In the winter 2017 issue of Och Tamale, we asked to hear from alumni who work in the entertainment industry—and we did! Here are excerpts from the responses:
“I read a wonderful article in my latest Och Tamale regarding fellow alumni who work in the entertainment industry. I graduated in 1988 from the University of Redlands with a B.A. in management. I’m a longtime member of the Screen Actors Guild. I have worked in numerous film and television projects as an actor and have done standup comedy.”
Sheppard Blumenthal ’88
“I have been a working actor and musician living in Los Angeles for the last two decades. I have guest-starred in numerous shows, including Six Feet Under, and many independent films. I most recently wrote, directed, produced, and starred in a feature film, The Golden Age, which just won the Audience Award at the Jaipur International Film Festival in India and was accepted to the Illuminate Film Festival in Arizona. The film will be in theatrical distribution this fall.”
Justin Connor ’95
After playing professional baseball in the Baltimore Orioles organization, I pursued coaching college baseball … at University of Illinois and … Cal State Northridge. In 1995, I moved to New York City to study dramatic writing at Columbia University. During my 12 years in New York, six stage plays, and two short films were made from my work, and I served as director of four of these. I founded the nonprofit Gallery of Angels in 2000, and we are in preproduction for a feature film, Galleria degli Angeli.
William Kernen ’70
My vocal music background took me from a contract at 20th Century Fox to many opera and musical theatre companies until 1961. I sang with another distinguished Redlands alumnus, John Raitt ’39. I was honored in October 2016 for being a distinguished alumnus of San Bernardino Valley College, where I obtained an associate degree in 1949. I obtained a bachelor of arts in history at our beloved Redlands in 1959 and my master of arts in human relations in 1967 from California Western University. I taught math in San Diego schools for 33 years.
Neil Oehl ’59
