Politics is Hollywood for Ugly People? KSGers Dispel Myth
Mark Canavera
Issue date: 5/18/06 Section: Entertainment
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An old adage - positing Washington, D.C. as a refuge for would-be actors who couldn't quite cut it in the entertainment industry - holds that politics is merely show business for ugly people. But several members of the Kennedy School community have proven that Hollywood just might have a place for policy wonks. Students, alumni, and former staff members have connections to the global entertainment industry which suggests that the line between entertainment and politics might not be so thickly drawn after all.
Andress Appolon (MPP1) is a New York City native who pursued both of her passions - international relations and drama - as an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University, where she was a double major. Having grown up performing in community theatre and off-Broadway productions in Manhattan and Queens, Appolon chose her alma mater because it would allow her to study both international development and theatre simultaneously rather than forcing her to make a choice between two topics that she found equally important.
"It came down to Carnegie Mellon or the Georgetown School of Foreign Service," she says, "and I chose Carnegie Mellon because it would allow me to do both."
International relations and drama wove themselves together for Appolon's thesis, which examined cross-cultural communication in community township theatre in South Africa. Appolon traveled to South Africa, where she worked with a national community theatre group and 30 South African teenagers from a variety of backgrounds to develop a play for Freedom Day, a public holiday which commemorates the first democratic elections held in South Africa on April 27, 2004. The play was performed at Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent nearly 20 years in prison.
After graduating in 2002, Appolon worked for the U.S. State Department in Mali and the U.S. Agency for International Development in Haiti, but moving forward she hopes to reinvigorate some of her theatrical past. She is currently collaborating with two close friends on a film, noting that "there is more empowerment in trying to create film and art than in simply acting out what's dealt out to you in this industry."
Andress Appolon (MPP1) is a New York City native who pursued both of her passions - international relations and drama - as an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University, where she was a double major. Having grown up performing in community theatre and off-Broadway productions in Manhattan and Queens, Appolon chose her alma mater because it would allow her to study both international development and theatre simultaneously rather than forcing her to make a choice between two topics that she found equally important.
"It came down to Carnegie Mellon or the Georgetown School of Foreign Service," she says, "and I chose Carnegie Mellon because it would allow me to do both."
International relations and drama wove themselves together for Appolon's thesis, which examined cross-cultural communication in community township theatre in South Africa. Appolon traveled to South Africa, where she worked with a national community theatre group and 30 South African teenagers from a variety of backgrounds to develop a play for Freedom Day, a public holiday which commemorates the first democratic elections held in South Africa on April 27, 2004. The play was performed at Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent nearly 20 years in prison.
After graduating in 2002, Appolon worked for the U.S. State Department in Mali and the U.S. Agency for International Development in Haiti, but moving forward she hopes to reinvigorate some of her theatrical past. She is currently collaborating with two close friends on a film, noting that "there is more empowerment in trying to create film and art than in simply acting out what's dealt out to you in this industry."
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