Usdan Center For the Creative and Performing Arts Announces Three New Members of Its Board of Directors
 
(Long Island, N.Y.) Usdan Center For the Creative and Performing Arts, the renowned summer arts day camp just named a “Best Of for 2010” by TimeOutNY/Kids, announces three new members of its Board of Directors: Playwright Michele Lowe, whose Smell Of the Kill and String Of Pearls were produced on Broadway, and whose newest work, the Iraq-set Inana just opened at the Denver Center Theatre; Lesley Friedman Rosenthal, Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Lincoln Center For the Performing Arts; and James R. Wacht, President of Sierra Realty Corporation and a longtime activist in community housing improvement causes.
 
Dale Lewis, Executive Director of Usdan Center, says “We are thrilled to have three such distinguished new members of the Board of Directors. Their extensive experience and commitment to the arts and to community issues will be of great benefit to our Center’s Board, Faculty, and Staff, as we continue to expand arts programming for children who live in the New York metropolitan area.
 
Usdan Center is now preparing for its 43rd season, opening on June 28th. The Center is holding Open Houses on Wednesdays, February 17 and March 31, and on Sunday April 18, each from 11 AM to 2 PM. Usdan is located on a 200-acre woodland campus on Long Island, at 185 Colonial Springs Road, Wheatley Heights, NY 11798.

For Open House information and reservations, call 212-772-6060, or 631-643-7900, or write to info@usdan.com, or visit www.usdan.com.
 
Michele Lowe, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, is also a former Usdan student, who recalls her creative-writing summers at the Center as “by far, the most thrilling and satisfying of my childhood.” Ms. Lowe now teaches workshops at Usdan. Her play ,Smell of the Kill, opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater, and has been produced dozens of times worldwide. The New York Times called her String of Pearls “…a highly satisfying, often hilarious blend of sex, satire, poignancy and absurdism,” and the Outer Critics Circle nominated it for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. Ms. Lowe’s work has been produced by Primary Stages, the Intiman?Theater, the Vineyard Theater, Cleveland Play House, Florida Stage, Berkshire Theater Festival, and Cincinnati Play House, among others. Her screenplay Quitting Texas is under option to Avenue Pictures. Michele Mowe is a Core Member of the Playwrights’ Center, as well as a member of the Dramatist’s Guild and ASCAP.

Lesley Friedman Rosenthal is another former Usdan student (as a violinist and choral singer), who credits the Center “for nurturing my love of the performing arts, and for introducing me to professionals and other students who shared my passion for the arts.” Mrs. Rosenthal recalls that “Usdan also provided me with scholarship aid for several summers.” Both of her brothers were students at the Center, and her husband, Ted Rosenthal, is a noted jazz pianist and composer who has performed at Usdan, Mrs. Rosenthal’s sons play cello and piano, and they too spend summers at Usdan. She was graduated, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard College, and studied philosophy at Oxford University, later receiving her law degree from Harvard Law School. Mrs. Rosenthal continues to play the violin, and is a founding member of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony.
 
James R. Wacht is President of Sierra Realty Corporation, providing commercial and residential property management services, office and store leasing, and brokerage services to building owners, tenants, and real estate consulting services. He is an active member of the Real Estate Board of New York, and of many other professional organizations. In addition, as a Manhattan resident James Wacht is past First Vice Chairman of Community Board No. 8 in Manhattan, and he serves on the New York Advisory Council of the Appleseed Foundation, a not-for–profit network of 16 public interest justice centers in the U.S. and Mexico, where he is currently spearheading Appleseed’s effort to address the issue of affordable housing for public school teachers in New York. Mr. Wacht is also as member of the Board of Directors of the Afro–Latin Jazz Orchestra.
 
Usdan Center has introduced the arts to more than 50,000 Tri-State Area children since its founding in 1968. The Center is open to all young people from age 6 to 18. Usdan’s program features more than 40 seven-week programs in music, dance, theater, visual arts, writing, nature & ecology, and chess. No audition is needed for most programs – rather, admission is based on an expression of interest in the arts. Each summer, 1,600 students are transported to the Center in air-conditioned buses each day. One-third of Usdan’s students attend on scholarship. Although the mission of the Center is for every child to establish a relationship with the arts, the unique stimulation of the Center has caused many to go on to arts careers. Alumni include singers Jane Monheit and Mariah Carey, actresses Natalie Portman and Lisa Gay Hamilton, and members of major music, theater, and dance ensembles such as the Boston Pops and the New York City Ballet.