Brandeis Magazine

Renowned conceptual artist and sculptor Chris Burden died May 10 at age 69; the cause was reported to be melanoma. Burden leaves behind a lasting impression on the Brandeis campus with his sculptural installation Light of Reason, constructed from 24 repurposed antique streetlights, which serves as a gateway to the Rose Art Museum. The installation was completed and dedicated last year. Chris Bedford, the Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose, eulogized Burden, a Boston native who lived in Topanga, Calif., as “one of the greatest American artists of his generation.”

In July, The Straits Times, an English-language newspaper based in Singapore, picked 30 of Singapore’s rising stars under 30. One of the young notables is composer and double-bass player Emily Koh, who expects to complete her PhD in music composition and music theory at Brandeis next year. “Koh is stretching traditional expectations of classical music and its instruments with audacious, experimental melodies,” the newspaper noted.

The GRAMMY Foundation has given Brandeis a $20,000 grant to help digitize the personal recordings of Lenny Bruce. The collection of performances, rehearsals and home sessions is housed in the Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections, and is part of the Bruce materials the university acquired last year from the late comedian’s daughter, Kitty, with the help of a grant from the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation. Because they are so fragile, the historic recordings would have been lost without restoration and reformatting. Brandeis plans to host a retrospective on Bruce and his work in 2016, 50 years after his death.

Playwright Andrew Clarke, MFA’97, will premiere his new play “Academy Fight Song” in September at the Boston Center for the Arts. Produced by Centastage, the comedy centers around a college professor and his ill-fated appearance at an academic conference. Clarke’s wife, Tracy Oliverio, MFA’98, will play the professor’s ex-wife. She and Clarke, who teaches playwriting at Emerson College, met while students at Brandeis.

In June, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, in Lincoln, Mass., hosted an exhibition of work by the three winners of the 2014 Boston Artadia Award, one of whom is Lucy Kim, lecturer in fine arts. According to exhibition materials, Kim’s work “combines sculptural relief and painting to disrupt normal modes of perception and figuration.” Artadia Award winners are contemporary artists selected by two panels of internationally recognized curators.

Cassie M. Seinuk ’09 has been named a playwriting fellow at New Repertory Theatre, in Watertown, Mass. In addition, her play “From the Deep” is included as an honorable mention on the 2015 Kilroys List, which recognizes the top un- and under-produced plays by women and trans writers, chosen on the basis of nominations from more than 300 theater professionals. Another of Seinuk’s plays, “Eyes Shut. Door Open,” will be produced in Boston in August.

The redhead is coming back. “The Mysteries of Laura,” which stars Debra Messing ’90, has been renewed for a second season at NBC. The hourlong show focuses on a hapless single mom who also happens to be a crackerjack NYPD homicide detective. Last season, “Mysteries” was NBC’s fourth-most-watched series.