Insider Series Transcript: Henry Godinez (’18,’21 P) and Cindy Gold

Alan K. Cubbage: The School of Communication is having quite a spring. About three weeks ago, the school celebrated its storied past and promising future during CommFest 2018, a weekend of programming attended by more than 2,600 people. The event culminated in a star-studded show, hosted by comedian and 1986 alumnus Stephen Colbert. Let's take a quick look at this.

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Speaker: The whole weekend culminated Saturday evening with a spectacular show that was organized, written, produced, performed by School of Communication alumni. They did it as volunteers and produced a show that we think is going to reverberate through our history.

Stephen Colbert: Thanks, everybody. Anna Gasteyer!

Speaker: Hi!

Stephen Colbert: Stephanie D’Abruzzo! Good to see you! Hey, everybody, good evening! Go ’Cats!

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Alan Cubbage: As you can see, it was really a terrific evening. Dozens of famous alums performed alongside current students, and paid tribute to Northwestern's notable industry leaders, such as director Garry Marshall, a 1956 graduate. The celebratory weekend was designed in part to showcase every facet of the School of Communication, and highlight the school's new MFA in acting program.

We're also, I would add, four days away from the most anticipated Wildcat wedding of the century, which also has a School of Communication connection. As you undoubtedly know, American actress Meghan Markle, a 2003 alumna, is set to wed Britain's Prince Harry on May 19th, this coming Saturday. She's just one of many, many School of Communication alumni who have launched successful careers with their training at Northwestern.

I'm Al Cubbage, your host for this afternoon, and I'm the vice president for university relations at Northwestern University, a job I've had for approximately 20 years, and it's a great place to be, I assure you. I have two master's degrees from Medill, a master of science in journalism in '78 and then a master of science in integrated marketing communications from 1987. So I'm a longtime Northwestern person and really enjoy the opportunity to talk with my fellow Leadership Circle alums.

We really appreciate you, the listeners, for joining the NULC Insider Series. This series gives the members of the Leadership Circle an inside view of what's happening here at Northwestern, and direct access to some of the University's leaders, and really some of our stellar faculty, and we're fortunate to have a couple of them here with us today. I'd also like to thank our donors for their generosity. Leadership donors, such as you, have helped propel Northwestern to its place among the world's leading research universities. Again, today, we're very fortunate to be joined by two of the most respected professors in the School of Communication: Cindy Gold and Henry Godinez.

They, between the two of them, have decades of acting, directing, and teaching experience, and they're here to offer some insight on the school's secret to success, and the famed purple mafia. So, let me introduce the two of them. I'll start with Henry. Henry Godinez is an acting professor in the Department of Theater. Born in Havana, Cuba, he is a resident artistic associate at Chicago's Goodman Theater, where he is the director of the Latino Theater Festival.

As an actor, his credits include plays at the Goodman in Chicago, Chicago Shakespeare, of course, and the Kennedy Center. He's played roles in movies like The Fugitive and Above The Law, and in television shows such as Empire and Chicago Fire. Henry, I remember years ago, I went to a play at the Goodman called Zoot Suit, and I think that was one of yours as well. Just a terrific evening of theater.

Henry Godinez: Oh, thank you very much.

Alan Cubbage: It's been a while, but it was a great evening.

Henry Godinez: Yeah, that was the last production in the old Goodman before we moved to where we are now in the Loop.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah, and it was really a good one.

Henry Godinez: Thanks.

Alan Cubbage: Henry and his wife, Nancy Voigts, who is a 1983 alumna, are the parents of two Northwestern students; Lucy, who will graduate this year in just a few weeks, and Gabby, who is the class of 1921, or 2021. Dating myself there, sorry. Gabby, class of '21. Lucy was a featured student performer during “A Starry Night,” the CommFest grand finale that you just saw clips from, and she brought down the house with “Breathe” from Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical, In The Heights. I was also very fortunate to see her at the Porch Light when she did that, which was also just a wonderful evening in theater.

