Skip to navigation
Skip to content

[Wesleyan University]

Issue 14 · Spring 2009
← back to Index

The Lowdown

By David Low ’76

Majora Carter ’88

Majora Carter ’88 was featured in February on HBO’s The Black List: Volume 2, which focuses on the achievements of a variety of African Americans. Carter discussed her work as an environmental activist. As founder and executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, she rallied an economically challenged community to create Hunt’s Point Riverside Park and began a program to train people in green jobs.

Carter now heads the Majora Carter Group, a green-economic development consulting film. She also hosts the NPR radio series The Promised Land and is a host for the Sundance Channel’s The Green, the network’s weekly primetime destination devoted to environmental programming. The Green includes the series Eco Heroes, and Season 2 began on April 21. Each of the 13 episodes in the series features an interview between Carter and an innovator who is fueling the Green Movement and has been an inspiration to Carter in both her life and work.

Carter speaks regularly around the country and in other parts of the world about environmental issues and creating green jobs. The New York Times recently noted her as a keynote speaker at February’s Power Shift 2009 in Washington, D.C., where activists gathered to push for federal action on global warming.

In early March, her first speaking engagement in Toronto at the University of Toronto was sold out. In an interview in Toronto’s Eye Weekly, Carter said: “What I want to do is create more opportunities for people to get less poor. That’s why we’re so focused on green jobs, why we’re so focused on the development of a healthy horticultural infrastructure that’s supported by the development of more green jobs and making sure that we’re getting those jobs to the people that need the work the most.”

Natalia Alonso ’00

Dancer Natalia Alonso ’00 was the subject of the cover story for the August 2008 issue of Dance magazine. The article described how Alonso tried out four times for Ballet Hispanico and how once she was accepted to the company, she stayed for seven years, dancing lead roles in almost every ballet and “maturing into a highly versatile dancer distinguished by her long, clean polished line; hip-swiveling bravado; and stunning stage magnetism.” Alonso has been dancing since the age of four. She joined the New York-based troupe Complexions Contemporary Ballet last year.

The troupe recently traveled to Australia, where Alonso was interviewed by Australian Stage in February. When asked about how she came to join the company, she said: “I was attracted to the style of repertory and its fusion of ballet with other types of contemporary dance styles and themes. I am amazed by the caliber of each individual dancer and artist. The company has always been known for housing the world’s best dancers, and the directors encourage excellence.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda ’ 02

Last June, strong>Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 saw the show that he first conceived at Wesleyan, In the Heights, win the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical. Miranda received his own Tony Award for composing the score. He was also nominated for a Tony for Best Actor in a musical and continued playing the leading role of Usnavi until February of this year. But since he and his show received the Tony, he has been incredibly busy. Last November, Universal Pictures acquired the rights to produce a feature film based on In the Heights. Miranda will coproduce the film with Meryl Poster and may star in the film.

In February, In the Heights received a Grammy Award for best original cast album, with Miranda and orchestrator Bill Sherman ’02 as album producers. Miranda contributed songs to a new version of the musical Working, based on Studs Terkel’s classic book. The show opened on March 12 at San Diego’s Old Globe Theater.

He has written Spanish lyrics and dialog for the new Broadway revival of West Side Story, which opened to excellent reviews on March 19 at the Palace Theater. Miranda also recently signed a development deal with Dreamworks Animation. He will work on an animated musical feature with High School Musical screenwriter Peter Barsocchini for his first project. This June he will teach songwriting at Northwestern University for the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project.

Please take some time to share with your fellow alumni what you’ve been up to recently! Send us commentary, photos and/or articles of your latest happenings. Please forward your submissions to Sandy Tello ’06, 77 Pearl Street, Middletown, CT 06459 or stello@wesleyan.edu.