CLASS OF 1998 | 2015 | ISSUE 2
Jason writes: Greetings from Charlottesville, Va. My husband and I finally made the jump and left the NYC area. We’ve been in Virginia for a year now and opened a restaurant called MarieBette Café & Bakery, named after our two daughters, Marian & Betty. It has been an incredible experience for us and, thankfully, we’ve thus far been successful. One of the best things about the restaurant is that we have been visited by many Wes alums.
Our friends Emily Lieberman and Jules Cohen came in with their three wonderful daughters while on their way to visit Jules’ parents in the D.C. area. Jules and Emily are living in Seattle where Jules works for Microsoft. Emily left life as a lawyer to be a full-time mom and, as you might expect, is truly one of the most fun moms I’ve ever met.
Dena Rosenberg also visited us at the restaurant with her daughter, Odessa, while visiting her in-laws. I hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years and it was nice to catch up. Dena writes: “Heather Marciniec, Maria Stasavage and I went to see Catie Lazarus’s ’99 amazing Employee of the Month show at Joe’s Pub! Maya Seiden and her husband brought their two sons (prospective classes of ’32 and ’34, respectively) to Wes for the first time last weekend! Jehan Manekshaw visited the States this spring and had a mini reunion with Claire Hruby, Polly Fiveash, Aongus Burke and Anand Nayak ’96. Jehan also met up with Nitin Kochhar and Omar Rahim ’96 in NYC, and caught up with Sean Dague in Poughkeepsie! Jehan married Shaizia Jifri and they have a lovely baby boy, Aden. Jehan runs two theatre organisations in Mumbai: The Young People’s Theatre Programme and The Drama School, Mumbai.”
Anthony Veneziale writes: “I started a new company called Speechless and we are taking Silicon Valley by storm, helping people to make presentations that matter, one improvised PowerPoint at a time! It’s www.speechlesslive.com. I am still performing with Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 (now Dr. Miranda thanks to Wesleyan) and Bill Sherman ’02 in Freestyle Love Supreme. I basically still get to make up stuff as an improviser for a living.”
Stevie Caldwell bought a condo last year with her wife, Jill Clark ’99, in Somerville, Mass. They have a 4-year-old daughter and Jill is still working for the Family Planning program under the Department of Public Health in Massachusetts. Stevie works in the tech sector and is also pursuing music with her band, Six Times Seven, and a side project called “And Then There Was One.”
Nicole Macotsis Hefny is working hard to finish her MA in cultural sustainability from Goucher College, while teaching dance, doing cultural programming, and raising her son between Brooklyn and Egypt, as her husband has joined the Egyptian National Boxing Team after a several year hiatus.
That’s it for now. Please be sure to send any updates to Marcus and me.