Alumni News and Notes: Fall 2025

The acclaimed Broadway show Maybe Happy Ending won the 2025 Tony Award for Best Musical, notching the ninth Tony for legendary lead producer Jeffrey Richards ’69 (shown here receiving the award from Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, Hon. ’15). The show originated in South Korea and had its US premiere in 2020 in Atlanta, where Richards first saw its Broadway potential. (Photo courtesy of Michele Crowe/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Author Paul Yoon ’02 received a 2025 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, honoring his creative work. Yoon has written five books and is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship.  

The late Charles Stone Jr. ’49, P’79, ’82, GP’11, ’15 received a 2025 Pulitzer Prize in the category of Special Citations and Awards. Stone was honored for his work covering the Civil Rights Movement, his role as the first Black columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News, and for co-founding the National Association of Black Journalists 50 years ago.

As a staff member at The Washington Post, Miriam Berger ’12 was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in the category of International Reporting for journalism documenting the Middle East conflict and its impact on the Gaza Strip.  

Jordan Sears ’18 was named an assistant coach of the Dallas Mavericks under head coach Jason Kidd for the 2025–26 season. Spending the last two seasons as the head coach of the Texas Legend, the Mavericks G League affiliate, Sears has previously worked for the Mavericks as the head video coordinator. 

The Chicago Cubs have signed President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer ’96 to a multi-year contract extension. Hoyer has been with the organization since 2011 and was integral in assembling the Cubs’ 2016 World Series team. Hoyer is a Wesleyan Hall of Famer, holding the single-season (7) and all-time (11) records for saves in baseball.  

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky ’02 has been named executive director of the Center for Community Media at the Craig Newark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. She is an award-winning investigative reporter, leader in collaborative journalism practices, and the co-founder of Resolve Philly, a community-rooted journalism enterprise that has become a highly regarded news media outlet.  

Bill Sherman ’02 is a cohost of the podcast Questlove Supreme, which won a 2025 Webby Award in the Music category. The podcast, which features interviews with music legends and cultural icons, also won the People’s Voice Award. Guests have included Usher, Michelle Obama, Chris Rock, Steve Miller, Chaka Khan, and Weird Al.  

Leon Ristov ’21 was among 10 emerging filmmakers to be awarded a Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe Fellowship. The year-long program includes grant funding and creative and career development opportunities. Ristov’s films have screened at the Sarajevo Film Festival, NFFTY (The National Film Festival for Talented Youth), and more than two dozen international festivals.  

Conceptual artist and choreographer Abdul Latif ’97 received a $50,000 Culpepper Arts and Culture project grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The award, which supports innovative creative work, is directed toward Latif’s project Off The Wall, being developed by the Arthur Avilés Typical Theatre of the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. This is the second time Latif has been awarded a Culpepper grant.  

Tembi Locke ’92 has a new memoir. Published solely as an audiobook read by the author, Someday, Now addresses themes of family relationships, life changes, and the power of returning to one’s roots. Locke is the author of the New York Times best seller From Scratch.  

Renowned guitarist David Leisner ’75 received the Leyenda Foundation’s 2026 Celedonio Romero Lifetime Achievement Award. The foundation noted that Leisner’s career “has been defined by brilliance and versatility as an electrifying performing artist, a celebrated composer, and a transformative teacher.”  

Kevin Prufer ’92 has been named the 2026 Texas poet laureate. He continues as professor of English and director of the creative writing program at the University of Houston.  

Eli Durst ’11 received a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship in photography. He teaches photography at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Alana Perino ’11 was awarded the 2025 Aperture Portfolio Prize. This major award seeks to “discover, exhibit, and publish new talents in photography.” Perino is also a performance artist and sculptor based in Providence, Rhode Island.  

An experimental theater piece by Anthony Nikolchev ’08 had its world premiere in June at the 2025 Venice Biennale Teatro, a two-week long festival that was curated this year by Willem Dafoe. Nikolchev wrote, directed, and performed in The (Un)Double, which was inspired by Dostoyevsky’s novel The Double.  

Reunion + Commencement Weekend 

More than 2,000 alumni, family members, and friends joined faculty and staff on campus to celebrate the 2025 graduates and the reunion classes of 1950 through 2020 for Reunion + Commencement Weekend May 22–25.