Author: Liam Otten

As founder and producing director of The Black Rep, Ron Himes has worked with scores of playwrights to stage hundreds of shows, including dozens of world premieres. This spring, The Black Rep will present new plays by two celebrated young dramatists: Melda Beaty’s Coconut Cake and Kelundra Smith’s The Wash.

Politicians often claim to know what kind of government the founders would have wanted. Presidential historian Peter Kastor was struck by the relative lack of scholarship around an obvious follow-up question: What kind of government did the founders actually create?

Carmon Colangelo, the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, will conclude his deanship effective June 30, 2026. Colangelo will continue to serve as WashU’s E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts. He will return to teaching, after a yearlong sabbatical, in fall 2027.

Dwight A. McBride has been installed as the inaugural Gerald Early Distinguished Professor of African & African American Studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. A lecture and reception to celebrate his appointment were held Dec. 10 in Holmes Lounge.

Violinist Karen Gomyo, “a first-rate artist of real musical command,” (Chicago Tribune) and Orion Weiss, a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post), will perform music of Mozart, Bach, Adams, Dvořák and Brahms Feb. 16 for WashU’s Great Artists Series.

Sir Stephen Hough, a “keyboard colossus” (The Guardian) and “a pianist of great subtlety” (New York Times), will perform music of Cécile Chaminade, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin for WashU’s Great Artists Series Feb. 2.

Emmanuel Pahud, “one of today’s most dazzling interpreters of the 20th-century flute repertoire” (BBC Music Magazine), and pianist Alessio Bax, one of “the most remarkable young pianists now before the public” (Gramophone), will launch WashU’s 2025 Great Artists Series Jan. 23.

Illustrator Carson Ellis, sculptor Beatriz Cortez and architect Rahul Mehrotra are among the internationally renowned creative professionals who will discuss their work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts spring Public Lecture Series.

Jerome J. Sincoff, a former dean of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, died in hospice Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. He was 91. 

Alex Ullman, a postdoctoral fellow in WashU’s Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, will receive a 2024 William Riley Parker Prize honorable mention from the Modern Language Association.