Sasha Anawalt, director
Sasha Anawalt is director of the USC Annenberg Arts Journalism Programs, including the Master's degree in Specialized Journalism (The Arts) program, a partnership with the five arts schools at USC that she helped create and launch in 2008. She is a lecturer on the Annenberg School of Journalism faculty. Anawalt also directs the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program, which in 2011 produced Engine29.org, a site for experimental projects and best-thinking practices in arts journalism. Anawalt’s best-selling cultural biography, “The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company” (Scribner, 1996), will be re-issued in January 2012 as an e-book, timed to coincide with the release of a feature film documentary. “Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance,” by director Bob Hercules, is heavily based on her book. From 2005 to 2011, Anawalt directed the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater, where this past spring she created and built with Douglas McLennan, Engine28, the pop-up newsroom. In October 2009, she co-produced with McLennan the first-ever National Summit on Arts Journalism, a one-day virtual and real conference in Annenberg Auditorium. Anawalt was the first chief dance critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the LA Weekly and, for nearly a decade, was the voice of “Dance Notes” at KCRW, National Public Radio. Her reviews and features can be found in the archives of The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, SoHo Weekly News, Montreal Gazette, Dance Magazine, TV Guide, KUSC and MSNBC-online sites. Anawalt served on the 2006 and 2007 Pulitzer Prize Committee juries for criticism. She is a frequent host and speaker for the dance series at the Music Center and at USC’s Visions and Voices. She is a board member of USC Fisher Museum of Art, the LA Stage Alliance, and Art Sanctuary in Philadelphia. She also serves on the advisory board of Jacaranda: Music at the Edge of Santa Monica. A native of New York City and graduate of Barnard College, Anawalt lives in Pasadena with her husband; they have three children.

Douglas McLennan, associate director (digital media)
Douglas McLennan is the founder and editor of ArtsJournal.com, the leading aggregator of arts journalism on the Internet. Prior to starting ArtsJournal, McLennan was arts columnist and music critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A former concert pianist, he has a master's degree in music from the Juilliard School in New York. He has written on the arts for numerous publications, including as music critic for Salon.com, and for Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the London Evening Standard. McLennan has been a music critic for National Public Radio's “All Things Considered.” He was head of the board of the National Arts Journalism Program (NAJP) at Columbia University until last summer. He is a recipient of several awards for arts criticism and reporting, including a NAJP fellowship at Columbia University and a Deems Taylor/ASCAP Award for music journalism.

Jeff Weinstein, associate director (editorial)
Jeff Weinstein has been a columnist, critic, and senior editor for visual arts and architecture at the Village Voice; a managing editor of Artforum magazine; fine arts editor and popular culture columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and most recently arts and culture editor at Bloomberg News, New York. Author of Life in San Diego and Learning To Eat, he has written about the arts, gay issues, food and style for the New Yorker, Art in America, Los Angeles magazine and many other publications. His short story “A Jean-Marie Cookbook” was awarded a Pushcart Prize in 1982. Jeff is a founder of the National Writers Union and established the idea of domestic partnership benefits, first won by the Village Voice union at the bargaining table in 1982. He began a series of essays about culture, food, and gay issues called “Out There” on the online site ArtsJournal in 2007 and serves as deputy director of the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program. Jeff lives in New York City with his spouse, artist and critic John Perreault.

Arianna Sikorski, program coordinator
Arianna Sikorski is program coordinator for the Arts Journalism Programs at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, which includes the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater, the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program and the Master’s Program in Specialized Journalism (The Arts). In October 2009, she was an associate producer and the stage manager for A National Summit on Arts Journalism. She previously worked for Sutton, Barth and Vennari Talent Agency as voice over scheduler, responsible for over 200 clients and held the position of production coordinator for the USC Thornton School of Music for four years working on over 500 concerts annually with guest artists such as Randy Newman, Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma. Arianna is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Idyllwild Arts Academy as well as a citizen diplomat for the International Visitors Council of Los Angeles.