Nasta’s capstone project, built for nineteen/i ask that i lay down in the vines: a dialogue, a fiber-meets-performance piece developed during her graduate studies, will be featured in the inaugural issue of , an experimental textile arts magazine scheduled for release this summer. The publication marks an important milestone for the project, which evolved over nearly two years through experimentation and interdisciplinary artistic practice.

In addition to the upcoming magazine feature, Nasta is contributing to a forthcoming fashion sustainability publication with Bloomsbury, currently in peer review. She is also continuing to develop new creative work inspired by 1960s paper dresses and their social and political messaging, building on conversations and feedback following her presentation at the last fall.

Alongside her creative practice, Nasta teaches sewing and fashion courses, sharing her passion for textile arts with emerging makers and young artists. She is also developing resources for a new project exploring historical fashion through classic plays and novels, further connecting performance, costume, literature, and material culture.

Through publication, teaching, and interdisciplinary research, Nasta’s work reflects the innovative and exploratory spirit fostered within Montclair’s Theatre Studies program.

“The program’s faculty were incredible mentors and co-researchers,” Spitz says. “I learned practical skills for higher education administration and student affairs, while also growing as an advocate and researcher.”

During her time in the program, Spitz presented workshops, guest lectures and community conversations on topics including racial equity, disability studies and fat liberation at Montclair, throughout Northern New Jersey and internationally. Her scholarship included peer-reviewed conference presentations at the and the , as well as publication of a peer-reviewed journal article focused on training equity-minded practitioners.

Among her recent presentations and public scholarship were “Student Experiences of Anti-Fatness in Higher Education” at the 2026 ACPA Annual Convention, “Safe and Brave Spaces” at the Collaborative World Building International Symposium in Vienna, and a keynote presentation, “Challenging Ableism for an Inclusive Future,” for the Township of Livingston’s Fashion-Able-Ally event.

Spitz has served as the Department Administrator for Art and Design for the past decade, where she has worked closely with faculty, staff, students, alumni and community partners. Her work has focused on improving efficiency while centering equitable and consistent administrative practices that support marginalized communities.

In recent years, her advocacy and service efforts have particularly focused on disabled and fat communities through collaborations with the Disability Caucus, Inclusive Excellence and the Office of Student Belonging. In 2025, she received a Presidential Excellence Award in the category of Advocacy and Allyship in recognition of that work.

“As both a professional staff member and graduate student, Stephanie exemplifies the values of equity-minded leadership and engaged scholarship.”

Her dissertation examines how fashion expression and cultural identity evolve through translations and visual adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Originally published in 1865 by Lewis Carroll, the text has been reinterpreted across languages, cultures, and historical periods. Through an analysis of accompanying illustrations and dress depicted on characters, the research explores how clothing, aesthetics, and visual culture reflect the values, social norms, and identities of the societies in which each adaptation was produced and read. The study highlights how cultures continually reimagine a classic European narrative.

In support of her dissertation research, Alexandra was also awarded the Margaret and Marshall Bartlett Research Fellowship.

She presented portions of her dissertation research at multiple academic conferences, including the in Baltimore, Maryland, in November 2025, as well as the virtual symposium in July 2025.

In addition to her dissertation research, Alexandra has contributed scholarship focused on fashion, visual culture, and American identity. Her chapter, “Louboutin’s Red: Using Color to Connect France’s Past and Present,” appeared in (2020). She also authored an essay on the musical 1776 published in , edited by Charlene Mires and Jean R. Soderlund and published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Cameron has danced around the world, but never in a venue as large as Prudential Center in Newark, where 4,251 students will receive their diplomas over two ceremonies.

“I’m not going to be able to have a dress rehearsal, so I’m trying to put myself in a place of calm,” Cameron says.

For him, though, this moment is as much about what comes next as what happens on stage. Drawing on those years as a performer, his MFA work at Montclair has focused on how that experience can translate into teaching – using everyday gestures to make dance more accessible and to expand what “counts” as dance.

Expanding what counts as dance

Much of his graduate research has explored everyday actions as choreographic material, starting with familiar movement and building layered performance out of it.

“I’ve spent much of my life hearing people say they can’t dance, that they have two left feet, or that dance is only for the trained,” he says. “As an artist, I’ve become increasingly committed to challenging those beliefs and to expanding how dance is understood, created and experienced.”

His culminating project, Again, But Different, built an entire performance from familiar movement. Dance Professor Elizabeth McPherson, MFA Dance coordinator, says Cameron “approached every single assignment with insight and depth of thinking, often bringing in personal examples from his own teaching practice.” His thesis, she notes, used everyday gestures – often in humorous ways – “to show just how meaningful they can be when structured for performance.”

