In CL's 2015 Fall Arts Issue, we caught up with Calvin Royal III, the accomplished young dancer who graced the cover of our second survey of promising young artists under 25 in 2006 and is now a corps member of NYC’s elite American Ballet Theatre. So this year we got to wondering: What happened to our very first class of 25-and-unders, who appeared in the pages of what was then the Weekly Planet in the fall of 2005? A lot, as it turns out. Here are updates on those talented folks (plus some news on a few of our more recent alums).
Then: 18, Blake grad, cover girl for ‘10 Under 25: Hillsborough’ — singled out for her versatility by CL theater critic Mark Leib.
Since then: BFA from Miami’s New World School of the Arts, followed by a variety of roles in professional theater in NYC and Florida (including a well-received turn as Hermia in freeFall’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2011). Co-founder of The Project, Miami’s only site-specific theater company (Knight arts grant recipients in 2013), she’s now 29, living in Brooklyn and working as a director, writer, designer and stage manager in addition to performing. “I refer to myself now as a Freelance Theatremaker,” she said in an email, “something the late Greg Bierce, a mentor of mine, instilled in me back at Blake.”
Blast from the past: “I remember that issue, I think my parents still have stacks of it in their closets.”
SQUIRRELS GONE WILD
Then: Mikey Rumore (bass/vocals), 15; Santino Rumore (guitar/vocals/sax), 12; and Chris Peters (drums/vocals), 15; played South by Southwest in 2005, amidst rumors of major-label interest.
Since then: SGW morphed into Hat Trick Heroes, whose music (as described in 2008 by then-CL music critic Wade Tatangelo) was “a potent fusion of classic rock and grunge that’s at once radio-friendly and ballsy. It’s gnat’s-ass tight.”
We’ll let Santino take over the narrative from there: “We had a record/publishing deal with Combustion Music in Nashville and recorded a full-length album in Nashville that was eventually mixed and mastered at Blackbird Studios with John McBride (Martina McBride’s husband), who took a good interest in the band. We followed that with a few tours and shows with the likes of Robin Trower, Bret Michaels, Ted Nugent and more. As we all grew older and the state of the music industry continued to be up in the air, we disbanded a little while after that. Chris currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa, and still plays drums in that area. Mikey is currently an English professor at Lehman College in the Bronx and lives in Manhattan. I am taking over our family business and currently run and manage Paragon Music Center as we grow and position ourselves to operate for another 50 years (next March marks 50 years in business). I also currently play guitar with the local band [and Best of the Bay favorite] Dropin Pickup, which has opened for bands like Misterwives, Bleachers, Silversun Pickups and I’m playing on the new EP Bearings Lost that is to be released next month.”
MICHAEL IPPOLITO
Then: 20, studying at U of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music after a semester at USF, high school in Brandon, and studies with William Wiedrich of the Tampa Bay Youth Symphony, who said, “We’re going to see great things from him.”
Since then: Went on to Juilliard, where he studied with renowned contemporary composer John Corigliano; won numerous awards and commissions; had his music performed by such august ensembles as the symphony orchestras of Chicago and Milwaukee; and won high praise from the New York Times. Now Assistant Professor of Composition at Texas State University, he’s raising funds to release and distribute his debut album as a composer in collaboration with the Attacca Quartet, via BELTA, an Austin, TX organization that supports artists. belta.org/launchpad/201607/songlines-attacca-quartet-plays-music-michael-ippolito
Then: 24, USF grad getting great notices from CL’s Mark Leib for a wide variety of roles, from “good ol’ boy” (in Lone Star at Bayshore Productions) to “sputtering hothead” (in All My Sons at Stageworks) to “gentle, bearded Jewish accountant” (in Talley’s Folley at Stageworks); dreaming of new frontiers (“Something about Chicago really excites me”).
Since then: Chicago, schmicago, he’s made a life and a career here in Tampa. He co-founded two companies: Hat Trick Theatre (“specializing in fun, accessible works for audiences and giving new actors in the area a place to start”) and the Tampa Shakespeare Festival (“specializing in bringing free Shakespeare to the public”). He’s played Macbeth and Hamlet, won a Jeff Norton Dream Grant, BOTB Best Actor awards, and a $10,000 first place acting prize in a competition sponsored by the National Society of Arts and Letters (NSAL) in 2009. Now he’s drama department chair at Ruth Eckerd Hall’s performing arts school.
In short: “I’m teaching a bunch and trying to make good theater with people I care about.”