Cindy Gold, Professor Gold, has been teaching and acting at Northwestern since 1997, and she recently took a group of Northwestern seniors to New York to audition for roles as part of what's called the New York Showcase, and I'll be asking you more about that in a little bit, and I definitely want to hear more about that. She's worked off Broadway in New York, and regionally, all across the country as an actor. I think I saw you in Arsenic and Old Lace a couple years ago, and that was a wonderful performance as well, so I've been fortunate to see both of you on the stage. And also, has appeared in series like Empire and Chicago Fire, and a number of national commercials. Cindy has real expertise in voice, so that's something that I also really admire about her.

We'll talk today for about 45 minutes. It'll be kind of a Q&A. Thank you to those who have submitted questions already for our speakers. If you are joining us online and want to submit a question, look on your screen. You'll see a Q&A box at the bottom of your computer screen, and you can just type it in right there, and we'll try to respond to as many of those questions as we can.

So, let's get started. Cindy, Henry, welcome very much. Tell us a little bit about your Northwestern direction, so to speak; what brought you here, what you enjoy, how you prepare your students. I mean, I think that's obviously the key thing, is how do you work with your students? A little bit about what you're working on now, what's new, so to speak. Cindy, why don't you go ahead and lead off, and just give us a quick update.

Sure. I got here in '97, which I think is the same year you got here. I had been teaching at Ole Miss in Mississippi, and I was learning to be a teacher down there, and they offered me a job up here, and I was amazed, and took the job. I love it here. I came when we were in a period where most of the faculty had studied with Alvina Krause, the great Alvina Krause. So I was sort of a link from the old ... not old, but the older to the new when I became head of the acting program for a while. I'm not doing that anymore.

But what I love more than anything else is the interaction with the students. I work a lot professionally, and often, I work with former students, and sometimes, most recently, I've even auditioned for former students, which is always odd and wonderful, especially when they don't cast me. But yeah, I find the synergy between the professional theater and the classroom to be one of the main reasons why I love working here.

Alan Cubbage: Great, great. Henry?

Henry Godinez: Well, I've been at Northwestern since 2006. I had been teaching at the theater school at DePaul University, which is a conservatory. It's a terrific program, and Cindy actually called me one day or sent me an email. She was the head of the search committee. They were searching for a new faculty member, and I lived in Evanston, and I thought, "Boy, that'd be handy." And I knew that, of course, about Northwestern's terrific reputation. But more than anything, after teaching at a conservatory for six years, I'd been blessed to work in the profession for a long time as an actor and as a director, and I know the reality of it, and I would see my students at the theater school that were just taking skills-oriented classes. I started feeling a little guilty, frankly, about those that didn't find a sustainable career.

And so, the thought of teaching in a liberal arts education program based in that was very appealing to me, and I came, and met Cindy and Rives Collins, and I just fell in love with everybody. Unlike Cindy, I actually came in after a lot of those veterans, not older teachers, but those kind of ... that initial group of great teachers that were disciples of Alvina's were leaving or had already left. So I kind of had to learn how to do what the tradition called for us to do, and it took a few years, but it's been hugely gratifying.

Alan Cubbage: You know, one of the things I've been curious about is, acting is by its nature a very both individual and collaborative thing. Very rarely are you on stage by yourself. But at the same time, acting is a discipline that is very much an individual putting themselves out there. So, as a professor, how is it that you can teach people to really learn who they are and how they should be on the stage? And at the same time, be teaching them how to play well with others?

Cindy Gold: That's a really good question, Alan, and actually, you said it. Part of what we're doing in the first year of the training is teaching them who they are, or letting them discover who they actually are, which is fascinating to imagine an 18-year-old, 19-year-old being asked to know who they are. Some of them go into a kind of existential crisis, and we get them in our sequence, the same students, same teacher, for two years. So we work with them through it.

None of us are trained therapists, so it's not a therapy class. It's a real physical, movement-based ensemble kind of situation where we learn first to trust ourselves, and then we can trust the teacher, and then we trust each other. It creates a kind of magic, I think, this sort of beautiful cohort. That's what we're doing, essentially.

Alan Cubbage: Henry?

