Newsmakers

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins ’06 won the Obie Award for best new American play for two plays: Appropriate and An Octoroon. Obies recognize off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway works.

Five alumni made CNBC’s “First 25” list of “rebels, icons, and leaders” who have had “the most profound impact on business and finance” since 1989. On the list were Google’s Eric Schmidt ’76 (No. 4), Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ’86 (No. 5), Vanguard’s John Bogle ’51 (9), investor Carl Icahn ’57 (17), and Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman ’77 (18).

Davis McCallum ’97 became the artistic director of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, in Garrison, N.Y., in May.

Courtesy Winnie Holzman ’76

Television writer Winnie Holzman ’76, who wrote the book for the musical Wicked, won a lifetime achievement award in June at the Lilly Awards, which recognize women in theater.

In May M. David Rudd ’83 became the president of the University of Memphis, where he had served as provost since March 2013.

Composer Tobias Picker *84’s opera An American Tragedy, based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser, will be performed at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, N.Y., July 20 to Aug. 24.