(Courtesy of Nicolas Tarmarkin)

Before becoming a Washington University freshman, Nicholas Tamarkin had performed in two Tony-nominated plays, one during his freshman year and another during his junior year of high school. He had acted in Paris and Berlin, met Al Pacino and Paul Newman, and gone to Kevin Bacon’s wedding.

“Wonderful, fantastic, lovely, lucky,” Tamarkin said about those experiences between the ages of 14 and 22 that led him to Broadway, to regional theater, to the BBC and even to legendary Arthur Miller.

During that time, he also realized that the A-list lifestyle might not be particularly sustainable. In some ways, the glossy glow of the famous names and the famous places was akin to the one derived from “dating a cheerleader,” as he joked. A young Tamarkin came to the understanding that, behind the bright lights of the mainstream theater scene, there was the space to question whether there was any art burgeoning at all.

In looking for satisfaction from life and art, Tamarkin has tried regional theater, writing, directing and even teaching at Michigan State University for two years. His career has been, according to him, a topsy-turvy ride, and one that, after more than a decade, once again has found a good pit stop in St. Louis. He is now back at Wash. U. in the doctoral program for comparative literature. He also works as director of development in the St. Louis-based Upstream Theater, an experimental company that has become his artistic home.

“The motto of [Upstream Theater] is ‘To move you, and to move you to think,’” Tamarkin said about the small theater company founded in 2004. Within the St. Louis theater scene, Upstream is known for its raw and uncomfortable shows. Tamarkin just finished working in “Helver’s Night,” a two-character play about a mentally disabled man who becomes fascinated with the regalia of a political movement uncannily similar to the Nazi regime of World War II.

The process of creating theater in Upstream is “organic,” according to Tamarkin. Most of the work that is presented is in translation from Polish or German. The scripts are ambitious and sometimes “imperfect,” and the company members come together in a hazy process to find what each member of the company can contribute to the understanding of the script.

There is a rich variety of experiences that color the theatrical process: Upstream works, for example, with an Iranian-American musician and a Mexican mask maker. Two years ago, Upstream also worked with the Serbian community in St. Louis for the production of a Serbian play, looking constantly for community engagement. Apart from Tamarkin, other members of the Wash. U. community are involved with Upstream Theater (or the other way around). Philip Boehm, artistic director of Upstream, is the husband of Elzbieta Sklodowska, professor in the romance languages department.

Tamarkin believes that Upstream Theater should be accessible to Wash. U. students. As director of development at Upstream Theater, he hopes to make a move toward a closer contact between students—in a constant process of fascination and discovery—and a theater that is deeply rooted in its creative process.

“We can get into art museums with our Wash. U. IDs. We should be able to see strong, evocative, consciousness-raising theater for five, six bucks,” Tamarkin said.

Tamarkin hopes to return once again to teaching in the future, considering that helping young men and women in a process of discovery is highly satisfactory. In the meantime, his time in St. Louis offers him an interesting combination of experiences.

“Coming back to St. Louis, seeing people are still into Mama’s Pot Roast, trying to figure out to how to work within a Ph.D. program and, most importantly, working with Upstream Theater and just helping people make their art,” Tamarkin said with a smile.

It seems that for him, coming back to St. Louis is not quite full circle, but just another interesting twist in an exciting life spiral.

With well-established alumni-student programs in the School of Engineering and the Olin Business School, the UI committee seeks to implement a similar program for students in the College of Arts & Sciences.

“We want the students-alumni to have a four year relationship that will not be limited to St. Louis area. Also, we want this program to be available to students from all schools” Ceren Yalez, an international student serving on the UI Committee, wrote in an e-mail to Student Life.

One alumni-student relation opportunity that the business school currently offers is designed for first-semester freshmen. Likewise, the business school’s Weston Career Center often matches international students with alumni from their area to help them adjust to a new culture.

“[International students and alumni] work primarily in first semester they’re here,” said Joe Fox, the associate dean and director of MBA programs at Olin.

The Weston Career Center has also tried to create more career-oriented ties between students and alumni. One of its mentoring programs offers to link students interested in a field with University alumni working in the same sphere.

The program is intended to give students a glimpse into a field they are considering and receive general advice on how to apply for a job in that area.

“[This is] more about career direction and life direction than it is about academics,” Fox said.

While UI’s proposed program is similar to the business school’s in that it matches students and alumni by location and interest, the students on UI are hoping to create even more opportunities for students.

“Our program is pro-actively making opportunities for continuity in the Wash. U. community by setting up meetings between alumni and students. We hope that these meetings organically produce good relationships,” Alex Christenson, the chair of UI, wrote.

Although this committee project was just started, it has taken all kinds of results into account in coming up with the new plan.

