Class Correspondent

Clayton Austin retired from teaching theater at George Mason University and is substitute teaching in the Fairfax (Virginia) County Public Schools. He is also using his theater-design experience to create collages with the aim of being a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump. He writes, “Hey, Virginia voted for Clinton, so maybe there was some effect.” Following the passing of her husband in 2015, Elaine Barnartt-Goldstein has retired and is starting to specialize in social action. After many years of working at the Legal Aid Society and in the New York State court system, Carol Goldstein, P’13, was appointed a New York City Family Court judge by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015. She sits in Manhattan Family Court. Debra Kay works as a CFO for several entrepreneurial businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. She says her career highlight was accompanying client Paul Ekman, a psychologist, to present an interactive tool known as the Atlas of Emotions, designed to build emotional awareness, to the Dalai Lama, who funded it. Steve Klionsky has retired from the full-time practice of law. He now works as a legal adviser on energy matters to the Massachusetts attorney general. Steve lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, with his wife and takes courses at Brandeis. Ellen Beth Lande, P’05, wrote “Bedtime Stories for Grown-Up Girls,” an adult woman’s adventure story featuring two female protagonists. The novel is about a long friendship, a business partnership, a love triangle, and how we do (and do not) reconcile who we once were with who we have become. In December, Jan Lewis, theater chair at Wesleyan College, in Macon, Georgia, directed “Edgy Bits,” a collage of four short plays with a cast of four women. Last August, she dramaturged and produced “Shylock’s Beard,” which won the 2016 Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Excellence in Playwriting Award. Laure Stern reports that her son, Henry, was elected state senator for California’s 27th District; daughter Sophie is a musician and activist; and daughter Ella is in medical school in Oregon, with a passionate desire to help underserved communities. Laure writes, “At my age, I could convey my personal triumphs in the arts, education, community activism and food policy, but none of these is as meaningful as raising three extraordinary children with my husband of 36 years. Through them, all the things we fought for in the ’70s will live on and make the world a better place.” Peter Wortsman says he is graying, balding and bulging at the midriff but still as foolish and unrealistic as ever. His recent and forthcoming publications include “Konundrum: Selected Prose of Franz Kafka,” a new translation of Kafka; “New York, NY, 1978,” a collaboration with photographer Jean-Luc Dubin, for which Peter wrote the text, translated into French by his wife, Claudie Bernard; and “Footprints in Wet Cement,” a compilation of his own short prose. Peter’s play “Burning Words” had a staged reading at the Center for Jewish History in New York, and his novel “Cold Earth Wanderers” has been optioned for a film. Shelley Wyant is on the faculty at NYU and the New School, where she teaches mask work, and is excited about developing new work using masks for the Theatre of the Oppressed. She is happily married to Bill Brinnier.

Photo of attendees at Brandeis IBS event in Tokyo

PERSPECTIVE FROM TOKYO: Peter Petri, interim dean of Brandeis International Business School and the Carl J. Shapiro Professor of International Finance, discussed the implications of the Trump presidency for U.S.-Japanese political and economic relations at an event at the International House of Japan, in Tokyo. From left: Toshizo Watanabe ’73; Wakako Hironaka, MA’64, H’87; Aki Furukawa, Heller MA’06; Petri; and Yuki Masujima, IBS MS’07, PhD’10.

Submit a Class Note