Hancher Alumni

The Hancher Alumni Project
Welcome to the Hancher Alumni Project! This page celebrates all the student employees, past and present, whose work has made Hancher Auditorium such a special place since 1972.

Enjoy our “Where are they now?” features—and feel free to submit your own! Whether you send a short anecdote of your favorite Hancher memory or a longer account of your life since you worked at the auditorium, we’d be thrilled to tell your story here. To submit your story email Hancher’s marketing director (and former usher) Rob Cline at rob-cline@uiowa.edu.

Hancher Alumni Stories
Below you will find the stores from some of our alumni in alphabetical order by last name.

Mary Bergs - Usher from 1983 - 1987

"I ushered at Hancher from 1983 - 1987. I enjoyed nearly every show for which I ushered. The highlight of my experience was having Marcel Marceaux say "Bon Jour" to me while I was on a tour and then watching his performance that evening."

Katherine Brown - Stagehand & Usher, Fall 1999 - Spring 2003
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Production & House Manager at the Sellersville Theater 1894 (a 300 seat live-music venue)

I was browsing on Hancher's site and found the Alumni link. What a fantastic idea! During my time as a stagehand, usher, and tour guide many great friendships were formed, and lost promptly upon our graduations. I would love to know what people are up to and read other's stories of events.

And I have to share some sort of story from my time there. As Les Miserables is my, and so many other people's, favorite, here is one: As a student stagehand I was often "Firerunner" during performances. This job confines you to a small area backstage during the show, although you can see a lot of backstage activity from your position. Early on during a week of Les Miserables performances the actors playing Valjean and Marius came out of the stairs coming from the pit orchestra after having descended into the "sewers" as the baricade fell. Marius passed right by me heading backstage (as he should have), Valjean turned towards a door to the left instead of passing by me to the main back stage area...almost opening a door right onto the side of the stage in view of the audience. He stopped in time and we both laughed as he did a sheepish mock-wave as though he had walked out, then got back in character to continue with the next scene.

J. David Carey - House Manager & Education Outreach from 1982 - 1984

My favorite moments were those informal, wind-down times I shared with my fellow arts-management grad students and Hancher staffers closing down the Hancher Café after a long night, (and there were a lot of them). Our Arts Management Seminar with director Jim Wockenfuss was always fun, also.

I honestly can’t pick a best show. However, then director Jim Wockenfuss had a passion for dance, and especially modern dance – a discipline for which I had absolutely no affinity when I arrived at Hancher. The very first event I experienced was break dancers from inner-city NYC demonstrating their moves in the Hancher lobby. (This is long before break dancing, rap and hip hop became mainstream). By the time I left Hancher, I had become a tremendous fan of modern dance – having seen the very best companies come through – Alvin Ailey, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Ballet Rambert, Paul Taylor, Bill T Jones, Sankai Juku, Jeoffrey Ballet – to name just a very few.

I have continued to work in arts administration. After graduating, I moved to the “wild west” and became a program director for the Wyoming Arts Council for several years. I subsequently returned to Iowa and my home town of Cedar Rapids where I became the Marketing Director of the Cedar Rapids Symphony. I then moved over to Theatre Cedar Rapids where I am currently Administrative Director- a position that allows me to direct one or two shows a year along with my administrative duties. My wife, Alex, and I had the great fortune of living in 5 Turner Alley -- Grant Wood’s old studio --for 13 years (actually, longer than Grant did !) Though it had great karma, we were quite pleased to move out in order for the Cedar Rapids Art Museum to open it to the public as an historic site.

Beth Anne (Gonnella) Leach - Stagehand and Seamstress from 1991 - 1993

Probably the thing that I remember the most was working backstage when Les Miserable came to Hancher. The sets were absolutely amazing! It was really exciting for me, being part of a show that I really love, from BOTH sides of the curtain!

The year that I worked in the costume shop, the Joffrey Ballet came to Hancher performing Prince’s (the artist formerly known as?) production, “Billboards”. I had never been a big fan of dance, but the show was utterly impressive! That is a great memory for me, in part because it was a new experience for me, and one that I doubt I will ever forget.

After college, I spent several years working in the Cedar Rapids area before meeting my husband, Matt. We were married about 2 years ago and recently had our first child, Ty Matthew, who we both agree is the best thing we ever did. I have been working for a software company in Illinois for 5 years now, first as a Spanish language translator for our Latin American customers and most recently as Internal Training Coordinator, organizing all of our employees’ training on our own products as well as other applications. I also teach classes on various professional development topics and Microsoft Office applications. In my spare time (like any of us have much of that!) I enjoy teaching quilting classes, cooking, crafting, and scrap booking.