Anthony Zollo Credit: Max Linsky

Anthony Zollo Credit: Max Linsky

For last year's Fall Arts Preview and its spring sequel, we spotlighted 20 under-25 artists to watch, half from Hillsborough and half from Pinellas. Then you know what we did? We watched 'em. Not all of our chosen ones have made major career breakthroughs, but a few have — and virtually all of them appear to be on a promising track. Here's how several of them have fared since appearing in the Planet.

• David Brinkmann — He directed and co-produced Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit last month at the Palladium in an innovative staging that featured a cast and crew made entirely of students and alums of PCCA.

• Alana Clapp — She proved her stage-managing mettle at the Planet's Sensory Overload event in March, where she ran multiple shows inside the Cuban Club's theater. Alana's currently working on the lighting design for the musical The Wild Party at the Palladium Theatre, and over the summer she worked as an assistant to the master electrician for an off-Broadway musical, For Christ's Sake, in New York City. She'll be attending Carnegie Mellon University in the fall.

• Shara DeWitt — She's moving to Portland, Ore., and hopes to enter the printmaking program at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her work has been published in an annual compilation called Raise Up #2.

• Rosharra Francis — Now a freshman at SMU, Rosharra won a $10,000 scholarship and first prize in the vocal category in the Walker's Rising Stars competition in May. She also received the Performing Arts Scholarship Award from Columba Bush, and as one of the two highest-scoring scholarship recipients in music won a trip to Rome, where she sang for the American ambassador to the Vatican.

• Dylan Glatthorn — The PCCA grad and sophomore at NYU's Steinhardt School of Music spent part of this summer doing a workshop of his musical Manifesto at Studio@620. This month he's serving as musical director for The Wild Party, a PCCA alum project at Studio@620 Aug. 18-20.

• Jack Holloway — He bagged Best Actor in the Planet's Best of the Bay issue last year. He's staying busy as a member of the Hat Trick company, and acted in a Stageworks production of Talley's Folly, among other roles.

• Ricky Otto — Erika Schneider of Blue Acier gallery informs us that Otto has been living in Brazil since last October, studying capoeira, a martial arts discipline, as well as painting.

• Davis Rideout — Now a senior at PCCA, he just keeps on winning stuff, including two more Scholastics National Awards — one for an abstract drawing of a pizza and the other for a lithocoal landscape.

• Jackie Rivera — The actress finished her first year at New World School of the Arts in Miami, and performed in a Stageworks production of The Miser at the Shimberg.

• Calvin Royal — The dancer featured on January's cover won a full-tuition scholarship for 2006-2007 at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of NYC's American Ballet Theatre — one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the world. Like his classmate at PCCA, Rosharra Francis, he was also a first-place winner and $10,000 scholarship recipient at the Walker's Rising Stars Show.

• Squirrels Gone Wild — The band, which changed its name to Hat Trick Heroes last year, played Tropical Heatwave, made the semifinals of the nationwide Emergenza talent search, shared a stage with Ratt, REO Speedwagon and others at the Summer Jam in De Moines, and released its debut EP, If You're Scared … Turn Around.

• Josh Sullivan — The comic artist compiled a digest-sized book of 64 one-panel cartoons called Toenails, and did a two-page comic for the Young American Comics book Bizmar. His ska band, Can't Do It, did an 11-show tour in Michigan in June.

• Jose Valentino — Adding to his cache of awards, the jazz/classical flutist (and saxophonist) was named a winner in this year's Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition. Of all the flute submissions, Valentino's was judged the best.

• T. Scott Wooten — He directed Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, which played at Studio@620. He's slated to act in American Stage productions of All The Great Books (Abridged) and Suddenly Last Summer, and expects to finish a sequel to his Mr. Wooten's Big Nite! within the next few months.

• Anthony Zollo — At the end of August, the painter returns to the Ringling School of Design for his junior year. He's participated in a number of shows, among them Dirty But Sophisticated and Neo-Trash's Pre Dance Party Party.

We weren't able to keep an eye on all of our Young Artists to Watch from 2005-2006, so please let us know if you'd like to update readers on the achievements of any we didn't mention. We'll be profiling another batch of talented under-25ers in January; if you'd like to make a nomination, e-mail david.warner@weeklyplanet.com.

Fall Arts 2006: Choose Me

What to Watch For

This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2006.