Fr. Richard Blake, SJ
Movie Critic
Fr. Blake, former executive editor and current film reviewer for America magazine, is professor of English at Le Moyne College in Syracuse. He is enjoying a two-year stay at Boston College as Gasson Professor. He has published Woody Allen Profane and Sacred and is currently writing a book that deals with the religious imagination of film director Martin Scorsese.

Fr. Fred Tollini, SJ
Director, Professor of Theater and Dance
Fr. Tollini, with a doctorate in theater history from Yale, has taught theater and English at Santa Clara University since 1971 and chaired the Theater and Dance Department for twelve years. He developed and teaches Performance and Culture, a course in the history of Western culture from the perspective of dance, music, and theater. He's directed over 30 productions, including The Tempest, West Side Story, and Measure for Measure. He's also received acclaim for his acting, his roles ranging from Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha to Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey. He has adapted and translated works for the stage; his Medea is being produced at San Jose State.

Mr. Edward Siebert, SJ
Film Director
Mr. Siebert recently completed a short film, At Last Goodbye, a portrayal of a young man dealing with the death of his father. It has been seen at film festivals in Detroit, Cleveland, New York, and Chicago. In theology studies at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, he is currently producing and directing a promotional video for the Institute of Catholic Educational Leadership at the University of San Francisco. This summer he will be ordained to the priesthood in Cleveland; in the fall he begins an MFA in film production.

Fr. James Torrens, SJ
Drama Critic
Fr. Torrens, America magazine's drama critic for the past six years, holds a Bannan fellowship at Santa Clara University this year, where he is writing and teaching a course on the Divine Comedy. He will be back in New York at America next summer, once again serving in the enviable role of theater reviewer. That rarely means a free ticket, he says, but it does justify expenditures. He confesses to liking "legitimate" productions above musicals. Among his favorite playwrights are Alan Ayckbourn, Terrence McNally, and George Wolfe. For Fr. Torrens, reviewing begins with scribbling a lot of notes in semidarkness and ends with judgments about structure, acting, and worth.

Fr. Normand Pepin, SJ
Composer
Fr. Pepin has been composing motets, masses, and organ music throughout his years of teaching in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Fairbanks Choral Society has performed many of his compositions, including Psalm 150 for children, adults, brass, piano, and flute. On Palm Sunday in 1987, it performed his oratorio, Obedient unto Death. Among his other works are song cycles based on the poetry of Margaret Ward Moreland. The Fairbanks Choral Society will perform his most recent work, Great and Mighty Warrior, this December.

Br. Rick Curry, SJ
Director, National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped
Br. Curry founded the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped (NTWH), which is celebrating its 20th year. This nationally recognized art school and professional theater company has received many honors. NTWH prepares both children and adults with disabilities for jobs on the stage, TV, and in film through comprehensive theater training. NTWH is headquartered in New York City; the International University of the Arts in Belfast, Maine, is its residential facility.

Fr. Michael Sparough, SJ
Director, Actor, Writer
Fr. Sparough is the founder and former artistic director of the Fountain Square Fools, an internationally acclaimed religious drama troupe. A writer, director, and actor, he has an MFA in theater directing from the Yale School of Drama. He has written several audio and video cassettes on prayer and the sacraments and is known for his ability to make Scripture come alive through heartwarming dramas, spirited preaching, and innovative approaches to spirituality. He is a retreat master and spiritual director at Bellarmine Hall, the Jesuit retreat house in Barrington, Ill., and is pursuing a doctor of ministry degree.

Mr. Ray Guiao, SJ
Baritone
Mr. Guiao sang the roles of Pistol in Verdi's Falstaff and Vicar Gedge in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring, opera productions at the University of Michigan. He's given recitals of lieder, mélodie, and Italian art songs in Chicago, Ann Arbor, and Cleveland, and has frequently directed and cantored at Jesuit ordinations and vow ceremonies and other liturgies. At St. Ignatius High in Cleveland he trained cantors and instrumentalists for school liturgies and served as cantor at St. John's Cathedral. Currently at the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, he also continues vocal training at the Longy School of Music and sings with an ensemble of Jesuit musicians at a Cambridge parish.

Br. Tony
McCaffrey, SJ
Children's Dramatist
Br. McCaffrey, youth director at St. Ignatius Parish in Chicago, writes short plays and directs his young actors in these dramas, which serve as the homilies one Sunday a month at the church. He sees himself as a teller of sacred stories who teaches theater techniques to the youth of the parish, helping them develop the tools to proclaim a message.