Office for the Arts Announces Senior Winners of Annual Prizes

The Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Council on the Arts announced the winners of the prizes for outstanding accomplishments in the arts at Harvard for the 1999-00 academic year.

Sara Yellen ’00 was selected to receive the Radcliffe Doris Cohen Levi Prize of $750 and a certificate. The prize recognizes a Harvard College student who combines talent and energy with outstanding enthusiasm for musical theater at Harvard, and honors the memory of Doris Cohen Levi, Radcliffe ’35. A resident of Leverett House, Yellen has performed in numerous musical theater productions. Her credits include roles in Cabaret, Lend Me a Tenor, Slavs!, and Hair. She played Diana Deveraux in Of Thee I Sing and Mallory in City of Angels. Yellen also performed in the all-female musical revue It Takes a Woman and served as co-director, creator, and performer in Seven Degrees of Separation. She directed the play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, and was assistant director for The Illuminati and publicity coordinator for H.M.S. Pinafore and Look What a Wonder. Yellen studies voice and modern dance and is currently performing in Full Circle, directed by Robert Woodruff at the American Repertory Theatre.

Marisa Echeverria ’00 is the recipient of the $250 Jonathan Levy Award for the most promising actor at the College. A resident of Adams House, Echeverria is a gifted and versatile actor who has starred in numerous plays at Harvard including the title role in Richard III, directed by visiting artist Tina Packer of Shakespeare and Company. She has also performed in Hamlet, staged in Sanders Theatre with Shakespeare and Company, and Cantata 2000, directed by visiting artist Elizabeth Swados. Echeverria also starred in Missionaries at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, also directed by Swados. Other Harvard performances include Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, and roles in Slavs!, The Pirates of Penzance, and Measure for Measure, among others. Echeverria is a proctor in the Freshman Arts Program and a board member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players.

The Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts of $1,000 will be awarded to Joseph Lin ’00, a resident of Mather House. The prize recognizes outstanding artistic talent and achievement in the composition or performance of music, drama, dance, or the visual arts. It honors the sum of a student’s artistic achievement over a four-year period rather than a single project.

Lin has been awarded the prize as recognition of his talent as a violinist. He is the winner of the 1999 Pro Musica International Award and the 1996 Concert Artist Guild International Competition, as well as awards from the 1994 Hannover International Violin Competition and the Kingsville Competition. Lin made his New York recital debut at the Weill Recital Hall and has performed in such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and the Theatro Colon in Buenos Aires. He has performed with the Boston Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and at the Caramoor, Ravinia, and Marlboro music festivals. Lin has performed with the Bach Society Orchestra at Harvard and will headline a concert to benefit the Phillips Brooks House Association in Sanders Theatre this coming May.

John Baxindine ’00 and David Levy ’00 are the recipients of the Louise Donovan Award, which recognizes Harvard students who have worked behind the scenes in the arts, for example, as director, producer, or accompanist, contributing most to the success of a production and the opportunity for others to shine. The award of $500 is given in honor of Louise Donovan who, through her distinguished career as secretary of Radcliffe College and clerk to the board of trustees at Radcliffe College, was a role model of unselfish, effective support. This year, Baxindine and Levy will share the award.

A resident of Eliot House, John Baxindine has worked behind the scenes in a number of productions. He was music director for Yerma and the 1999 Freshman Theater Project Good, and assistant music director for Guys and Dolls and Tales of Hoffman. He has been a rehearsal and/or performance accompanist in many productions, including Assassins, Of Thee I Sing, The Mikado, City of Angels, Candide, The Magic Flute, and The Beggars Opera. Baxindine has regularly made his services available to the Harvard theater community as an “emergency accompanist.” Baxindine also composed new music for Yerma and the 1997 Freshman Musical No Bull, and orchestrated and reorchestrated existing songs, for No Bull, Guys and Dolls, and Good. He has written a new musical, Antonelli’s, which will be performed in Agassiz Theatre this May.

David Levy, a resident of Adams House, has been active in theater as a producer, director, and writer, among many other roles. He produced the opera Don Giovanni and the 1997 Freshman Musical No Bull. He wrote the one-act play Revisionist History in a class taught by Obie Award—winning visiting playwright Adrienne Kennedy and directed it during ARTS FIRST 1998 in the Adams Pool Theatre. Levy also directed the musical revue Songs for a New World and the musical Your Own Thing, and wrote Brittain and Dave’s Halloween Spectacular. Additionally, Levy has served as business manager for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. He has also been the chair of Hillel Drama, and in that capacity and in his role as Learning From Performers Assistant at the Office for the Arts, he aided in a workshop conducted by composer Stephen Schwartz in conjunction with the cast of Hillel Drama’s production of Children of Eden.