gatorsightings
Musical hearing
Scott Sanders
It’s a good thing Scott Sanders, ADV 1979, doesn’t have a time machine.
Sanders has produced one of the most successful, unlikely musicals in recent Broadway history. Based on the Steven Spielberg Academy Award-wining film, The Color Purple play received 11 Tony nominations earlier this year.
Yet, if he journeyed back to 2000, when he started developing the show, Sanders would head off in a different direction.
“If I would have known it would take this long and be this hard,” said Sanders, who ran Radio City Music Hall for 15 years,“I wouldn’t have done it.”
Sanders, who’s produced more than 1,000 shows, knows whom to blame – himself. He insisted on perfection. It took four years of development before he staged The Color Purple in Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre.
“The audience loved it,” said Sanders, a 2006 Alum of Distinction.
But that wasn’t good enough for him. He spent the next nine months supervising script rewrites before finally green-lighting The Color Purple for Broadway.
Why did he go that far?
“I was just afraid to screw it up,” he said.
A different tune
The Government Accountability Project (GAP), a nonprofit advocate for whistle-blowers, received documents earlier this year from an anonymous worker claiming wrongdoing at Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the largest nuclear dump in the Western Hemisphere.
GAP helps workers decide whether to publicize the alleged wrongdoing, says Dylan Blaylock, MAMC 2004, director of communications.“We give them every opportunity not to [talk]. In most cases, they face retaliation by managers and the chilling effect of co-workers.”
Blaylock’s No. 1 task is dealing with the media. Last year, The New York Times ran a guest column on whistleblower rights he wrote with retired FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley.
“Government employees,” they wrote, “owe their ultimate allegiance not to their supervisor or president but to America: its Constitution, laws and citizens.”
When “60 Minutes” gathered information for a follow up on a Hanford piece it had ran five years ago, GAP used the opportunity to publicize the documents it received from the whistleblower.
The next day, The Seattle Times ran the story. Since then, the government has improved conditions at the plant, assigning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to oversee it.
“Shouldn’t we protect [whistleblowers]?” Blaylock says.“Who knows what could happen if they don’t have these rights?”
When the dream is right
PATIENT CONTESTANT:
The Price Is Right announcer
Rich Fields, TEL 1983, waited
many years to fulfill his dream.
Rich Fields, TEL 1983, chased his dream of becoming a radio personality when he passed on two congressional appointments to the Naval Academy to attend UF.
But when he watched announcer Johnny Olson at a live taping of The Price Is Right, he decided it was no longer radio he wanted to pursue, it was Olson’s job.
“Olson was doing a pre-show warm-up and asked if anyone in the audience had a question,” Fields recalled.“So I raised my hand and said,‘How do I get your job?’ ”
Olson challenged Fields to call him down to contestants’ row.When Fields belted out,“Come on down,you’re the next contestant on The Price Is Right!,” the audience burst into applause.
Fields worked as a disc jockey at Tampa and Los Angeles radio stations, hosted the Florida Lottery’s game show, Flamingo Fortune, and served as announcer at Universal Studios in Orlando.
In 2003, Price announcer Rod Roddy died.Along with six other finalists, Fields recorded a week of shows with Bob Barker as part of a try-out.
In 2004, he achieved his dream.“The first time ... was a mixture of fear and absolute elation,” he said.“Now, I still get nervous, but it’s more like excitement.”
From PR to CEO
Dawn Jantsch
As a student at UF, Dawn Jantsch, PR 1983, never imagined she’d one day run such organizations as the Greater Fort Worth Builders Association.
“It never occurred to me that I’d be a CEO, lobbying political officials, promoting events for 30,000 people,” Jantsch said,“or that I’d be running the American Culinary Federation.”
Jantsch – managing director and chief operations officer of the St.Augustine-based ACF, which represents nearly 20,000 chefs – believes a good communicator can find success anywhere.
“One of the reasons I’m glad I chose public relations is I can do a lot of things now,” Jantsch said.“I can run an organization and a company, not from my accounting skills, but because I can pore through financial statements with an inquiring mind.”
After starting her career as public relations director for the Texas Restaurant Association, Jantsch became executive director and a registered lobbyist for the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association. She boosted revenues by 600 percent.
“Dawn has opened my eyes to the opportunities writers can take,” said Lisa Alessandro, JM 1995, ACF’s senior communications director.“She has showed me I can take it to the next level.”