RICKY OTTO
Then: 22, BFA from USF, praised by art critic Mary Mulhern for bold monotypes that “avoided the pitfalls of pop cliches common to today’s BFAS” and singled out by Bleu Acier gallery owner Erika Greenberg-Schneider as an “interesting painter whose… surfaces allow you to wander”; planning to study the Afro-Brazilian movement practice of capoeira on an island off the southern coast of Brazil.
Since then: Showed at Bleu Acier, now works as supervisor in family construction firm, CCS of Sarasota, where he heads the stucco division and is hailed on its website as “a renaissance man in Portland cement and EIFS systems.”
ANTHONY ZOLLO
Then: 19, Blake grad, sophomore at Ringling School of Design, into painting, printmaking, but also skating and interior design; singled out by mentor Jay Giroux as part of a new wave of “determined and multi-talented creative thinkers in the Tampa Bay area.”
Since then: He showed in multiple local galleries, museums, and events, played drums with Best of the Bay-winning Geri X — and now owns and operates a design/build outfit in Brooklyn, NY, called Studio Zollo, designing and building custom furniture and interiors for retail and residential clients.
And right now: “I’m currently in Michigan in the U.P., building a timber frame cabin in the woods.”
Then: 22, Blake and USF grad; had been with Moving Current Dance Collective for only a year and a half, but was already a “standout” in 2005, wrote Mark Leib, shining in partnering, improv and character work.
Since then: He continued dancing with Moving Current and became the company’s co-artistic director (with Cindy Hennessy) three years ago. But his career was jeopardized in 2014 when he was hit by a car while riding his motorcyle; the bike was totaled and he wound up in a three-day coma in the ICU. But, he says, “I was blessed”: He came out of the ordeal with only “an ankle that doesn’t bend as well as it used to.” Over the last three years he has been co-developing an innovative partnering technique for modern dance with his own partner (in life and in art), Erin Cardinal. Together they have taught and presented at festivals and schools across the country. He’s also continued running his family’s anti-freeze recycling business, which recently became part of a conglomerate of which he’s managing partner.
Motorcyles? Antifreeze? Dancing? “Any chance I can to break a stereotype, I’m very excited about that.”
And besides: “Once I started riding motorcycles, within a few months I had more motorcycle people coming to my concerts than dance people.”
JOSE VALENTINO
Then: 17, Freedom High grad, first tenor saxophonist in the Florida Music Educators Assn. 2005 All-State Jazz Band, headed for USF (which he chose over Juilliard and Berklee) to study jazz performance and business.
Since then: Won (among many accolades) 42 International Downbeat Student Music Awards; earned a master’s at the U of Miami; collaborated on albums with the likes of Chick Corea, Paquito D’Rivera and Aaron Neville; performed with his ensembles, Crossmatch Vamp, José Valentino Band, and Touch, at such top venues as Carnegie Hall and Tanglewood; was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2015 for his album I Make You Want to Move while studying for his Ph.D. at USF’s School of Music; and is now Assistant Professor of Music Business and Music Production, and Applied Instructor of Commercial Electric Bass and Flute at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee.
SHARA DeWITT
Then: 24, finishing up her BFA at HCC, making prints acclaimed by the Planet’s then-art critic Mary Mulhern for their light touch and fresh imagery.
Since then: She showed her work in several exhibitions and galleries in the Tampa Bay area and now lives in Nashville.
MARIA JUAN
Then: 23, Blake and USF grad, performing all over the place, including Ybor (the Italian Club), Miami (with Moving Current Dance Collective at the Florida Dance Festival), and Paris (with a small troupe led by USF dance professor Jeanne Travers), and teaching at the Elsa Pardo Dance Center.
Since then: Married, living in Gainesville, but still active in dance — and still a member of Moving Current, now as the director of marketing and communications. Maria spent some time in San Diego, CA performing in works by choreographers from Switzerland, LA and Mexico and many more. She also co-founded youturnarts.com, an annual performance event based in San Diego and received the San Diego Foundation’s Arts and Culture Individual Artist Fellowship Grant under the sponsorship of John Malashock and the Malashock Dance Company, where she created and produced a dance film, Among the Mad [Relapse], which will have its Florida premiere in the Moving Current Dance Collective’s fall concert at USF on October 15th and 16th.
AND MORE RECENTLY…
After that 2005 cover story on young artists to watch for, we returned to the format at intervals over the years. Here are just a few of the talented folks we've heard from of late; watch this space for more as updates come in.
Then: A PCCA grad entering his sophomore year in the John Wells Directing Program at Carnegie Mellon, he'd just finished running a summer repertory season at The Studio@620 and had already had two of his plays published by Samuel French (no relation, though he is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning Times reporter Thomas French).
