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Big in Japan

August 29, 2014

Cover of Backstage magazineNIU School of Theatre and Dance alumna Charlotte Kate Fox (MFA ’13), who’s hit it big in Japan, is the cover star of the current issue of Backstage magazine.

“When Fox submitted for the role of Ellie in the Japanese television drama ‘Massan,’ about the founder of Japan’s whiskey industry, Masataka Taketsuru, and his wife, she had no idea that she had taken the first step in a journey that would involve flying halfway across the world, appearing in major press conferences, and becoming a household name in a country where she didn’t even speak the language,” the article begins.

“And all because she took a shot on a Backstage casting notice.”

In the article, Fox names many of her NIU professors, including Stanton Davis, Kathryn Gately, Alex Gelman, Deborah Robertson, Robert Schneider and Patricia Skarbinski, and talks of the lessons she learned from them.

“The training I received from Northern Illinois University has been invaluable. I owe them so much,” Fox says, calling her TV show “an amazing chance to practice what I have learned from these gifted teachers.”

Housed in the NIU College of Visual and Performing Arts, the School of Theatre and Dance provides intensive artistic and academic training for students preparing for careers in theater and theater-related areas. Its internationally recognized faculty of practicing artists and scholars work with a gifted student body of about 200 who are recruited and carefully selected from around the country and abroad.

For more than 50 years, Backstage magazine has been the most trusted place for actors to find career advice and casting information.

Performers can get all the information they need to succeed in the entertainment business through updated production listings or periodic spotlights on photography, college programs, acting schools and coaches.