From stage to classroom

For Cameron, turning ordinary actions into choreography is another way to invite people in, and Montclair’s low‑residency MFA in Dance gave him the structure to pursue that work. The two‑year program features asynchronous online study and summers spent inside the Montclair dance studios.

“We were sweating and moving and doing all the creative practices that we could physically,” mixed with academics in dance technology and media, anatomy and movement analysis.

Montclair also let him step into the role he’d been working toward by giving him classroom experience teaching Dance Appreciation to undergraduates.

I’m in such a happy place now. I’ve found that, at an older age, I can still be on stage, but that’s not my main focus. My main focus is to be an educator, to enjoy the benefits of being a dance professor.”

From Nutcracker kid to Commencement speaker

The roots of that commitment go back to his childhood in Lynn, Massachusetts. His parents, Paul and Claire Brewer, got him into lessons after he began dancing around the house, mimicking The Nutcracker’s Rat King. “My parents worked hard and made sacrifices so I could have opportunities to dance. My dad even sanded the studio floors at my dance school and took on extra work to help make my training possible,” he says.

“When I say I’d missed my moment, I tried one year of college at SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance right out of high school,” Cameron says. “Fourteen thousand dollars for out‑of‑state tuition was just too much for my family. I also wasn’t very focused. I just wanted to dance professionally.”

At 20, he left for Florida to take a job at Busch Gardens in Tampa. “I ended up staying with that company for almost 12 years, working on cruise ships, dancing around the world, and being a production corporate dancer,” he says.

From performer to pedagogue

After moving back to Boston, teaching was always in the back of his mind, but he refused to do it halfway. “I knew that when I was going to teach, I wanted to do it correctly, and I knew I needed an education to do that,” he says. “That’s not hyperbole.”

That chance came when his husband, Kell Cameron, a business school professor, got a job at the University of South Florida and Jason enrolled at Hillsborough College, a nearby community college, giving him affordable access to general education classes and dance coursework.

“Once I got this academic bug, I couldn’t stop,” he says. He transferred to the University of Tampa on scholarship, drawn to its focus on pedagogy. From there, his sights turned north.

“Montclair was what I’d had my mind set on for quite a while,” he says. “Their reputation in our little dance world is phenomenal.”

When he thinks about how far he’s come, his mind goes back to those early living‑room Nutcracker performances before he ever set foot in a studio. From there to world dance tours and now earning a Master of Fine Arts to become a teacher, Cameron says, “Dance is just a part of my being.”

“I’m just not kicking my face and doing triple pirouettes and all that kind of jazz much on stage anymore.”

This story is part of a series celebrating ����vlog’s graduates – students who embody the University’s mission to broaden access to exceptional learning opportunities and contribute to the common good.

The production featured an acclaimed cast that included Tony Award nominee Marc Kudsich and Drama Desk Award winner Andrea Burns, alongside four current Musical Theatre BFA students: Jack Gemmell, Genesis Harper, Diogo Ramirez, and Lussi Pearl Sal. It also featured two alumni, Darius Lee ’16 and Jadon Lopez ’23.

The workshop provided students with the opportunity to collaborated with established Broadway peformers, gaining valuable industry experience while contributing to the development of a new musical work.

Flynn is an award-winning director, writer, and educator who has created two educational programs and several new musicals. Formerly the Director of Musical Theatre at the Stella Adler Conservatory, he developed curriculum integrating training for the singing actor with the Adler acting philosophy.

He also previously served as Artistic Director of the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York, and Artistic Director of the Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where he partnered with industry leaders including Stephen Schwartz, Jeanine Tesori, and Adam Bock while mentoring emerging artists from across the country.

Through projects like If I Could Go, Flynn continues to connect Montclair State students with  meaningful creative experiences within the theatre industry.

The Teaching Faculty Award honors faculty members for excellence and innovation in teaching, commitment to student success, and meaningful contributions to the University community. Driscoll was recognized for her innovative teaching practices, her dedication to fostering student learning and belonging, and the care and mentorship she brings to preparing the next generation of artists.

A leader within the Cali School of Music’s Opera program, Driscoll has played a key role in strengthening and expanding performance opportunities for students. The recognition follows closely on the heels of two successful Opera Workshop productions presented by the program this past weekend.