Henry Godinez: Yeah. I'm going to say that Cindy's absolutely right, and that goes hand in hand with the other thing that we find essential to our curriculum and to what we try to teach our students, which is, we want them to be first and foremost great human beings. We want them to be the best human beings that they can possibly be, and it's through that that they can eventually become great actors.

We also—the flip side of the solo nature of acting is that we teach them ... One of my mantras is that what you do onstage isn't about you; it's about that other person. It's about your partner onstage. And so, that is the value of the cohort; is that at the same time, they're learning that it isn't just them. That it's about the other people around them, whether it be other actors, the crew, the director, the designers; that it's a holistic approach to performance, and I think that there's a lot of freedom in that, and I think a lot of security, too.

Alan Cubbage: Related to that, I think one of the questions I have always, or things I've always admired is that acting is both an intellectual exercise and a physical exercise. How do you, as teachers, try to get the students to understand that they got to be thoughtful about what they're doing, but there's also very much the physical attribute of that?

Cindy Gold: Yeah, I spent a lot of time in conservatories undergrad and graduate school, where there were no academic components at all, I think, in my memory. I knew how to do my makeup and what was playing on Broadway, and I didn't really know anything about the world. One of the things I love is that we are a text-based, liberal arts program, so that even in that first year when they're not memorizing lines but creating ensemble and working physically, there's always text assigned to the class. Lots of reading, lots of journaling, lots of talking about text and writing. We say we're not training actors; we're using theater as the liberal art that it is to train people.

It's very successful, I think. It's amazing, and surprising. When I came here, I thought inside, subtextually, "Hm, how can I join this? I don't really know about ..." I wasn't accepted at Northwestern. I didn't have the grades. My students have a much higher intelligence quotient than myself, but it's kind of sweet to be their teacher. Something about life experience and that kind of knowledge makes it work.

Henry Godinez: You know, I think that is true, and I think that one of the things that I try to just ingrain in my students from the beginning, and I use a variety of different exercises. I tend to be kind of a Zen sort of teacher, and I use a lot of Japanese movement training that I had as a graduate student, but what I try to ingrain in them is an appreciation for rigor, whether that be intellectual, physical, emotional. I think that for them to understand that, as an actor, all you have is what's under your skin. I mean, literally, your brain, your soul, your heart, and that it behooves you to have all of those elements at their peak availability. I think that that's what we try to do, and that's what being a kind of a whole human being is about.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah, yeah. Certainly we're very fortunate at Northwestern to attract some of the best students, not just in the country, but in the world, and I know that among Northwestern's many disciplines, one of the probably most competitive is the theater program. It is extraordinarily difficult to be accepted into, and be able to study in that area. So, the joke in the journalism school about everybody was the editor of their high school paper who walks in the door of Medill, probably everybody was the lead in the musical of their high school play who walks in the door of the theater department. How do you get these kids who have been their superstars in high school to understand that they may not be the superstar here at Northwestern?

Henry Godinez: Actually, you know what's cool, Al? The truth is, in my classes at least, that isn't true. That it's a mix. We do definitely have that. My class is usually a mix of people that have been the stars of their programs, and have been acting since they were three. I have a sophomore right now that Cindy's working with who has worked in New York on Broadway and had a huge role in a film called Enchanted with Amy Adams, and that I would watch that with my kids. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's my student." Now I see.

But then, I have kids that have never really performed much, but love theater, and that's the beauty of the liberal arts program. They don't audition to get in the acting sequence in our program. They have to be accepted to Northwestern, so they're all smart to begin with. And I actually think that's really healthy. And so, for that reason, when they come and visit our acting classes at the end of their freshmen year to have a sense of who they might prefer as their teacher the next year, I sit them down and I tell them, "Look, of the 20 of you visiting here, reality is that maybe three of you will have sustainable careers are professional actors," and they're all like, "Oh my God." You know.

But then I tell them the good news; "Because you're Northwestern students, is that taking this class, you'll be a better director, producer, studio head agent, writer, mother, father, lawyer, doctor." Whatever they do, they're going to excel because of what they're going to do in our program. So it's an interesting mix.

