A Life in the Arts

On a cool December morning, the familiar chime of a Zoom waiting room echoes through the Ruth Taylor Recital Hall as students file in for the final “Arts and Ideas” class of the semester. One by one, Trinity University alumni appear across the projection screen, adjusting cameras and lighting and exchanging greetings with each other and Religion Lecturer James Ivy ’78, M’80, Ph.D.

Ivy has convened these nine alumni for “A Life in the Arts” panel, the capstone for his First-Year Experience (FYE) course. He begins by asking the panelists when they realized they were going to pursue a career in the arts.

Some, like Jeffrey Watkins ’78 and Douglas Post ’79, knew early on before they even enrolled at Trinity.

Watkins’ father was a photographer, and they had a darkroom in their house. The process of developing images captivated the creative imagination of Watkins. He has taken that creative imagination to the stage as the artistic director of the Atlanta Shakespeare Company (ASC). In August 1995, under Watkins’ direction, ASC became the first American company to perform on the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe in London. ASC became the first American Shakespeare Company to complete Shakespeare’s 39-play canon in March 2011. The company completed the entire canon a second time in just eight years and two months. In January 2024, Watkins received the Sandra & Sidney Berger Fund & Award from the Shakespeare Theatre Association for outstanding talent and dedication to the works of William Shakespeare.

Growing up, Post’s parents discovered that it was cheaper to take him to the theater with them rather than hire a babysitter. He still remembers seeing the Organic Theater Company’s production of Warp.

“It was essentially a spoof of Marvel Comics because they weren’t able to get the rights to any of the Marvel characters. It was silly, funny, serious, rude, and loud, and I had never seen anything like it. That aesthetic stayed with me,” Post recalls. “I think I had worked on 50-something shows as a student at Trinity. When I graduated, I made a beeline back to Chicago.”

Post’s plays and musicals have been produced across the world, and he has been commissioned to write screenplays, teleplays, and radio adaptations of his scripts. As president of Long River Records, he has composed songs and incidental music for over 25 productions, and he is an instructor at the University of Chicago Graham School.

For other alumni on the panel, such as Charlie Athanas ’78, Tim Hedgepeth ’79, and Sarah Davis ’04, Trinity unlocked their way forward into the arts.

Entering Trinity with a dual interest in oceanography and drawing, Athanas points to a life-changing conversation with the late Bill Bristow that set him on the path to becoming a multidisciplinary artist. A directing class led Hedgepath to pursue his own career in directing and theatre instruction. Davis’ study abroad experience in Italy helped her see where she fit in the broader world of opera singers.

Peter Koelling ’78, Ph.D., and Jonathan Moore ’14, on the other hand, discovered their calling after Trinity.

Although he originally had aspirations to become a producer, Koelling’s career led him to public service. It began with the Peace Corps in South Korea, where he taught English and conducted teacher training seminars. He returned to the United States to earn his law degree, which he believed would better equip him to become a producer. In the end, Koelling became an accomplished legal scholar and public administration expert with extensive experience in academia, judicial administration, and international law.

From working as a law clerk for the Texas Supreme Court to serving as the chief of court management services for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague, Koelling acknowledges he did not end up where he thought he would be when he graduated from Trinity. However, he sees his court administrator work as similar to the role of a producer, with the judges as directors, the lawyers as actors, and the court administrator in charge of managing the show.

Moore is a stage manager of opera, ballet, and other art forms. His introduction to stage management came from a job with OPERA San Antonio. Since then, the venues for his shows have varied from traditional theaters across the country to a barn and a hot spring. In 2024, Moore joined the Seattle Opera as the production stage manager.

Bria Woods ’16, content director for KRTU and the youngest alum on the panel, believes her career is still unfolding.

“It would be disingenuous of me to say I had this all figured out. Many of these doors opened up before I was looking for them. I don’t know if I have any definitive stance yet on where my career is going, but now that I’m in my 30s, I’m starting to see how these puzzle pieces are fitting together,” Woods says.

Woods came to Trinity on a neuroscience scholarship, but her involvement with KRTU and TigerTV helped her realize the Department of Communication was a better fit for her interests. She was also a finalist in the Stumberg Competition with a tech startup, received her master’s degree from the University of Westminster in London, and worked as a photojournalist before starting her job at KRTU.

“Think about your story arc,” Woods advises the students. “It doesn’t come to a close when you graduate from Trinity. Between 20 and 30, you cannot predict where you’re going to go. There are going to be twists and turns that you cannot control. The good thing is some of those twists and turns lead to great things.”

Davis echoes Woods’ sentiments. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she completed a graduate certificate in social gerontology and now works at the San Antonio Area Foundation’s Successfully Aging and Living in San Antonio (SALSA) initiative, advocating for older San Antonio residents while still participating in vocal performances. She is currently working on a multidisciplinary project with the University of the Incarnate Word, preparing a staged version of Schoenberg’s atonal String Quartet No. 2.

After answering Ivy’s introductory question, the panelists take questions from the students on topics like how to prevent a love of art from feeling like work.

“It’s sometimes both,” Moore answers. “In opera, our days can be very long, but then you get to opening night, and there is no feeling like it when the curtain comes up. The people in the audience are the only people in the world who are experiencing this version of the opera. You see the fruits of your labor and see all the moving parts come together in this wonderful celebration that is unique to that moment.”

A student takes the microphone and wants to know about the challenges the panelists have faced in their careers.

James Robinson ’78, a Los Angeles-based writer, film director, and producer, says he envies artists whose work is complete when they finish it.

“You can’t be afraid to be bad,” Post chimes in. “Fail. Fail again. Fail better.”

Athanas adds that the challenge is to find that spark of creativity in every project.

“Art can be a very frivolous pursuit, and yet we all consume it,” Athanas says. “Your thrill and your challenge is to be brilliant every time. No one hires you to do what the last person did. It’s exciting but terrifying to come up with something fresh every time.”

After a few more questions, Ivy thanks the panel, and the Zoom squares begin to blink out one by one. The screen goes from nine alumni to eight, then five, then two. Finally, only the students remain as they pack up their things.

The stories they just heard weren’t neat or linear. They were full of pivots, risks, and unexpected openings.

A life in the arts, the panel showed them, is woven from chance moments, hard work, and the courage to step into the unknown, confident that they can use the skills they learn at Trinity to pursue lives of meaning and purpose.