Class Note 1981
Issue
We go to the Big Apple Circus and have a great time, as always, although I miss Paul Binder ’63, Big Apple cofounder, now that he no longer travels with the show. I particularly liked the Spanish performer named Picaso Jr., who “juggles” five ping-pong balls via his mouth. Shoots them high into the air and then catches them, one after the other. I swallow hard imagining one going down the wrong way. Around that same time I hear from Jens Larson, who was once a circus performer and now performs in front of a tough audience, high school sophomores. “I’m still teaching geometry in a public high school here in Phoenix, Arizona,” Jens wrote.
Jens and his wife, Maggie Keane, have a 13-year-old named Kyle who has—surprise, surprise—taken an interest in the circus. “He can ride a unicycle and has learned to juggle,” Jens continued, “which is to say he has acquired all the relevant skills that I brought to my first job after graduating from Dartmouth. No need to send him to college, I guess.” Kyle bounces on the trampoline in their back yard, balances brooms on his chin and is learning to climb an unsupported ladder. “It’s harder than it looks to wiggle around on the ladder and keep it underneath you while you climb,” wrote Jens.
Jens and Maggie were still in the circus business until Kyle was about 3, and their boys picked up this interest through frequent visits to shows and contacts with friends from their past. “I can’t hide how much fun it is to see him take an interest in this stuff,” finished Jens, “quite different from the reaction I experienced from my own parents. I can still picture my mother’s face the moment she heard me explain my intention to join a circus—a mixture of stunned silence and horror.”
Gino Gabianelli wrote that he practices ophthalmology in Atlanta and that he and his wife, Nancy, have three children, Joey, Anna and John. “Joey’s headed to Hanover this fall,” wrote Gino, “and we’ll make the journey in his waste veg-oil powered diesel pickup. Anna is very involved in cross country (all talent inherited from her mom’s side of the family) and John is busy attempting to dominate his father in golf.” During the past year Gino’s enjoyed two medical mission trips to Leon, Nicaragua, and is working on a long-term surgical mission relationship with a hospital there that needs much equipment and training.
Lastly, from the very busy Sharon Washington: “Last summer I finished shooting two indie films set for release this year, Two Mothers and Rocksteady; had a multi-episode character arc playing the slightly crooked FBI agent Hawkins on Damages; and was an ER nurse with an attitude on Royal Pains.” This year Sharon has originated the role of The Lady in The Scottsboro Boys, the last unproduced musical by the legendary Kander and Ebb at New York’s Vineyard Theatre, directed by five-time Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman. “Although I don’t sing in it,” she wrote, “and actually don’t really speak and dance just a little it’s been the ultimate acting challenge: to listen and be alive and present. I’m having a blast.”
The musical will play at the Guthrie in Minneapolis before its Broadway world premiere at the Lyceum, a first for Sharon. “Twenty years in the business,” she said, “and it will be my first time on Broadway! I guess it’s never too late for a debut.”
Believe it or not Sharon has time to keep in touch with a passel of classmates: Mark Frawley, Mark Lotito, Pam Mason-Wagner, Byron Boston, Laurel Richie and Jean Brown.
—Abner Oakes, 4807 Dover Road, Bethesda, MD 20816-1772; aoakes4@gmail.com; Julie Koeninger, 2 Wilson St., Wellesley, MA 02482; jkoeninger@comcast.net
Sept - Oct 2010
We go to the Big Apple Circus and have a great time, as always, although I miss Paul Binder ’63, Big Apple cofounder, now that he no longer travels with the show. I particularly liked the Spanish performer named Picaso Jr., who “juggles” five ping-pong balls via his mouth. Shoots them high into the air and then catches them, one after the other. I swallow hard imagining one going down the wrong way. Around that same time I hear from Jens Larson, who was once a circus performer and now performs in front of a tough audience, high school sophomores. “I’m still teaching geometry in a public high school here in Phoenix, Arizona,” Jens wrote.
Jens and his wife, Maggie Keane, have a 13-year-old named Kyle who has—surprise, surprise—taken an interest in the circus. “He can ride a unicycle and has learned to juggle,” Jens continued, “which is to say he has acquired all the relevant skills that I brought to my first job after graduating from Dartmouth. No need to send him to college, I guess.” Kyle bounces on the trampoline in their back yard, balances brooms on his chin and is learning to climb an unsupported ladder. “It’s harder than it looks to wiggle around on the ladder and keep it underneath you while you climb,” wrote Jens.
Jens and Maggie were still in the circus business until Kyle was about 3, and their boys picked up this interest through frequent visits to shows and contacts with friends from their past. “I can’t hide how much fun it is to see him take an interest in this stuff,” finished Jens, “quite different from the reaction I experienced from my own parents. I can still picture my mother’s face the moment she heard me explain my intention to join a circus—a mixture of stunned silence and horror.”
Gino Gabianelli wrote that he practices ophthalmology in Atlanta and that he and his wife, Nancy, have three children, Joey, Anna and John. “Joey’s headed to Hanover this fall,” wrote Gino, “and we’ll make the journey in his waste veg-oil powered diesel pickup. Anna is very involved in cross country (all talent inherited from her mom’s side of the family) and John is busy attempting to dominate his father in golf.” During the past year Gino’s enjoyed two medical mission trips to Leon, Nicaragua, and is working on a long-term surgical mission relationship with a hospital there that needs much equipment and training.
Lastly, from the very busy Sharon Washington: “Last summer I finished shooting two indie films set for release this year, Two Mothers and Rocksteady; had a multi-episode character arc playing the slightly crooked FBI agent Hawkins on Damages; and was an ER nurse with an attitude on Royal Pains.” This year Sharon has originated the role of The Lady in The Scottsboro Boys, the last unproduced musical by the legendary Kander and Ebb at New York’s Vineyard Theatre, directed by five-time Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman. “Although I don’t sing in it,” she wrote, “and actually don’t really speak and dance just a little it’s been the ultimate acting challenge: to listen and be alive and present. I’m having a blast.”
The musical will play at the Guthrie in Minneapolis before its Broadway world premiere at the Lyceum, a first for Sharon. “Twenty years in the business,” she said, “and it will be my first time on Broadway! I guess it’s never too late for a debut.”
Believe it or not Sharon has time to keep in touch with a passel of classmates: Mark Frawley, Mark Lotito, Pam Mason-Wagner, Byron Boston, Laurel Richie and Jean Brown.
—Abner Oakes, 4807 Dover Road, Bethesda, MD 20816-1772; aoakes4@gmail.com; Julie Koeninger, 2 Wilson St., Wellesley, MA 02482; jkoeninger@comcast.net