Cindy Gold: Yeah, we have the combination of their brilliance from high school, their grades, their writing ability, their extracurricular activities, with their drive. Our students seem to be, across the board, fairly driven. Makes for a very potent student. I was again, this is one of those things I was surprised about. I thought, "We don't audition. How do we get these great people?" Something about that connection between working hard and being really smart.

When you go to your first day of rehearsal for a play in the professional world, people walk in with books under their arms. People like smart people to work with, and we have discovered that that's a great way of training.

Alan Cubbage: And actually, Henry started to answer this, but speaking as the parent of a theater major, I always have what my son and I call "the conversation," where he comes home and says, "I want to be a theater major," and of course his mother was extremely excited and thought it was wonderful, and of course, I was like, "Oh my gosh, where are we going here?" So I'm just curious. What do you say to the parents when their child says, "Gee, I want to be a theater major"? But it sounds like you've answered it to an extent.

Cindy Gold: I never tell a kid that they're not going to do this, because I always think of someone like Jean Stapleton, the great actress who wasn't ... She had a funny voice, and she wasn't very attractive, and she told a story about how her teacher said, "Honey, do something else." She laughed all the way to the bank.

I don't think there's a way to quantify who's going to make it or not. I think hard work and intelligence, you'll get it, if that's what you want. And I just have to say for a second, Henry's daughters, I've known them since they were little girls. I mean, really little. Running around, screaming ...

Henry Godinez: They still do that.

Cindy Gold: Breaking things. But watching Lucy on stage, she is very special. And watching and knowing what Gabby's going to do with film, they are ... I don't know how you did it, Henry, you and Nancy, but they're sort of geniuses. He really did raise good ... They're also good people. And that's pretty representative of a lot of our students.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah, I think that's something that has struck me. Again, I've been fortunate to see a number of Northwestern productions over the years, and have a little bit of connection with the department, certainly. And it does strike me as just really, good people are ... You know, the stereotype of the egomaniac actor, I just don't see that coming out at Northwestern.

Cindy Gold: We stamp it out really early.

Henry Godinez: Yeah, we beat it out of them right away, for sure.

Alan Cubbage: Well, it shows. You do a good job of it, which I guess leads me a little bit to the alums. I think this weekend or last weekend, whatever, was just a terrific performance, and really, it's remarkable to see so many outstanding people on the stage all at one time. But I also thought that really was a good example of about how Northwestern alums come together, work together, and really help out one another. There is the thing called the Northwestern University Entertainment Alliance, both on the west coast and the east coast, and Cindy, like I say, I know that you were recently in New York with the showcase. Tell us a little bit about the showcase, and then tell us a little bit about the alumni network that might exist in New York.

Cindy Gold: The kids that are selected for the showcase go through a quarter class together, and we do everything from find the material to working on resumes and pictures. We do business work, everything from contract negotiation to what taxes are, and the subway system in Manhattan, and it's just a very comprehensive New York 101 kind of thing. They seem to love it, and we get to New York, and we rehearse real quickly at a really good space like Second Stage or Playwright's Horizon, which is very exciting. And we do it a couple times for industry.

Alums are a big part of that week in New York. The NUEA almost always gives us a party. They are there at almost all performances and rehearsals, cheering on the kids. They act as mentors, particularly the ones that went through our program. They talk to them about ... They give them their phone number on speed dial, so if some agent calls someone in, they can quickly call someone and say, "Who's this guy? What do you know about him?" We have a great synergy with the NUEA.

We also took a showcase out to LA at one point, and we used the NUEA West, and they were terrific, too. We haven't done that in a while. We might get back to doing that, but it's one of my favorite activities. It's also exhausting.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah. Oh, I would think so. I would think so. And Henry, in your work, have you been able to work with alums? Even ones that you worked with as students?

