Montblanc Presents: Master Class
We are grateful for the support of Montblanc and the volunteer efforts of our Guest Artists who make our year-long Master Class series so meaningful and productive for participating students. Read about our Master Class teachers below and learn about this year's programs here!
Emmy Award-winning Ben Karlin was head writer and executive producer of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” for eight years and co-creator of “The Colbert Report,” helping re-shape our notions of media, politics and comedy.
Currently in Nora Ephron’s theatrical production of Love, Loss and What I Wore. Diane served as Casey Novak on NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from 2001-2008. Current guest star appearance, include NCIS and 30 Rock.
A Grammy Award-winning Haitian rapper, actor, film producer, and promoter for the hip hop trio The Fugees, Pras founded the organization prAsperity to take on crucial humanity projects.
Golden Globe-nominated actor who’s work ranges from Off-Broadway productions to studio films (Barbershop, The Miracle at St. Anna) to music video collaborations (Mariah Carey), and noteworthy television productions that include Their Eyes Were Watching God, Sleeper Cell and currently ABC’s Flash Forward. Click More for their Master Class details.
Visual artist and photographer whose primary interests are race, advertising and popular culture. Hank is the winner of the first ever Aperture West Book Prize. His work is currently showing in at Bronx Museum of Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center.
Multiple Grammy Award-winning drummer from the Bronx, recipient of the Buddy Rich Jazz Masters Award and innovative percussionist for Living Colour.
Cartoonist, Illustrator and Graphic Designer whose clients range from the New York Times to Nickelodeon to DC Comics.
Accomplished Latin dance instructor and choreographer in the New York Salsa scene. He was in the Off-Broadway smash Latin Madness, serves as a Team Captain of the Addie-Tude Dance Company and was featured in Mad Hot Ballroom.
Amy Smith Stewart is an independent curator who operates her own gallery and has organized dozens of museum and gallery exhibitions, also serving as a faculty member of the School of Visual Arts MFA program.
Founder of 10.Deep, a design firm, creative collective and one of the original New York streetwear brands.
Torrie Davis & Stacey Novelli – Senior Print Designers for the world-renowned Lilly Pulitzer brand who runs 70 of her own Signature Stores, in addition to high end department stores, and publisher of several lifestyle books.
Award-winning dancer, choreographer and member of the GhettOriginal Productions Dance Company. He has choreographed work and performed on and off Broadway, on TV and in Film—working with varied artists, including Sean “P Diddy” Combs, N’Sync, Joe, Amber, Brandy, Diana Ross Ja Rule, Jamie Foxx. He is currently in the Broadway hit, Fela! When Adesola has taught Master Classes around the world.
New York Editor of The Huffington Post and an accomplished writer. The Huffington Post launched in 2005 as an American news website and aggregated blog, featuring various news sources and columnists. The site offers progressive coverage of politics, media, business, entertainment, living, style, the green movement, world news, and comedy, and is a top destination for news, blogs, and original content.
Nigerian Arts Ambassador who became the first place winner of the prestigious United Nations International Art Competition amongst 61 countries. His entry "Girls and a Greener Environment"chronicles the life of a girl-child from infancy to adulthood and the values she acquires along the paths of life.
An internationally exhibited and award winning multi-media artist best known for her collages addressing the African diaspora. Mutu was born in Kenya and is now based and represented in New York by Barbara Gladstone. She has been named winner of Deutsche Bank's first "Artist of the Year" award.
An internationally exhibited photographer, professor at SVA and Chair of MFA Photography at Bard. Penelope Umbrico currently has a solo exhibition at LMAKprojects and work in the permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art; International Center of Photography andMetropolitan Museum of Art.
A Pulitzer Prize in Drama Finalist for her play Bulrusher and a member of New Dramatists. Eisa wrote and performed Angela’s Mixtape, named a best of 2009 by The New Yorker and received an Obie Award for her performance in the Broadway rock musical Passing Strange, now a film directed by Spike Lee.
Poets, performers, print-makers, dancers, muralists, and designers, Alixa and Naima have sharpened their art as a tool for popular education, community organizing, and personal transformation. Climbing PoeTree have blazed stages from Oakland to Atlanta, South Africa to Cuba. Climbing PoeTree’s uses their art to expose injustice, heal from violence, and generate vision to help us all imagine a more just and compassionate world.
Victor Maog, a New York City-based stage director and educator, investigates one's place in the world and collaborates with some of the nation's most compelling artists. He creates plays and musicals that inspire a dialogue, push theatricality, and reach out to both mainstream and marginalized audiences. Considered "one of the nation's leading young Asian-American directors" (Denver Post), his award-winning work has reached over half the continental United States.
The Life Stories Youth Ensemble, the collaborative education project between Urban Arts Partnership and The New Group, selected five emerging playwrights to serve as writers for their inaugural Playwrights in Residence Program. Jon Kern, Josh Koenigsberg, Natalia Naman, Dominique Morisseau and Harrison Rivers partnered with high school student actors to create five original one-acts that were performed at the New Group’s Acorn Theater from April 25-26th, 2010.
Gaby is a veteran performer of The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway. Her theater work, includes The Sugar Syndrome, Third and Suburbia. She has been in numerous films such as The Man Without a Face, Now and Then, This Is My Life, Field of Dreams, Sleepless in Seattle andSevered Ways: The Norse Discovery of America.
Michael Kenneth Williams was named by USA Today as one of the “10 Best Reasons to Watch Television” and Barack Obama’s favorite. He played the legendary “Omar Little” on HBO’s The Wire, had a principal role in The Philanthropist and is currently a series regular on the new Martin Scorsese HBO series, Boardwalk Empire. Recent Films, include Life During Wartime TellTale, The Road and Brooklyn’s Finest. Williams started out his career as a dancer and choreographer, working on over 50 music videos and national concert tours. He also appeared in various productions with the prestigious National Black Theater through La’Mama Theater.
Francine Prose is the president of PEN American Center. She received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991 and has written over 20 books, from novels to short story collections to children’s books. Her novel Household Saints was adapted into a successful film in 1993. Francine is currently a Visiting Professor of Literature at Bard College.
Linus Roache best known to American audiences ad Michael Cutter on Law & Order and Dr. Thomas Wayne from Batman Begins, Linus Roache has appeared in over 30 films and television series. He is a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Stephen Belber has attended programs at Playwrights Horizons and The Julliard School, and is the winner of the Fringe NYC Overall Excellence Award in playwriting for his play Drifting Elegant. A former writer for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Belber’s feature film directorial debut was with 2008’s Management, starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn.
An icon of hip-hop culture and a pivotal part of the MTV News team, Sway Calloway has been a staple within music-news for more than a decade. Already a vanguard radio personality, record producer and hip-hop artist, Sway joined the MTV News team in Summer 2000 has been front and center for some of music and pop-culture’s biggest moments. Sway first caught the public's eye in the late '80s/ early '90s when he and his partner King Tech (Tech) staged break dancing and rap performances in and around their hometown of Oakland, California. Interscope enlisted him and Tech to produce an album called This or That, featuring artists such as Eminem, KRS-One and RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. In 2004 Sway was a key correspondent for MTV's Choose or Lose campaign. Sway served as MTV’s lead political correspondent during the 2008 presidential campaign, and throughout the course of the campaign, he sat down with President Barack Obama four times. Sway is an integral part of MTV News' annual live-event coverage of the MTV Video Music Awards and Grammy pre-show. Sway also serves as an MTV Executive Producer and brings new programming ideas to the station.
