative program can take classes at Tisch in musical theatre writing during the summer.