Henry Godinez: Oh, absolutely. I just finished working with one of my very recent students. I directed the world premiere of a new musical called The Last Stop on Market Street for Chicago Children's Theater, and one of my students from just a couple of years ago is in it, and she just got a lovely mention from Chris Jones and the review. There was even ... I directed a show at the Goodman a couple years ago called The Feathers and Teeth, and we had developed it for three years, and one of my students, Olivia Cygan, when she was a sophomore, did the original reading, and then she, the next year as a junior, did the workshop production of it at the Goodman. And then her senior year, played the central character again in the full-fledged production while she was still in school. So she even got to get an independent project credit out of that. I love doing that. There's a shorthand when you work with your students, or even alums; people that speak the same language, and I love to work that way.

Alan Cubbage: Good, good. We had a question come in from a listener, and it's a good one, actually, I'm curious. Changing gears just for a moment about advice for aspiring theater directors. One of the challenges, certainly in acting, is there's only so many roles. It's even worse, or I shouldn't say worse. It's even more difficult for directors. There's only so many opportunities to direct. Those apprenticeship opportunities are kind of limited, and there's not really an audition for that or whatever. So how should a person who's considering a career in theater directing really advance themselves in their career? Are there any graduates who really are doing that now, that you're aware of?

Henry Godinez: Yeah. Well, I would recommend ... There are several things you could do. One is to find an alum, or a connection to someone who is directing, and approach them and use that purple mafia connection to leverage an assistantship, to be an assistant director with that person. I also think that you can find a passion project; a play or a project that you're really, really passionate about that's unique, and go to different theaters. I would say starting with a storefront here in Chicago or a mid-sized theater, and approach them and say, "I really feel passionate about this show, and I'd love to do a staged reading for your artistic department." There is a path that you can follow in that way.

I think to assume that the Goodman is going to hire you to direct a show on their main stage right off the bat is not realistic, but there are strategic steps that you can take, and definitely I think the purple mafia is helpful in that way. And also, just knowing that if you have ... assuming this question comes from a Northwestern grad, when that's on your resume, that automatically gets people's attention, that you went to Northwestern. That's my experience.

Cindy Gold: And we do have former students who were undergrads. Scott Weinstein is a good example. He graduated. He's actually married to Professor Rives Collin's daughter, Caitlin, and he's directing all over the country, and he's only out of school a few years. I also ... The thing I love about our program are the number of opportunities student theater, or StuCo, affords our kids. I mean, I'm doing a play right now. I agreed to work on a project with no budget, directed by a sophomore who's never directed before. Deep breath.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah. Good for you.

Cindy Gold: And it's actually written by one of Henry's students, who's also a sophomore, and we're doing this, and he's getting a credit directing, never having directed before, and it is like nothing else. I watch him in class, and then that night, he's my director. It's a great example of the way we work with our students, no holds barred.

Plus, we've had a number of productions through the years. You mentioned Arsenic and Old Lace. That was a celebration where the dean invited alums back to the department to direct—Frank Galati directed it. Collette Pollard designed it. Dennis Zachek acted in it. I acted in it. Faculty member Mary Poole was in it, and students, and it was a faculty-student production with a very good budget, doing extraordinary work with a Tony Academy Award–winning director who went to school here.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah. And it was a wonderful evening, too. It was a lot of fun. It really was. It really was. I know that it's new, and you may not be entirely up to speed on it, but I know one of the new developments that's occurring in the department is a new MFA in acting. We've already offer MFAs in technical things; lighting and that, but I'm curious. What can you tell us about the new MFA in acting?

Henry Godinez: Well, it's kind of the brainchild of Anna Shapiro and I think that it's really kind of a wonderful opportunity, because we do have these MFA design tracks, and traditionally, when you have MFA in directing and MFA in design at a major university like this, it goes hand in hand with an MFA in acting, so that the cohort work together, and they actually then graduate and go out into the world as peers, and already kind of having a cohort.

I think for us, it's especially unique and valuable because we're in Chicago, and Chicago is considered to be, well, by me, the best theater city in the country. But at least the second best by people. It's a huge theatrical community, and Northwestern is especially well positioned, because we have people on faculty that work at every major theater, on staff at every major theater in the city. Goodman, Lookingglass, Steppenwolf, you name it. And so, to have an MFA acting program that can one benefit from the faculty that are connected to those theaters, and at the same time, provide avenues for those MFA actors as they graduate into this community ... You know, we have people that move to Chicago from New York and LA to work in the theater.

