Katharine McPhee is a celebrated film and television actress and recording artist. She starred in the CBS hit drama, Scorpion, and in the NBC series, Smash. Katharine has released five studio albums. Her 2007 hit "Over It" is a certified Gold Record. Katharine attended CSSSA in 1999 and 2000, and was awarded the CSSSA Alumni Inspiration Award at the 30th Anniversary CSSSA Gala in 2016.
Adrian Molina is an award-winning animator at Pixar. He is best known for his work as the screenwriter and co-director of DisneyPixar's, Coco, and in 2018 won a Golden Globe for his work on the film. He has worked on major studio productions from Ratatouille to Toy Story 3. Adrian attended CSSSA in 2001 and 2002. In 2017, The CSSSA Foundation recognized Adrian with its CSSSA Alumni Inspiration Award.
Phoebe Bridgers an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. She made her solo debut with the studio album Stranger in the Alps in 2017, followed by Punisher in 2020 which earned Bridgers widespread critical acclaim and four Grammy Award nominations, including Best New Artist. In 2020, Bridgers created a record label in partnership with Dead Oceans called The Saddest Factory.
Zac Efron is an actor, singer, and dancer who gained worldwide fame as teen heartthrob Troy Bolton in Disney's popular High School Musical franchise. Since then Zac has starred in hit films such as Hairspray, Me and Orson Wells, The Lucky One, Neighbors, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Baywatch, and The Great Showman. He attended CSSSA in 2002.
Martine Syms uses video and performance to examine representations of blackness. Her artwork has been exhibited & screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Hammer Museum, ICA London, New Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among other institutions. Martine currently runs Dominica Publishing. She attended CSSSA in 2003.
Brigette Barrager is an artist, character designer, and illustrator & writer of children's books, including the New York Times bestseller Uni the Unicorn, written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Some of her most recent books include Welcome Flower Child (author) and The Nice Cream Truck (illustrator). She now teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. Prior to CalArts, Brigette attended CSSSA in 2001 and 2002.
Maggie Tokuda-Hall is a talented writer who is the Author of the 2017 Parent’s Choice Gold Medal winning picture book, Also an Octopus. Maggie later debuted her first novel, The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea. Maggie has an MFA in creative writing from the University of San Francisco and a BA in Studio Art from Scripps College. Maggie attended CSSSA in 2002 and currently resides in Oakland, California.
Matthew Monahan is an American visual artist working primarily in sculpture, drawing, and print-making. His work has been shown at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Walker Art Center, the TATE Modern, the Chinese European Art Center in Xiamen, Bureau Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the National Center for Art in St. Petersberg, Russia, and Saatchi Gallery in London.
Teal Wicks is a singer and stage actress who is best known for her performances as Elphaba in the musical Broadway production of Wicked and as Mary Barrie in Finding Neverland. Teal has also starred in Broadways Jekyll & Hyde and The Cher Show.
Adam Jacobs is a stage actor who is well known for his role as Aladdin in Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway, as well as “Marius” in the national tour of Les Miserables. He has also starred in Mamma Mia!, The Lion King, and Once On This Island. Adam attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and also studied with the Collaborative Arts Project Musical Theater program (CAP21).
Edgar is a Los Angeles based artist working in the mediums of drawing, sculpture, and performance. He played a seminal role in the creation of the Watts House Project, a redevelopment initiative to remodel a series of houses around the Watts Towers. His work has been featured at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among other venues.
Sanjay Patel is an award-winning animator best known for his Oscar-nominated short animated film Sanjay’s Super Team (2015). At Pixar, Sanjay has worked on such films as Monsters, Inc. (2001), Ratatouille (2007), Cars (2006), and was a character developer on Toy Story 2 (1999), and The Incredibles (2004). Prior to Pixar, he worked on The Simpsons and is also the author and illustrator of The Little Book of Hindu Deities.
Pendleton Ward is an Emmy Award-winning animator, screenwriter, and voice actor best known for creating the hit animated series, Adventure Time. Pen has worked for powerhouse studios such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Frederator Studios, and is now working on an Adventure Time movie. He attended CSSSA for Animation in 1999 and 2000 and went on to receive his BFA from CalArts.
Alex Hirsch is a writer, animator, voice actor, and creator of the mega-popular Disney tv show, Gravity Falls, which he has earned numerous BAFTA and Annie Awards and was a finalist for the prestigious Peabody Award. Alex is also a bestselling author of Gravity Falls: Journal 3. He attended CSSSA in 2001 and 2002 and went on to receive his BFA at CalArts.
Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On? and poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro (2019 National Book Critics Circle Award). She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and winner of a Pushcart Prize.
Kirsten Vangsness is an actress and writer best known for her portrayal of FBI technical analyst, Penelope Garcia, on CBS's Criminal Minds and its spinoff series, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. For her work on the stage, Kirsten has earned a Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle Natalie Schafer Award, a 15 Minutes of Fem Best Actress Award and a Garland Award for her work in Neil LaBute's Fat Pig at the Geffen Playhouse.
Sophie Buhai is a jewelry, accessories, and interior designer living and working in Los Angeles. Prior to establishing her Los Angeles studio, Sophie spent a decade as co-creative director of the womenswear brand Vena Cava, a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund runner-up in New York City. Her work has been featured in Vogue, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She is a graduate of Parsons School of Design and attended CSSSA in 1997
Margaret Dilloway is a contemporary Japanese-American novelist. Her novels for adults include The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns and How to Be an American Housewife, which was named a John Gardner Fiction Award Finalist in 2011. Margaret has also written two Young Adult books in a series called Momotaro. She attended CSSSA’s Creative Writing program in 1992 and graduated from Scripps College.