The 2026 Faculty Showcase highlighted the many ways Montclair State faculty advance civic purpose, democratic engagement, and community-engaged learning through teaching, research, and collaboration. In this milestone year marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the program emphasized the importance of preparing students to participate thoughtfully and meaningfully in a diverse and evolving democracy.

Other recipients of the 2026 Teaching Faculty Award included:

• Alfredo Toro Carnevali (Political Science)
• Claudia Cortese (Writing Studies)
• Lloyd Molander (Management)
• Yikang Shi (School of Computing).

The exhibition takes its title from Amitav Ghosh’s book Nutmeg’s Curse, which examines the lasting impact of colonialism and the spice trade in relation to today’s climate crisis. Influenced by Ghosh’s critique, Heffernan revisits the Dutch still-life tradition through monumental floral compositions filled with vivid color and expressive brushwork. Roses, tulips, poppies, and peonies erupt across the canvases in scene that shift between beauty and catastrophe.

Known for incorporating self-portraiture into her paintings, Heffernan departs from that approach in Nutmeg’s Curse, allowing the monumental blooms themselves to stand in as witnesses to environmental and human devastation. The exhibition continues her ongoing exploration of art history, environmental instability, and the role of painting as a call to awareness and action.

The two sophomores appear in “The Elementary Spacetime Show,” a show about a teenager who attempts suicide and ultimately finds herself in a cosmic Vaudevillian game show. The imaginative new musical by César Alvarez, with a book by Alvarez and Emily Orling, features more than two dozen Montclair student performers, stage managers and musicians. Performed at Montclair’s Alexander Kasser Theatre, students debuted a special concert presentation at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium on April 26.

Kavuma, who plays a giant mosquito and belts out a showstopping solo, says: “I’m very excited to say I made my Lincoln Center debut at 20 years old.”

For Smith, her role marks her debut production. “It’s an amazing thing. I get to tell people and put on my resume that I performed at Lincoln Center in New York City.”

Ryan Kasprzak, head of Musical Theatre at Montclair State, explained that the creative team behind “The Elementary Spacetime Show” was seeking a company of actors that they felt could sustain the musical in a full production. “We’re grateful that, once they got to work with our students, they felt this is a company of actors who are capable of carrying this piece.”

Despite the show’s heavy subject matter, “there is a surprising amount of levity, which helps the audience access the deeper questions about humanity and what it means to exist,” Kasprzak says.

Montclair students, faculty, and staff benefit from exceptional cultural engagement at Lincoln Center, located just across the Hudson River from campus. The iconic venue has showcased: an opera created by Professor Scott Richards of the Cali School of Music. Additionally, Montclair’s Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Assistant Professor Oscar Perez, performs annually at the renowned Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Most recently, Music History Assistant Professor Leah Batstone presented a pre-performance talk on Verdi’s La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera, an event attended by Cali School of Music Director Shea Scruggs, along with various faculty members and students.

About the Collaboration

The production came about because of a professional relationship between Alvarez and Theatre and Dance Professor Kathleen Kelley. Alvarez and Orling have been working on the musical for many years. “It has always been part of the plan to fully realize it with students,” Alvarez says. “‘The Elementary Spacetime Show’ is meant to be a space of transformation for young people, and the brilliant young artists at Montclair are the perfect people to bring it to life.”

The production includes students from first-years to seniors. According to Dante Green, a New York-based director who has collaborated with Alvarez and Orling for a decade, the students brought an essential authenticity to the storytelling.

“The students are incredibly talented and very mature and nuanced with their performances,” Green says. “The age of the Montclair students aligns perfectly with the characters, making it a very authentic casting and learning experience.”

Green also suggests that if the show continues development, there exists “a strong opportunity to continue collaborating with the students after this production is over.”

Why Montclair’s Musical Theatre Program Stands Out

Only 12 miles from New York, Montclair’s Musical Theatre program offers students the best of both worlds: Access and opportunities to audition for productions while maintaining a mid-size campus life and small class sizes.

“We are uniquely situated geographically, in the sense that students get a four-year career launch,” Kasprzak says. “They’re going to spend time in New York City, they’re going to go to auditions, see a bunch of different shows, build these creative relationships, and that’s a huge advantage.”

That proximity and the valuable industry connections and experiences attracted both Longview, Texas native Kavuna and Jacksonville, Florida native Smith. “It’s very reassuring to know that our professors are actively working. They’re in the industry. Everyday,” Smith says.

Montclair’s Musical Theatre program has seen an 86% increase in auditions for admission over the last two years, Kasprzak says, noting that this year, 1,600 students auditioned for 20 spots.

