CUA Alums Get Dramatic About Fundraising By Maggie Master This school year, two actors who first got their starts on the CUA stage will lend their talents to a very important cause: helping future thespians access the same great education.     Emmy-nominated actress and CUA alum Colleen Zenk-Pinter will return to campus this month to perform in A.R. Gurney’s two-person play “Love Letters” and, in February, alumnus Joe Plummer will perform “Will Shakespeare — Live!” a one-man show featuring some of Shakespeare’s favorite characters.  Proceeds from both events go directly to building the Dean’s Scholarship Endowment for the Department of Drama, which will give tuition assistance to outstanding CUA drama students.  The performances are part of a larger, yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of the School of Arts and Sciences.  While on campus, the returning alumni also will give master classes and other instruction to current drama students.  Colleen Zenk-Pinter and Mark Pinter  Zenk-Pinter, who has been nominated for two Emmys for her portrayal of Barbara in “As the World Turns,” will team up with her husband — fellow TV and movie actor Mark Pinter — to perform Gurney’s wry and poignant story of a couple who can’t live with, or without, each other. It is a lifelong love story revealed entirely through their letters. The actress began her career as a drama student at Catholic University from 1971 to 1973. Her husband, who portrayed several, long-running characters on “All My Children” and “Another World,” also appeared in the 2001 movie “Vanilla Sky” and has guest starred on many primetime television series, including “Law & Order.” Zenk-Pinter’s ties to CUA are bound not only by her own experience as a student here, but also by her son: Dylan Pinter is a senior drama major, which makes coming home to perform on the stage that much more fun. “We were very pleased when he made the decision that this was where he wanted to go,” Zenk-Pinter says of her son’s choice of CUA.  And while most parents only hope of reliving their college days vicariously through their children, Zenk-Pinter will have a chance to wow CUA audiences herself, once again.  “I’m so thrilled to come back and be on the stage where I was as a kid!” "Love Letters" will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 10 and 11, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12, at the Callan Theatre in CUA’s Hartke building. Tickets for this benefit performance are $25 each. Joe Plummer’s CUA performances in February will be a part of D.C.’s 2007 Shakespeare in Washington Festival and will be included in the festival’s official brochure. Plummer, who stars as both player and playwright of “Will Shakespeare — Live!” earned his drama degree from Catholic University in 1954 and has established a reputation for writing and performing in one-man and two-man plays portraying such historical figures as Charles Dickens and Shakespeare. This original work features a mingling of Shakespeare’s biography with some of the bard’s most compelling and memorable characters, from Juliet to Macbeth.           Joe Plummer “Will Shakespeare—Live!” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 9, 10 and 11 at the Callan Theatre. Tickets for this benefit performance are $25 each. “We are so lucky to have prominent performing alumni of the department come back to campus and donate their time and talent,” said L.R. Poos, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.  Poos noted such accomplished actors enable CUA to stage high-profile performances, while building the endowment. “The department, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the university as a whole are deeply grateful to our loyal former students for their willingness to contribute in this way to the life of the drama department and its future,” Poos said.   The Centennial Series will commemorate both the 100th anniversary of the School of Arts and Sciences (1906) and the 100th anniversary of the birth (in 1907) of Rev. Gilbert Hartke, founder of CUA’s Department of Drama.  The series will extend through the spring 2007 semester.  Other events include receptions to celebrate the Corcoran Gallery of Art exhibition “Joan of Arc”, co-curated by CUA Associate Professor of Art Nora Heimann (Nov. 18 to Jan. 21), and the performance by CUA Associate Professor of Drama Gary Sloan of “Haunted Prince — The Ghosts of Edwin Booth” at the National Portrait Gallery (March 19 and the following four Monday nights), as part of the citywide Shakespeare in Washington Festival; and lectures by luminaries ranging from Sir Patrick Cormack, member of the United Kingdom Parliament (March 13, 2007) to Nobel-Prize-winning physicist William Phillips (March 16, 2007). The series’ inaugural event welcomed Dr. Anthony S. Fauci to speak on biodefense and the threat of a pandemic influenza. Fauci, who is director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addressed a standing-room-only audience of faculty, students and the general public.  His presentation, which focused on a historical perspective of past pandemics and the NIAD strategy for preparedness against future outbreaks, was nationally broadcast by C-SPAN. Back to Top