FanX Studios in partnership with Office of Engaged Learning and Workforce Development has been bringing the entertainment industry to UVU since 2023. Though the UVU Green Room series Utah Valley University has experienced masterclasses, workshops, and special features from acclaimed artists and industry professionals providing engaged learning and networking opportunities to students and faculty. The series has brought in Jennifer Howell, Ed Neumeier, Christopher Curtis, Steven De Souza with many more to come.
Micheal Wilson made his screen directorial debut at the 2014 lifetime/ Ostar television film adaptation of Horton Foote’s ‘The Trip to Bountiful’. He won the 2016 Best Feature Film for ‘Showing Roots’ at the Maryland International Film Festival and the Bahamas International Film Festival. He was nominated for the DGA Award and Image Award for his feature film ‘The Trip To Bountiful’. On Broadway, he was tony nominated for the revival of Gore Vidal’s ‘The Best Man’, ‘Best Plays Dividing the Estate’, and ‘Enchanted April’ which he earned his first two Outer Critics Circle Nominations.
Program details coming soon!
Chris Curtis is the composer for Oscar Nominated Netflix and Pearl Studio animation feature ‘Over The Moon’. He has also written music for Walt Disney Animation in their Disney Songwriter Program and for DreamWorks with Spots and Trailer scores for ‘Abominable’. His musical ‘Chaplin’ played on Broadway and was nominated for eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, including ‘Best musical’ and ‘Best Score’, even getting 6 nominations for Drama Desk Awards.
David C. Woolard is a costume designer whose work spans Broadway, regional theatre, opera, and productions around the world. His Broadway credits include West Side Story, The Who’s Tommy (Tony and Olivier Award nominations), All Shook Up, Damn Yankees, The Rocky Horror Show (Tony Award nomination), 33 Variations, First Date, Bronx Bombers, and Lysistrata Jones. His extensive opera credits include world premieres at Santa Fe Opera, Dallas Opera, and Opera de Monte-Carlo. Woolard has designed for and dressed performers including Jane Fonda, Betty Buckley, Billy Crystal, Quentin Tarantino, and Liz Mikel.
Karen is in her 14th season as Artistic Director of Pioneer Theatre Company, amongst many projects, some of her favorites are Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, The Lehman Trilogy, Newsies, The Play That Goes Wrong, and The Rocky Horror Show. Under her leadership, PTC hosted Shucked, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical and the first and still only out-of-town Broadway musical tryout in Utah. Originally from New York, Karen has worked with Roundabout Theatre Company, Geva Theatre, the 92nd Street Y, and theatres across the country. She has directed or choreographed more than 15 productions of West Side Story and is a past president of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
Larry Hochman is a Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning orchestrator, composer, and arranger. He won both awards for Best Orchestrations for The Book of Mormon and has received six additional Tony nominations for She Loves Me, Something Rotten!, The Scottsboro Boys, Monty Python’s Spamalot, Fiddler on the Roof, and A Class Act. His additional Broadway credits include Pippin, On the Twentieth Century,Big Fish, The Visit, The Addams Family, Chaplin, and Jane Eyre, among many others. Hochman is also the lead composer of Nickelodeon’s The Wonder Pets!, earning five Emmy Awards. His arranging and orchestration work extends to film, television, recordings, and major artists including Sir Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Audra McDonald, Mandy Patinkin, and Brian Stokes Mitchell.
Steven E. de Souza
Legendary screenwriter and director Steven E. de Souza (Die Hard, 48 Hrs., Commando, The Flintstones) will be on campus February 26-27, 2025, sharing insights from his Hollywood career and providing hands-on learning experiences for students interested in screenwriting, filmmaking, and storytelling.
Among the handful of screenwriters whose films have earned over $2 billion at the box office, Steven de Souza was introduced to Hollywood on camera--as a contestant on an L.A. game show. There the Philadelphia-based writer for PBS, The New York Times, Premiere and other media outlets won a car and a color TV--and then talked his way into the office of several producers to leave behind some writing samples. A contract with Universal Television as a story editor was the result. From there, he moved into producing (Knight Rider (1982)) and then earned his first film credit, on 48 Hrs. (1982). That film, along with Commando (1985), Die Hard (1988) and Die Hard 2 (1990), established his reputation as a writer who could juggle both action and humor. That combination remains evident in all of his subsequent work, which expanded to include science-fiction (V (1984), The Running Man (1987), Judge Dredd (1995)), horror (Tales from the Crypt (1989), Possessed (2000)) and fantasy (The Flintstones (1994), Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (1993), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003)). He has been nominated two times each for the Edgar Allen Poe award for best mystery screenplay and the Saturn award for best Science Fiction/Fantasy Film. In 2000 he was honored with the Norman Lear Award for Lifetime Achievement in writing.
In 2009 his web series Unknown Sender (2008) became an unprecedented triple honoree in the 13th annual Webby Awards--for best series and best writing and for Timothy Dalton's performance in If You're Seeing This Tape... (2008).