“We investigated the alumni databases and alumni mentorship programs of other top tier schools and had meetings with Career Service and Alumni Development Office,” Yalez wrote.

The plan offered by UI is more structured than those already offered by the Career Center. It proposes lunches in 10 major cities with a ratio of 2:1 students to alumni who have been sorted by discipline using applications.

Despite the planning of the student group, those who work in the career centers were skeptical of the success of the program.

Mark Smith, the assistant vice chancellor and director of the Career Center, noted that it is very difficult to have a successful mentoring program. Those at Weston agreed.

“I think it can be helpful anywhere that its taken seriously and put in place for the right reasons. If you don’t have a serious purpose it becomes more like a social thing which is nice but not a compelling thing,” Fox said. “You need to put some time and labor into it.”

Nonetheless, the Career Center is considering adding a new job-shadowing program. Encouraged by the Center, students could meet with alumni through the Career Center, receive advice on how to get a job and communicate with people in their field of interest.

“I think sometimes students are hesitant to do that because it’s not something comfortable,” Smith said. “Students are like ‘oh I dunno that feels awkward.’”

UI plans to pave the way with student-alumni relationships, which according to Christenson, “have been lackluster in the past.”

“Our goal for this program is to have a pilot running by this summer. We want to observe how receptive the students and alumni volunteers are once they have gone through the first step in the program, and how it contributes toward our overall goal: making genuine and long-lasting relationships that will benefit both alumni and students,” Christenson said.

Sitting on a cushioned chair on the first floor of the center at 10 a.m. with a low buzz of activity behind her that was sure to escalate as the day went on, Marshall praised the background noise. In fact, she said, the noisier the better.

“This is something students needed,” Marshall, who graduated in 2006 and finished her tenure as a University admissions officer on Wednesday, said. “It encourages students to gather. It builds community. If you stand up on one of the top railings, you look down and see people smiling, yelling. It feels like a campus to me.”

If its objective is to make students gather, the Danforth University Center (DUC) may have succeeded in its purpose, having served lunch to 2,700 people between the hours of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Wednesday. Students said they enjoyed the food, but not the cafeteria’s wait.
Junior Greg Booth, who works as a guide for lost students in the DUC, said that when he went to get a meal, the line stretched through the cafeteria and out of the building. Some students said they had to wait up to 15 minutes for their meals.

“Luckily I came five minutes before the hour, so I got my food real quickly,” Booth said. “I think kids will just learn to come at different times and try out different options for lunch. Hopefully students will learn to time it better.

After a week in which lunch lines have filled the eating area and the tables remain crowded through much of the afternoon, Bon Appétit officials are in the process of rearranging the lines to streamline the traffic, and will centralize the cash registers. Another cook will also come to the salad bar, the DUC’s busiest food station.

Despite the eatery’s growing pains, Food Court Manager George Scott is so far satisfied with the cafeteria.

“Hopefully everyone will understand where to go,” he said. “The speed of service with what we have got now is really good. When you line up 70 people in one line and take care of someone every 15 or 20 seconds, [for] the person at the end of the line, its going to take that person a long time.”

The food court may be the DUC’s most crowded locale, but students have also been frequenting—and enjoying—the center’s other features, such as the myriad couches that fill the building’s atria and the Fun Room, where junior Ciara Caprara feels she can relax in a social environment.

“I definitely think it creates a good atmosphere for students,” she said. “It’ll be a change from everybody being crowded into the library.”
Booth seconded Caprara’s comments and although his job is to help lost students, he feels that the building’s layout is one of its strengths.
“It’s kind of nice that you can walk right through here and access the classrooms, the Fun Room or the food,” he said. “Mallinckrodt was kind of old and barren. This is comfortable. I can see a lot more people spending time here.”

Aside from the hangout spots, representatives of student groups and campus services have also found a boon in the DUC’s numerous new offices, which include media centers and spaces for Student Union and campus groups.

“It’s going to be great for student groups to come in and work on their projects, to be more involved in campus rather than being stuck in Umrath Hall,” Caprara, who serves as the chair of the Student Groups Activities Committee, said “It’s going to bze easier for people to reach the [Student Union] execs and all of the people who are in charge of the different committees.”

One of the organizations profiting most from the DUC is the Career Center, which moved from Umrath Hall into an expanded space that takes up a large portion of the DUC’s first floor. Pamela Banning, the Career Center’s secretary, said that the new office allows the center to attract more students.

“It’s a showcase for our students and for employers who come to visit,” she said. “We’re more accessible than we’ve ever been before.”
The DUC may be intended as an extracurricular and recreational space but Marshall said that it is also suitable for the supposed focus of college—academics.

“It encourages you to study,” she said. “You’re going to enjoy studying when you’re [sitting] on really nice furniture. Your ultimate goal when you’re here in college is to graduate, right?”