Since then: In college he worked on a project that married theater with robotics and wrote a play about “a futuristic world… where the only source of water is a mysterious little girl;" after graduating he co-directed a new musical “about Jimmy Carter and aliens” for the National Theater for Student Artists in New York, a company created to give opportunities to students under 22. Freaks, his play about three friends reconnecting with each other at the beach, was set in St. Pete and staged in an award-winning production at the New York Fringe Festival in 2014. He's now living in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn and has snagged a number of prestigious gigs, including assistant directing at Hartford Stage and working for two summers at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, this year as literary assistant. This fall he's got two exciting projects in the offing: He’s one of just two directors selected to be fellows at Playwrights Horizons in NYC, and he's staging a musical in Brooklyn inspired by the amazing-but-true fact that the Beatles once asked Stanley Kubrick of Dr. Strangelove fame to direct them in a live-action version of The Lord of the Rings. It never happened, but the musical imagines what it might have been (Yoko, of course, is Golllum).
JOHN PFINGSTEN (Fall 2011) and ABIGALE PFINGSTEN (Fall 2015)
Then: John was 11, a gifted pianist inspired by the example of his older sister, Abigale; the two occasionally joined forces in state competitions, winning for their piano duets. Both were standouts at the Patel Conservatory. With numerous other interests (including tennis for John and musical theater for Abigale) and a younger brother, Samuel, who was also a talented pianist, they were (and are) part of one impressive family.
Since then: Abigale packed more into her senior year at Steinbrenner H.S. than many students do in all four years. A vocal apprentice and assistant conductor of two choral groups at the Patel Conservatory, she also initiated and mentored a project with students of West Tampa Elementary that culminated in a bilingual recital with the students, “so the English-speaking students would be able to learn some songs in a foreign language (Spanish) while the Spanish-speaking students would have the chance to sing in their own native language.” She also played in numerous vocal recitals, as well as piano recitals with John and Samuel; sang with the Steinbrenner Varsity Choir; and applied and auditioned for college. She's headed to Carnegie Mellon this fall, but this won't be the last we hear of her or her brothers, we suspect.
HANNAH BEACH, HANNAH BETTES (both Fall 2011) and HANNAH STANFORD (Fall 2013)
Then: Three similarly named and brilliantly talented teenaged ballerinas from the Patel Conservatory.
Since then: Bettes joined the corps de ballet of Boston Ballet in 2014, and both Beach and Stanford went on to the Royal Ballet School in London. Stanford is currently taking time off from the school, and Beach, who graduated from the school in 2013 after skipping a year, joined Hamburg Ballet in Germany for a year. Now she's made a leap into another field, reports her mom: “During that year, Hannah chose to leave the ballet field and pursue a college degree instead. She is now a Junior at Saint Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana, studying to be a speech pathologist.”
THE QUIXTAN BROTHERS (Fall 2013)
Then: Luis, Francisco, Christian and Kevin (21, 19, 18, and 16, respectively) played multiple instruments in the Patel Youth Symphony and as the Quixtan Quartet. Their parents, both doctors, had fled to Florida from their native Guatemala in 2004, fearing robbery and kidnapping, and serendipitously met a widowed army vet in Brandon who housed them for six years and bought musical instruments for the children (including youngest sibling Sandra).
Since then: Luis reports, “My parents have recently revived their residency and now are waiting their time to become citizens. Christian, Kevin, Sandra, and myself have also applied for our citizenship! Both my parents have recently had the opportunity to go see their families in Guatemala, now that they can legally leave the country. Francisco graduated this year from Florida Southern College with a double major in clarinet performance and music education. He is now the new band director at Monroe Middle School and woodwind assistant at Robinson High School in Tampa. Christian is a senior at Florida Southern and is majoring in music management. Kevin is in HCC getting his associate's degree. He plans on going to college and getting his masters in education. Sandra is a junior in high school, interested in art and character design. I am planning on getting my music education degree when it becomes possible. In the meantime I have been doing repairs and restorations on musical instruments and now have almost mastered the art of musical instrument hand engraving. I am one of the youngest self-taught engravers in the country. I am very excited and proud to be able to bring back what is considered by some to be a dying art.”
GABRIELA “GABIE” BARNES (Fall 2013)
Then: An acting and singing standout at Patel — featured on two count ’em two billboards — she was headed to the University of Tampa Honors Program, where she planned to audition for shows but also work backstage. "I'm never happy doing just one thing,” she told us.
Since then: She finished UT in three, count 'em three, years — and is headed this fall to the University of Miami for graduate study in music business and entertainment industries.
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 1, 2016.