By Jacob Nelson Before Jeff “Jake” Jacobs began working at Creative Artists Agency — where he’s been for nearly 30 years and now serves as the company’s Television Co-Head — he spent a few months on a bus with John Madden. As he recently explained at an MSLCE Speaker Series event, after getting his undergraduate
Category: Guest Speakers
By Lauren Vernea Mara Brock Akil, a Northwestern alumna, successful writer, and TV showrunner, recently returned to campus for the EPICS Speaker Series to discuss her luminous career. Akil, who has always been a role model for me, created iconic TV comedies and dramas such as Girlfriends, The Game, and BET’s first scripted drama Being Mary
By John Hounihan As winter quarter marches on, the MSLCE students have a lot on our minds. Perhaps nothing is more center than our search for internships. No matter our corner of the sector, we are deep into applications and interviews at organizations across the nation. On Feb. 6, our performing arts focused students got an incredible
By Jacob Nelson By all accounts, Glendon Palmer has “made it” in Hollywood. A Senior Vice President of Development & Production at the renowned entertainment company IM Global, Palmer has the stability that comes with an executive position in show business, along with the ability to oversee creatively satisfying box office successes like last year’s
By Jacob Nelson Jeff “Jake” Jacobs has been an agent with Creative Artists Agency for nearly 30 years. Though the entertainment industry has changed considerably during that period, his responsibilities have remained largely the same. “You’re in the pursuit of representing talented storytellers,” Jacobs explained during a recent interviews. “When you’re an agent you want
By Jacob Nelson Ever since she began her new job as the managing director of Victory Gardens, Erica Daniels has gotten used to using the word “scrappy.” That’s partly because of Victory Gardens’ size: the theatre company has a small staff of people who wear different hats, and getting things done involves first figuring out
By Jacob Nelson Erica Daniels’ career reads like a wishlist for aspiring theatre professionals. Before she joined Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater as Managing Director, she was the artistic director at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the president of theatricals at The Second City. Daniels also did the original casting for Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway Production of Airline
By Jacob Nelson Chris Meador’s professional path that brought him from theater stages to the History Channel to Microsoft and, finally, to Facebook throughout a career he refers to as “strange and convoluted.” However, Meador was quick to identify the running thread through all those jobs: the desire to connect. Meador, who is the Brand
By Jacob Nelson Long before Chris Meador took a job at Facebook, he thought about pursuing a career in acting. He majored in theatre at Northwestern, but then, as he explains with a deadpan delivery, “I realized I wanted health insurance.” Meador, who now works as Facebook’s Brand Strategy Lead, will appear at MSLCE’s next
By Jacob Nelson During his introduction of Brigette Whisnant at last week’s speaker series event, Kellogg professor Rick Kolsky said, “I think my job is fun, but she gets to do some really cool stuff.” As an executive producer at Havas Chicago, Whisnant oversees the content production work for a couple of well-known clients like