“It has become extremely competitive to get into the program, so we’re really taking the top 5% of applicants,” Kasprzak says. “So, while the freshmen maybe don’t have any expectations, I know how gifted they are and how talented and how unique.”

Vibrant Theater Scene in the Garden State

�ѴDzԳٳ���������’s�� program also offers myriad local and regional opportunities, says Head of Theatre Studies Jessica Brater, who directed a student production, a collaboration between Montclair and , at the  in Montclair. “The Quilt Keepers,” a play written by Montclair alumni, Dania Ramos, BFA Acting ’98, weaves a tale of Montclair’s 4th ward.

“Although we’re lucky to be so close and connected to the NYC theater community, there is an active and exciting professional theater world right here in New Jersey,” she says. “Many of those theaters have employed our students both before and after graduation because of the relationships we have built with them.”

The Vanguard Theater’s Producing Artistic Director Janeece Freeman Clark is also an adjunct professor at Montclair. “I know firsthand the caliber of talent, curiosity and heart these students bring. They have been collaborators in every sense, and their various roles of responsibility mirror the reality of professional theater in a way that a classroom alone simply can’t.”

How Theatre Students Engage with the Local Community

Building a show from the ground up, based on an historic neighborhood for a local theater production, helps fulfill the University’s larger role of benefitting local communities, Brater says. “Part of the University’s mission is to bring the resources of the University to benefit communities beyond the campus gates. This works both ways – faculty and students benefit from what we learn from communities, and it helps us in our work as a university to prepare well-rounded citizens,” Brater says.

As a bonus, she adds: “It demonstrates for both students and community members that the arts can be a powerful tool for activism, education and collective memory.”

Advice for Future Theatre Studies Students

Montclair students in “The Quilt Keepers,” which was two years in the making from development to production, have valuable advice for prospective theater students.

• Elijah N. Maldonado, a senior Theatre Studies major, values how the major encourages students “as artists and theater makers to branch out and try new things.” He urges others to seek faculty support for guidance.
• Maxwell Hollis, a sophomore who has explored both acting and lighting design, emphasizes that “professors are willing to work with you one-on-one” and advises students to never be afraid to ask for help to get the most out of the program.
• ����Ծ��ǰ���Kaitlyn Valentin, who gained skills in management and design, suggests students “try everything once” and volunteer for student-run shows. She believes that “a theater person can”t get a job if you’re not multifaceted.”

Join the Next Generation of Storytellers

Are you ready to take your craft from the classroom to the local, area or world stage? Explore our BFA in Musical Theatre, BA in Theatre Studies or many other programs in the College of the Arts.��Apply today.

A central theme of Walker-Kuhne’s talk was the idea that audience development is really about relationships. Rather than expecting people to come to traditional arts spaces, she encouraged organizations to meet communities where they are, by building trust, listening, and creating environments that feel genuinely welcoming. She emphasized that this work goes beyond one-time initiatives, calling for a deeper, long-term commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging that is woven into an organization’s mission and leadership.

Walker-Kuhne also highlighted the role of education and emerging leaders in shaping the future of the arts. By equipping students and young professionals with the tools to think critically about access and inclusion, she noted, institutions can continue evolving in ways that reflect broader and more diverse audiences. Her remarks were especially relevant for the Montclair State community, where students are already stepping into that role and exploring how their work can make a meaningful impact.

Throughout the discussion, Walker-Kuhne returned to a powerful idea that arts have a unique ability to bring people together, offering connection, joy, and a shared sense of belonging. In a time when “third spaces” are disappearing and social interaction is increasingly digital, her message served as both a reminder and a call to action, inviting everyone in the room to become a champion for the arts in their own way.

The program highlights the breadth of scholarly and creative achievement across the university, with featured publications also available through the .

New this year, the event will include “Lightning Talks,” offering brief presentations from invited colleagues who will share insights into their recent work and creative processes. In addition, live music performed by students will provide an engaging backdrop to the afternoon.

Desserts and coffee will be served.

The College of the Arts and associated community will be represented by a selection of faculty and staff whose recent publications and creative works exemplify the innovation and impact of the university’s arts community. Feature faculty are listed below, and listed within

• Marissa Rothkopf Bates
• Camen Cicero
• Julian Costa
• Corey Ann Haydu
• Aaron Helgeson
• Bryan Powell
• Marissa Silverman
• Nasim Niknafs
• Jaime Parker Stickle
• Suzanne M. Trauth
• Michael Viega
• Andeline dos Santos
• Barbara L. Wheeler
• Maxine Steinman