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Mia Katigbak
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Long past midnight, in a dusty downtown theater, Mia Katigbak is spray-painting the set of one of her plays. The theater is empty and still as she works furiously to finish because the show's first technical rehearsal is scheduled for the following day.
Even so, Katigbak has to be at her day job the next morning by 9 a.m. As the assistant to Executive Vice President for Administration Emily Lloyd, Katigbak has managed to lead a full artistic life despite being able to devote only her personal hours to it.
At Columbia, she is not alone. Ching Gonzalez, for example, the executive assistant to Vice-President for Human Resources Colleen Crooker, has performed as a professional actor and dancer for more than 16 years. Ralph Pena, manager of Lerner Hall's Hospitality Services, is the artistic director of his own theater company.
They are among dozens of Columbia's multi-talented employees who regularly stream down Broadway from Morningside Heights to pursue their creative dreams and contribute to the city's rich culture.
Pena is the artistic director for the Ma-Yi Theatre Company, which produces original Asian-American plays. Pena, who is also an actor, playwright and producer, came to Columbia after working downtown at an investment banking firm.
"I came to work here because it's a more liberal environment and because it's ethically closer to my work as an artist," says Pena.
Since 1984, Gonzalez has been a member of the performance company, "Meredith Monk/The House," founded by renowned composer, choreographer, director and filmmaker Meredith Monk. When he's not at work on the 19th floor of the Interchurch Center, Gonzalez might be found on a stage performing in one of Monk's latest operas or theater pieces.
Coming to Columbia more than a year ago, Gonzalez has managed to remain committed to his artistic ambitions.
"It's great. I couldn't ask for anything more," Gonzalez says. "They're so supportive in the human resources office. Especially Colleen Crooker. She comes to all the shows."
Katigbak has also benefited from a strong relationship with her boss, Emily Lloyd. "She's the best. Totally generous and understanding with her support," says Katigbak. "On more than one occasion, she's suggested I take the day off because I'm looking a little green around the gills during a production."
While Gonzalez usually spends his evenings in rehearsal, he's about to take off for a week to tour with one of Monk's new shows, Magical Frequencies, which Gonzalez calls a "science-fiction chamber opera."
David Brooks, executive secretary to President George Rupp, is also a poet, playwright, actor, radio host, theater and radio producer, musician and grant writing consultant. Last year, Brooks received an honorarium when NYU's Tisch School of the Arts performed a staged-reading of his play, Black Poemology: Men of Color in Transitory Stages.
"I finally got paid for my services," says Brooks, though he notes money has never been his artistic motivation. "I do it because I have a love and passion for the arts," he says. "It's my outlet."
Brooks recently performed in a production by the Black Theatre Ensemble in Lerner Hall. Weekly, he serves as producer and DJ for a one-hour program called "OUT-FM," on WBAI-FM radio, where he is also working as the station's interim administrator. He has been fueled by all things artistic since 1976 when he saw the Broadway play For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Was Enuf.
"Although it was a women's play, I felt very empowered by it," says Brooks, who is especially drawn to live theater. "You get that instant gratification."
Presently a non-matriculated student in the Arts Administration Program at Teachers College, Brooks is developing his talents in another side of the arts. Recently, he helped write a $10,000 grant for the Vincent Holmes Dance Company, a troupe that performs throughout the tri-state area.
"I'm trying to become the seed money man," he says. "I want to find grants and funding for art programs, especially in education."
Sometimes positions at Columbia can be extensions of one's artistic passion. Ulrika Brand, a senior press officer in the Office of Public Affairs, handles publicity for the University's artistic community, but manages to participate in it as well.
Influenced by the films and theatrical productions of Ingmar Bergman as a teenager in Sweden, Brand spent time in Hollywood where she worked as a story editor, apprentice film editor and producer's assistant on several independent films, while at night, she directed for the Pacific Theatre Ensemble. She then became a publicist at the L.A. County Museum before making her way back to New York.
Brand came to Columbia from the public affairs department at the Guggenheim. Her position at the University is a good fit, she says. "Anything I can do to promote the arts is something I'm totally committed to."
Brand has taken advantage of her time here by joining the Columbia Dramatists and contributing to the group as a writer and director on their most recent production. A member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Brand is currently working on a modern translation and adaptation of the August Strindberg play, Crimes and Crimes. She hopes to stage a reading of the play with the Dramatists, and then move to a larger venue with a full production.
Katigbak, a Columbia employee since 1984, is the artistic director of the National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) which she founded in 1990 with Richard Eng, coordinator of tenure reviews in the Office of the Provost.
Eng, who has worked at Columbia for six years, presently sits on the Board of Directors for both NAATCO and the Alliance of Resident Theaters in New York (ARTS/NY), and sings with the New York City Gay Men's Chorus.
NAATCO, which received an Obie grant for its 1998-1999 season, was started "to give Asian-American artists the chance to produce and act in the kinds of plays for which they're usually passed over." The company performs European and American classics with all Asian-American casts.
The company's production of Othello, which is presently playing at The Connelly Theatre in the East Village through March 4, has received very positive reviews. For example, The New York Times said ". . . [one] leaves this performance thinking mostly about how clear the plot is and how swift its development if all the baggage of race we tend to bring to it is simply left at the door."
"You keep plugging away at it and the more you do, the more it becomes evident that there is a great, great, great need," says Katigbak of breaking down barriers, as her theatre company strives to do.
Katigbak surmounts the difficulty of being an artist in New York by melding her professional and artistic lives. "It's symbiotic. I understand that," she says, "I couldn't do one without the other."
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