With streaming services, AI and union strikes, the future of Hollywood has never been more uncertain. But one thing that remains unchanged about the entertainment industry is it’s all about who you know.
Take the recent NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts annual gala. To celebrate the continuing accomplishments, Tisch hosts an annual Gala to honor those that have made great strides in their careers along with the impressive array of what NYU Tisch has to offer. The star-studded affair highlighted the impact of three notable alumni: Oscar award-winning director Ang Lee, Golden Globe-nominated film, television and Broadway actor Corey Stoll and multi-platinum songwriter and singer Madison Love.
However, for many entering the arts, those precious connections start way before the first casting call.
American filmmaker Martin Scorsese met his editor in a class at Tisch along with Ang Lee. Corey Stoll met his wife, Nadia Bowers, in Professor Jim Calder’s circus class, which they were both enrolled in.
“When I graduated, I joined a fellowship, a continually growing company spanning across the country and across generations.” said Stoll, “I found great lifelong friends like Maggie Stiff, and I even found my wife, Nadia. I’ve already been given so much from this incredible place, so this honor is an embarrassment of riches.”
“NYU Tisch was a pivotal turning point in my life,” said Ang Lee. “It opened up the whole world to me. I believe that learning and education are not just a way to get to your purpose, but they are the purpose of life itself.”
“Students are learning not just from faculty and staff but also their peers. If you are kind and gracious to each other, you’re going to make the people rise with you.” noted NYU Tisch Dean Allyson Green.
The activeness of Tisch’s notable alumni do not go unnoticed, where their connection to the school and eagerness to help students have continued to aid in the growing success of graduates. For example, Ang Lee opened up a scholarship to a film graduate student and Madison Love created The Madison Love Future Fund that supports one student a year enrolled in the Clive Davis Summer High School Program. These awards are both funded by Lee and Madison, respectively, according to Andrew Uriate, senior associate dean of external affairs.
In addition, alumni are often invited to speak to students, teach master classes at the university, and host events for students such as workshops and film screenings. Green’s main goals for students is to make connections with each other and work together, post graduation from NYU Tisch.
“I feel pretty confident that they’re learning the skills to be flexible for what we hope to be a lifelong creation and process of art,” said Green. “Being an artist is a life-long process.”
“One of the things I remember about the program when we first entered was the feeling of community and love and that was all inservice of the work,” said Bowers. “The work is inservice of the friendships and the love we have for each other.”
In 2020, Green taught a course called “Imaging the Future Through the Arts” that was available to Tisch students and the Big Ideas provostial program. Green’s class had mandatory Zoom attendance but also held small sessions in person for creative exercise and conversations. For the course, she reached out to alumni asking “how do you talk about creativity and resilience while in a pandemic” and got 60 interviews in return. Billy Crystal, class of 1970, comedian and actor, was one of the many interviews that highlighted stories of creativity and perseverance over the course of his career. The stories are proprietary to Green’s class and cannot be shared publicly. Green later reached out to him in spring of 2023 asking him to be a guest speaker at the Class of 2024 spring graduation ceremony. Crystal accepted the invitation.
The gears never stop rolling for Tisch School of Arts.
A virtual production center in the Martin Scorsese Institute of Global Cinematic Arts in honor of Martin Scorsese, alumnus and award-winning filmmaker, is opening in fall of 2023. Green noted that this news will be featured in Tish Gala 2025.
