Class Note 1983
Issue
November-December 2025
Class Note 1983. In anticipation of the grand reopening of the reimagined Hopkins Center for the Arts and the star-studded Dartmouth Arts Weekend Celebration in October, we invited some of the creative artists from our class to share their cherished memories of the Hop during the summer.
Actress Connie Craig shares: “The Hopkins Center was my second home. When I was a first-year student, my brother, Tim Craig ’79, was the director of the Dartmouth Film Society, so every Sunday we would hang out and enjoy some amazing films. One of my first performances was in Our Town, with Rod Alexander, director of theater at Dartmouth, at Center Stage alongside talented classmates with whom I still get together in N.Y.C., L.A., and Chicago. Other highlights include summer repertory acting in Richard III, directed by Errol Hill and which starred Broadway and television actor David Birney ’61; followed by appearing with Emmy Award nominee Meredith Baxter in The Country Wife, directed by visiting director Geoffrey Sherman; then taking my final bow during senior year in YouCan’t Take it with You. Sitting at the Top of the Hop, looking out as the snow fell in winter, listening to a friend play the piano was blissful.”
Teresa Wiltz reflects, “I pretty much lived in the Hop my entire four years at Dartmouth, carrying a giant dance bag crammed with books and ballet shoes, running from classes (dance or academic) to rehearsals to performances. Senior year was particularly special: I got to perform in a full-length dance concert staged and choreographed by Pepe and Vicki De Chiazza and direct, produce, and act in my own one-hour show, AShange Medley, in the 12:30 auditorium. My experiences at the Hop gave me the courage to pursue a professional dance career for four years after college. Later, when I retired from dance and switched to journalism, my experiences performing and watching so much great theater and dance at the Hop served me well as a cultural critic.”
Susie Monagan, the executive director of the Smith Center for the Arts, writes, “The Warner Bentley Theater was a place to dream, experiment, and perform classics and new work. I remember screaming from the top of a table playing in Molière and rolling on the floor playing a cat in my friend’s latest play. Rubbing the nose of the Bentley bust was one of those theater-lore rituals that scaffold showbiz.”
In April Chris Duggan, director of Boston Children’s Hospital Center for Nutrition, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and professor in the departments of nutrition and global health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, was interviewed about the effects of dismantling U.S. foreign assistance and global health efforts on the NEJM Interviewspodcast.
Our Alumni Council class representative, Mike Hjerpe, has been appointed to the alumni liaison committee, which synthesizes, interprets, and presents all alumni feedback data to the board of trustees and the president. Joe Dempsey, our Alumni Council class officer representative, has been named to the nominating committee.
—Shanta Sullivan, 1541 North Sierra Bonita Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; shantaesullivan@gmail.com
Actress Connie Craig shares: “The Hopkins Center was my second home. When I was a first-year student, my brother, Tim Craig ’79, was the director of the Dartmouth Film Society, so every Sunday we would hang out and enjoy some amazing films. One of my first performances was in Our Town, with Rod Alexander, director of theater at Dartmouth, at Center Stage alongside talented classmates with whom I still get together in N.Y.C., L.A., and Chicago. Other highlights include summer repertory acting in Richard III, directed by Errol Hill and which starred Broadway and television actor David Birney ’61; followed by appearing with Emmy Award nominee Meredith Baxter in The Country Wife, directed by visiting director Geoffrey Sherman; then taking my final bow during senior year in YouCan’t Take it with You. Sitting at the Top of the Hop, looking out as the snow fell in winter, listening to a friend play the piano was blissful.”
Teresa Wiltz reflects, “I pretty much lived in the Hop my entire four years at Dartmouth, carrying a giant dance bag crammed with books and ballet shoes, running from classes (dance or academic) to rehearsals to performances. Senior year was particularly special: I got to perform in a full-length dance concert staged and choreographed by Pepe and Vicki De Chiazza and direct, produce, and act in my own one-hour show, AShange Medley, in the 12:30 auditorium. My experiences at the Hop gave me the courage to pursue a professional dance career for four years after college. Later, when I retired from dance and switched to journalism, my experiences performing and watching so much great theater and dance at the Hop served me well as a cultural critic.”
Susie Monagan, the executive director of the Smith Center for the Arts, writes, “The Warner Bentley Theater was a place to dream, experiment, and perform classics and new work. I remember screaming from the top of a table playing in Molière and rolling on the floor playing a cat in my friend’s latest play. Rubbing the nose of the Bentley bust was one of those theater-lore rituals that scaffold showbiz.”
In April Chris Duggan, director of Boston Children’s Hospital Center for Nutrition, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and professor in the departments of nutrition and global health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, was interviewed about the effects of dismantling U.S. foreign assistance and global health efforts on the NEJM Interviewspodcast.
Our Alumni Council class representative, Mike Hjerpe, has been appointed to the alumni liaison committee, which synthesizes, interprets, and presents all alumni feedback data to the board of trustees and the president. Joe Dempsey, our Alumni Council class officer representative, has been named to the nominating committee.
—Shanta Sullivan, 1541 North Sierra Bonita Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; shantaesullivan@gmail.com