So, it kind of makes sense. Ordinarily, I would say the last thing in the world we need is another MFA acting program, but we are so uniquely positioned to create something special, that it kind of makes sense.

Cindy Gold: We know we have a small theater being built in Abbott Hall downtown, which is where the company will be located, where the students and the faculty. We know that they'll produce shows in the summertime for our Summerfest. Those actors, most of them, when they come in for an MFA, are going to have some significant experience already. It will take us to another level, I think. We're all pretty excited about it.

Alan Cubbage: Actually, it's somewhat funny. My father was a law student here at Northwestern and lived in Abbott Hall after World War II, when he came back from the war and went to law school there. As a kid growing up, I grew up in rural Iowa. We'd come into town, and my dad would say, "That's where I lived," and I saw that. So, the transformation of Abbott Hall from a not particularly great residence hall for law and other students, into a theater space is something I'm very eager to see what that's going to look like. Even if it's just a black box, it's still going to be a significant change. There's no doubt about that.

And actually, that was something, Henry, you mentioned, that I was going to ask a little bit of. Talk to us a little bit about the relationship between Northwestern's theater department and the Chicago theater world. As you mentioned, Anna Shapiro was a good example. Barbara Gaines at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, but there are a lot of smaller storefront theaters that I assume we have lots of people working at as well.

Henry Godinez: Oh, absolutely.

Cindy Gold: Yeah. I mean, Lookingglass was founded by Northwestern alums. We have people at almost every major theater. Probably every major theater in town. Artistic directors down to someone working in the shop. I can't work at a theater without finding out who went to Northwestern, and we have a little club where we recognize each other. There's a great interesting part of Northwestern is that we have a lab, and our lab is right down the street, right across Howard. The whole of Chicago, so I can say we are studying Ibsen this quarter. Oh, look, this theater's doing this, and this theater's doing that. You have to go see that. There are very few other cities in the world where I could accomplish that, which is what makes us so exciting.

Cindy Gold: And yes, when I work with Barbara Gaines, or anyone; Anna Shapiro, Jessica Thebus, I find we ... as Henry said before, there's a shorthand. We kind of know what we're looking for. We also enjoy extending the classroom into the professional world, which is something that I think scientists have always had; classroom and lab. We work together, we train together. When we're doing this, this is a very Russian idea. It goes back a long way. You train with whom you stand on stage. And it's spectacular.

I remember one summer, I went to do summer stock, and we were sitting out at 3:00 in the morning, watching the stars, and I realized that the person on either side of me were Northwestern alums. It was a really beautiful experience.

Alan Cubbage: Great, great. Do you think that the new MFA is going to, if anything, I guess augment that connection? I guess I should ask the question, do you think it's going to be competitive, or in any way, compete with the undergraduate acting program?

Henry Godinez: Well, I'll be real honest with you, that was a major point of contention for us on the faculty, and a major discussion that had to be had.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah, I would think so, yeah.

Henry Godinez: Because the undergraduate program is the jewel in the crown, and to compromise it in any way would be crazy. But I think that the way it's being structured, and the way that it will be realized is that it won't. That actually, if ... The intention is that it will create more opportunities for the undergraduates, and that's why the space at Abbott Hall, it will be a process-oriented program for the majority of the time, except in the summer. That'll be their primary performance production time, which is when typically, we're dark. And because our students go off to do internships or go home and earn money or whatever. So, no, I think it's been made very, very clear that on the contrary, we wanted to enhance the undergraduate program.

Alan Cubbage: Good.

Cindy Gold: And also, our undergraduates now have relationships that they started building with our MFA directors and designers, and have gone on to have careers working with those MFAs. I can only assume that the same thing will happen with the actors in terms of mentorship. That's what I'm hoping.

