2024 company updates

Ellen Hemphill
In the Spring of 2022, Ellen Hemphill created and directed the film
North: A Love Letter. That same spring, she retired as a professor in the Duke University Theater Studies Department after teaching there for 34 years. She is now a Professor Emeritus at Duke. Her archives and those of Archipelago Theatre are now preserved in the Duke University Library, and available for scholarly study. Ellen sold her house in Chapel Hill in the summer of 2024. The sale included the Archipelago Studio, where the work of the company began in 1990. It also served as a rehearsal space for other artists in the area and multiple voice and movement lessons. Ellen continues to be the Director of Archipelago in its new incarnation as an umbrella organization for current and future projects by the Archipelago Team. In 2025 Ellen will be relocating away from the Triangle, place TBD. In the meantime, Ellen has been creating miniature art works entitled : BARDO ART.

Allison Leyton-Brown
Allison Leyton-Brown recently received a Canadian Screen Music Award nomination for her work on TV’s Vida the Vet (Spin Master). Other recent projects include scores for docu-series How I Got Here (Forté Entertainment), documentary feature The Jungle (Gigantic Pictures), and podcast series In the Dark (Condé Nast).

Jan Chambers
Continuing a long relationship with the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Jan Chambers recently designed the sets for Richard II, Henry IV Parts One and Two, and Henry V, which ran in rep and included marathon performances of the shows back to back.  In this, her last year as a professor in the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina and resident designer for PlayMakers Repertory Company, she designed sets for Crumbs from the Table of Joy and Death of a Salesman.  Jan is looking forward to retiring in the spring of 2025 and returning to her painting studio.

Jim Haverkamp
Jim Haverkamp continues to pursue filmmaking and film exhibition. His 2023 short film, The Voice in Isabel Fleiss’s Office, played at over 50 film festivals in nine countries. He’s hoping to open a small film and arts theater in Durham next year. 

Nor Hall
As chair of Preserving Historic Dinkytown, Nor Hall is pursuing archival interests in the Twin Cities for a counter-culture history film project. Her current personal work called the “Ancestry of Friendship” is a hand-drawn, handwritten graphic memoir exploring non-patriarchal patterns of lineage. In retirement Nor mentors, consults, writes, converses, convenes and collaborates.

Terry Beck
In September of 2024 Terry Beck premiered his dance/theatre work Harbour, commissioned by Temple University Dance to celebrate their 50th anniversary as a university dance department. Continuing his thematic work, he addressed the challenges dancers face when work for these mature artists are not often possible. In collaboration with Ellen Hemphill for vocal sections of Harbour, his cast of dancers ranged in age from 60 to 84. The review referred to Harbour as ‘Reflections, Reverence, and Spellbinding Artistry’.