School of Theatre, Film & Television faculty Elaine Romero and Lisanne Skyler were selected for the 2024-25 Udall Center Fellows cohort.
In 1990, the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy (UC) began their UC Fellows Program to relieve University of Arizona professors of their teaching duties for a semester so they could focus their attention on a research project pertaining to public policy.
“I am so honored to be an incoming Udall Fellow for the 2024-2025 semester,” said Romero, an associate professor and playwright. “I am thrilled to find the right fit, the right institute, to stand behind this critical work. I have always admired the work of the Udall Center, and to have my project selected, nurtured, and buoyed by them creates an indescribable joy within me as an artist. As a political playwright, embedded in an institution, it can be a delicate dance to express one’s views on the page in the form of a play. I have always had such respect for the Udall Center for Public Policy. I am tickled that I’m now a part of it.”
Skyler is equally grateful to be selected as a Udall Center Fellow during the postproduction of her new film, and for the continued partnership with the Office of Research, Innovation and Impact, who supported the production of the project at its early stages.
“Being awarded the Udall Fellowship this fall means the unique and special opportunity to not only focus on the creative editing, fundraising and distribution plans for the project, but to also begin developing social and public policy impact strategies,” said Skyler, professor and filmmaker. “Being able to collaborate with Laura Lopez-Hoffman, Udall Center Fellows faculty chair, and Molli Bryson, Udall Center Fellows program coordinator and the Udall Center team on a work-in-progress presentation and conversation about the film, while are still in postproduction, will generate ideas that will further inform our editing, distribution and social impact strategy.”
Both Romero and Skyler expressed their gratitude to Andy Schulz, dean of the College of Fine Arts, Brant Pope, interim director of the School of Theatre, Film & Television, and Ellen McMahon, associate dean for research, for their support throughout this process.
Elaine Romero
Associate Professor, School of Theatre, Film & Television
Project Title: “The Invisible Line”
Project Track: Fine Arts and Public Policy (in partnership with the College of Fine Arts)
The “border crisis” has hijacked this country’s attention and called into question its identity as a place that welcomes people of all nations and all creeds. On the border, could public policy, in part, be at the root of what has created such intense strife? When the will of the federal government collides with the wills of state governments it represents a unique crucible of public policy along the invisible line.
During her UC Fellowship, Associate Professor Elaine Romero will complete research, writing and a staged-reading presentation of her play, “The Invisible Line,” a stage play that will enliven an issue of public policy that threatens to tear the U.S. apart. Romero’s research includes the politics of the federal government and border states and how they impact the lives of U.S. citizens and migrants, many seeking asylum from their home countries.” As a UC Fellow, Romero will demonstrate how creative research can frame issues of public policy while creating a space and providing an environment to cultivate interdisciplinary conversations around a topic.
Part of this process will include a conversation around public policy and the border, in collaboration with as many U of A units as possible, to discuss public policy relating to the border crisis. Romero intends to include partners in the symposium such as the Immigration Law and Justice Network, the Mexican Consulate in Tucson, Coalicíon de Derechos Humanos and any new partners she meets throughout her journey. The UC Fellows Program will allow Romero to leverage her position in the arts to deliver a well-crafted play that will speak on a topic incredibly relevant to our culture in Tucson.
Right now Romero is in the heavy researching phase of the project (and writing and fundraising). As she addresses the border crisis, her film with look at federal and state public policy.
“The bad ideas are no longer fringe, they are part of the execution of public policy. The Latine person, even born here, has no refuge from both the rhetoric and enactment of these policies of hate. As an HSI, those of us who teach and do our work from the U of A have a special responsibility to our community to speak from where we live in space.”
Both the symposium and the play, hosted by the College of Fine Arts, will be an opportunity to center the arts in this conversation.
“The arts aren’t peripheral but central,” Romero said. “The arts tell us who we are contemporaneously while simultaneously etching a permanent record of what it was to be us—living here—in this moment. The arts activate our future history in an indelible way, ensuring that the future understand not only what happened but how it happened and how we felt about it as we were living it.”
Lisanne Skyler
Professor, School of Theatre, Film & Television
Project Title: “This Side of Midnight”
Project Track: Public Policy Research (in partnership with the Office of Research, Innovation and Impact)
At the height of the Reagan era, as AIDS ravaged the city, a new generation of culturally diverse artists found a creative haven in New York’s burgeoning downtown nightclubs.
Professor Lisanne Skyler’s feature-length documentary-in-progress, entitled “This Side of Midnight,” aims to capture just that – the intersection of magic and despair in New York’s 1980s nightclub culture.
Skyler’s intention for “This Side of Midnight” is to inspire conversations in public policy about the integral role creativity and the arts play in our culture, economy and in the general mental health of the public. The generation of artists who converged in NYC in the 80s was a melting pot of identities and perspectives challenging social issues but tied together in the name of creative expression – an ideal she is working to translate in her film.
“Our goal from the start was to tell a story about an interconnected community and to tell the stories of those who pioneered this scene,” said Skyler. “The film became more focused on these untold, personal stories, not only to highlight our characters’ past lives in the clubs, but also their resilience and commitment to their lives as working artists today. The film is inspired by personal experience of this place and time, how New York nightlife drew people from all backgrounds together and played key role in youth culture.
The New York nightclubs of the late 70s/early 80s were transformative for many who went on to influential careers across many fields. Artists like Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat, fashion designers like Anna Sui and Betsey Johnson, filmmakers like Susan Seidelman and Jim Jarmusch, and even pop culture icons like Madonna either emerged from, or were regulars on the scene.
During her UC Fellowship, Skyler and the film’s producer Erin Wright will complete the editing of the film and submit the documentary to film festivals to determine its world premiere. The team will also develop the promotion, social engagement and outreach campaigns in support of the documentary.
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Last year the Udall Center partnered with the College of Fine Arts for the first time with TFTV professors Yuri Makino and Michael Mulcahy selected for the cohort.