Alan Cubbage: Good. Good. You know, it was interesting. A follow-up question came in from a listener, saying, "Is there the possibility to create a Chicago mafia, so to speak?" Like the Entertainment Alliance that exists in New York or LA, given that we have such a big theater department here, and equally talented alums. Is there the possibility of an Entertainment Alliance, Chicago based?

Henry Godinez: I think it exists.

Alan Cubbage: Or does it exist?

Cindy Gold: Unofficially, yeah.

Henry Godinez: It's just sort of undercover.

Cindy Gold: When we do shows, I'll come out afterwards and there'll always be three or four people, "I went to Northwestern." And we just have a secret handshake, and you know. We also, we do recognize each other when we're auditioning, when we're conceptualizing production. Again, I didn't go to Northwestern, but 21 years I think gives me some kind of street cred here, I hope.

Henry Godinez: You know, it is funny. It's a little different than the purple mafia in those other towns, and yet, the same. But it is like an incubator in a way, and that's one of the great benefits of Northwestern being a research university. Because those of us on the faculty that also work professionally in the city, there is that sort of ... It's like circulation for our students. It is part of the ecosystem, and students immediately get fed into that, and vice versa.

I learn from my students, and in turn, I get to share with them what I learn when I work professionally, whether it be as a director or as an actor. And I think that that's one of the most wonderful, wonderful things about a research university, but particularly at Northwestern, and one of the reason I love teaching here; because it supports my creative work, and my creative work supports my teaching.

Alan Cubbage: And Cindy, you're actually in a production this fall with alums, right? Indecent?

Cindy Gold: Yeah, Indecent at Victory Gardens, directed by Gary Griffin. Beautiful play that was on Broadway just a couple years ago, and yes, so far, they haven't completed casting. But one of our ... He's actually a senior right now, which is an extraordinary get for one of our kids, is going to be in it. One of our former students is in it, Matt Deitchman, and I'm waiting to hear ... one of my former students who was in my acting class for three years is waiting to hear if they've cast her. So, it's a very exciting ... I always say to them, "Okay, now I'm Cindy not in the classroom, so what happens here, stays here. Let's not talk about this at ..." Because you know, I'm not the most professional actress in the world. I'm a very professional director. Henry's so shocked to hear that. But I like to have fun when I'm acting. It's part of the reason, aside from all of the research, I enjoy it. And I think the students are sometimes surprised.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah. Yeah, it's always ... They joke about the fact that seeing your teacher at the grocery store. You know, that whole thing of, "Oh my God, they have a life outside the classroom? I didn't know that. I thought they just went home and folded up into the closet or whatever, like a bat, until they came back to the classroom." Every now and then, when I run into one of my students somewhere else, they're sort of astounded that I am you know,

Henry Godinez: A real person?

Alan Cubbage: Yeah, right. So it's kind of interesting. Another question from a listener that came in, and we always get this one, is, "Please speak about the admissions process, particularly for theater." Now, again, you said you don't audition, which is a little unusual for some theater programs, definitely. But I guess the better question is, what qualities do you look for when you're having students who are applying here?

Cindy Gold: We don't look for anything. We are kept completely out of the process, which is sometimes frustrating, especially when you know someone who's brilliant and you want them. I think they look for grades, testing ability, writing ability, extracurricular activities, personality. Again, that was one of the things that surprised me, but I'll tell you; your sophomore acting class, you'll have someone who was on Broadway, and someone who did a few plays in Iowa. Their common thread is that they're brilliant and they're driven. I think our admissions does very well by that, somehow.

Alan Cubbage: I was going to say, they bring you good talent?

Cindy Gold: Yes.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah.

Henry Godinez: You know, I actually ... This has been an issue for us over the years, because I think something that's been very important for me at Northwestern in the theater program has been to frankly enrich it through diversifying our student body. And that is really hard, when you don't audition. It's really hard when you don't get to see the students until they've been admitted. So it's something that we strategized about a lot, and one of the things that ... and I think that we've been very successful. I know that some images that you've been seeing up there recently on the screen were from a production we did this fall called In the Red and Brown Water by Tarell McCraney, who is an Academy Award–winning writer for the movie Moonlight, who was ... I just have to brag and say he was a student of mine at DePaul.

