12 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN After Nicki Hunter ’09 was rejected for a third time for an internship at New York’s prestigious Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), she remembered advice from a professor at Lehigh—not in the theatre department, but in the College of Business: “A foot in the door is a foot in the door; once you’re in a company, you’re in.” She called back the nonprofit theater company and asked if there were any open positions, and was offered an unpaid role in the development office. That was enough to get an “in.” From those beginnings 16 years ago, Hunter rose through the ranks, eventually becoming assistant to longtime artistic director Lynne Meadow, and then subsequently being promoted to artistic associate, line producer, artistic producer and associate artistic director. Last December, Hunter succeeded Meadow as artistic director, the top creative position in the company. In that role, she now oversees programming and producing for MTC's three stages—one of only four nonprofit theater companies with a Broadway stage, in addition to two off-Broadway stages. She continues the company’s long legacy of showcasing exciting, bold new shows in New York. “We are able to take risks on new stories because we’re a nonprofit,” Hunter says. “We program theater not with the motivation to make money, but to say, ‘How are we progressing the art form? How are we contributing to the cultural landscape? How are we making people think, or making people cry, or making people laugh?’” Hunter’s rise to the top of the New York theater world demonstrates the strength of the training she received in Lehigh’s theatre department, which has launched a number of alumni to top positions in the industry. Pursuing Real Impact On the other side of the country, Daphnie Sicre ’98 is a professor at University of California–Riverside and self-described multi-hyphenate theater artist, who works as a teacher, director, dramaturge, researcher and co-director of a writing fellowship in musical theater for Latin American and Caribbean playwrights. Her journey began after college when she started a theater program at a Florida high school teaching predominantly Caribbean and Latine students. Despite leading them to win the Florida Theatre Conference competition, she grew frustrated by the fact that her students were not represented in the curriculum she was teaching. She went to New York University to earn a Ph.D. in theater, centering on educational theater with a focus on AfroLatine culture, and is now one of the top scholars and directors promoting plays by Black and Latine artists. “I went to grad school to help change curricula, thinking I could continue to direct independently and develop my artistry while creating real impact,” Sicre says. “Fast-forward to now, and that’s exactly what I’m doing, which is mind-blowing to me.” Building on a Storied Theater Legacy Lehigh has a long history of innovation in the areas of arts and performance, providing opportunities for students in theater to explore bold and experimental forms. This spring, the university further acknowledged those strengths with a new organizational structure designed to elevate and strengthen the arts. A new unit, Arts and Libraries, joins the libraries, Zoellner Arts Center and Lehigh University Art Galleries under one division. “What excites me about the new structure is that it recognizes the arts as essential to the intellectual life of the university,” says Kashi Johnson ’93, professor of acting and outgoing chairperson of the theatre department. Lehigh’s theater history goes back to the founding of the Mustard and Cheese Drama Society by students in 1884, less than two decades after the university was founded, making it the second-oldest collegiate drama society in the U.S. Lehigh officially launched its theatre A Daphnie Sicre ʼ98 is a multi-hyphenate theater artist, who works as a teacher, director, dramaturge and researcher.
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