But it was so moving to be able to do that play this fall, because 10 years ago, we could never have done that play, because we didn't have enough students of color to cast it. But what we have realized is that if you program, if you create program, if you schedule plays, if you produce plays in the season, that students are able to look at, in the brochure, online, and see themselves represented in the stories that we're telling, they are more likely to come. So we may not be able to choose the students that we get to be admitted, but we can choose how we represent ourselves, how we make Northwestern look to prospective students.

Cindy Gold: And we've spent a good bit of time on our hires in the last few years, bringing in people that represent all sorts of color, race, gender. We know that the faculty is a big part of that, too.

Henry Godinez: Oh, definitely.

Cindy Gold: So it's been a sea change, and we're working real hard on it.

Alan Cubbage: Yeah. Good, good. Go to the other end of the spectrum. As opposed to those coming in, those going out. A month from now, how many theater majors are going to graduate? How do you prepare them for life after Northwestern?

Cindy Gold: Oh. Well, we'll probably have about 100 graduate, something like that?

Alan Cubbage: Right, yep.

Cindy Gold: And we feel as though we're preparing them for the thing that's unpreparable. It is very hard when you graduate, particularly with an arts oriented major, everything is, "How am I going to make money?" And I just remind them, "Remember that the goal in life is to be happy, not to be rich and famous. To be happy. You'll find the thing that makes you happy if you just put one foot in front of the other, continue working really, really hard." I also remind them, "I don't think you're going to be on the street. You have lots of friends that you made. Your cohort at Northwestern will be your friends for the rest of your life."

When I was in New York for the showcase, I had a 40-year anniversary with people that I have known more than half of my life. We got together, and it was amazing, and they'll have that same experience when they get out. But yes, we do teach them about housing and taxes, and stuff that I never got when I was in school.

Henry Godinez: Yeah. Well, and I think that we help them realize that they have so many skills that they can apply to a number of a different ways to pay the rent and to eat, and then to begin very strategically to build a career. And also, that just because they graduate, doesn't mean that we get cut off from them. I tell my students that all the time; that when they're my student in my cohort, we have a contract and a bond forever. And as Cindy said, sometimes that works both ways when they become really successful. But …

Cindy Gold: I do hear from my students for the rest of ... I mean, I suspect the rest of our lives, I'll hear from many of them. I write them letters, I ... We go to dinner. I always take my students out to dinner, and I say, "When you're rich, you could take me out to dinner. But for now, that's what we do."

Alan Cubbage: Yeah, I jokingly say ... My son who's a lighting designer in the theater, my wife and I encouraged our children to follow their dream, and doggone it, he did it.

Henry Godinez: Doggone it. What the heck was he thinking?

Alan Cubbage: Yeah, exactly. But I think we're getting pretty close to the end, so let me just really quickly say a couple things. I know that, first of all, I want to thank both of you for joining us. It's always good to talk, and as you can tell, I'm a fan, so that's part of it, too, is it's really a great opportunity. I also want to thank our listeners for joining us.

The next NULC Insider Series is going to be in the fall, and we'll have Jonathan Holloway, who is the provost of the University, came this fall from Yale, and he will be joining us. He's really a very thoughtful person, and someone that I've gotten to know over the last seven or eight months, and really just a great guy. So I think he'll be a great interview. That's coming in the fall, so watch your email for that invitation, and certainly hope that you'll be able to join us.

For those of you who have been listening to this for most of this year, and part of last year too, and want to go back and hear those greatest hits, so to speak, we do have recordings of previous NULC Insider Sessions, and they're available online at the wewill.northwestern.edu/nulcinsider. I keep meaning to go listen to that, and I haven't done that, but I should probably do that. And then also, a reminder that after today's session, we will email you a survey, and we definitely would appreciate your response to that, so we can make sure that future NULC Insider Series are even better, although I think it'd be tough to top this one, as I thought this one went very well. So, thank you to all of our listeners for supporting Northwestern, and thank you again to Cindy and Henry for taking the time to chat with us today, and have a great day, everyone. Thanks.