Rice University Theatre Program

Congratulations to our theatre graduating seniors! We will miss you here at Hamman College. Stay in touch, do good work and safe travels!

THIS SATURDAY, March 28th at 2pm at Hamman Hall: see a free staged reading of ENRON by Lucy Prebble, presented by the Center for Environmental Studies and Rice Theatre Program. The production is directed by Sophia Watt and features the talent of many Rice students, alumni, and faculty!

Immediately following, a conversation on “Electrifying Everything? A Look Back at Energy’s Critical Futures” will be held with Sarah Stanford-McIntyre (UC Boulder), Dominic Boyer (Rice University), and Dan Cohan (Rice University), moderated by Randal Hall (Rice University). A light-bites reception will follow.

We hope to see you all there! Register at the link below.

https://events.rice.edu/all/search/enron

Forever singing through life, Katie Maurano has loved participating in VADA, University of Houston, and residential college theatre, appearing in more than 12 productions throughout her time at Rice!

As a theatre and psychology double major, Katie has been able to pursue both of her passions while maintaining a deep love for "the state of the art" that drives all she does. Whether acting alongside talented peers, going to see showstopping plays at Houston's Alley Theatre, or meeting directors and making snowballs with her cohort on the Junior Field Trip to Chicago, she will always cherish the memories she has made in the Rice theatre community.

Katie looks forward to taking her final bow in Sunday in the Park with George and although leaving Rice will be bittersweet, she knows she will not be able to stay out of the spotlight for long. She wants to thank her parents for their continuous support, the faculty and staff in the VADA department for their instruction and guidance, and Simon for always having her back.

P.S. keep an eye out for *stage right facing* Spot the dog (izzie made the 3 other ones) as Katie worked tirelessly on the pointillist technique.

Izzie is a senior majoring in mechanical engineering who began to dabble in theater during her time at Rice. She began by designing props for a couple student productions. After providing some engineering assistance to the puppet mechanisms in Milky White's head, she couldn't have been happier to step in and make her Rice theater debut (and final bow) as Milky White's understudy in the student theater production of Into the Woods alongside her favorite actress, Katie. She has enjoyed helping out with scenic design to prop construction and everything in between!

After returning from a semester working with the Sustaining Engineering team at Walt Disney World, she is excited to return to assist with props for Sunday in the Park With George. Izzie enjoys coffee, cool cameras, and climbing in her (albeit limited) free time and is looking forward to joining Universal Creative's Design Engineering team for an internship this summer. Izzie would like to thank Mark for teaching Stage Craft this semester and for letting Izzie help with prop design show after show!

Jules Houston is a VADA (theatre) & English (creative writing) double major at Jones College, graduating into the world of lighting design and playwriting. Sunday in the Park is their 5th production as a lighting designer in the Rice Theatre Program (their 4th as a box office & marketing manager), and they couldn’t be more proud for this show to be their final one with the department.

Professionally, Jules has worked in places like the Moody Center, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Alley Theatre. They have also taken their skills to the student theatre community, teaching new designers/board ops and running focuses and tech rehearsals as a lighting supervisor.

As a writer, Jules has explored a variety of genres with classes in fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, screenwriting, and publishing. Their piece, “how to open a bottle of sparkling apple cherry cider…” was published in the 2025 R2 Rice Review literary magazine. They’ve decided to concentrate on playwriting: this year, they have written the 10-minute play, “Reception,” and are completing their first full-length play, “Open Casket,” as their senior project.

When not hiding away with their dear friends at Jones, Jules’ time at Rice has been spent enjoying and creating art & music. They were the bassist, violinist, and backup vocalist for Sunset Blvd, opening 2 ktru ODS festivals with them. They’ve made a few collages they think are pretty neat (including a zine about q***r joy that can still be found around campus!), and become decent at watercolor. They’ve fallen in love with open mics. They debuted their drag persona, the cowboy Jimmy Jean, at Rice Pride’s Drag Night in 2025. They have done four distinct skeleton Halloween costumes, always found excuses to wear glitter, never lost their love of black nail polish, and once freshman year made personalized paper tokens for their friends who survived their first physics final (many of which are still kept in phone cases/wallets to this day, perhaps the accomplishment they’re proudest of).

Jules would like to thank the Rice Theatre community for the support & education. They wouldn’t be here without each & every incredible person involved.

When she first came to Rice, Chioma was on her way to becoming every Nigerian parent’s dream for their child by being pre-med, but plans quickly changed, and now she’s every Nigerian parent’s nightmare because she chose theater over being a doctor (jk, her parents have come to accept her chosen path and are now—dare she say—even supportive of it). But for real, Chioma is really excited to be wrapping up her final show at Rice by working on the costumes for Sunday in the Park with George. Working in the costume shop with Amber has been a really fun experience for her, and she’s really excited to see the things she’s made come to life on the stage. Looking back on her time at Rice, Chioma has really enjoyed every show that she’s been a part of from her first performance at Rice in Africaye, the African Students’ Association’s cultural showcase, her freshman year to now. She’s met so many amazing, talented people, gotten to explore so many different aspects of theater, and has gotten to do things outside of her comfort zone, and it’s all been waaay more fun than any STEM class she’s had to take. It’s bittersweet working on her final Rice show, but all good things must come to an end, and the show must always go on, so Chioma looks forward to exploring where theater will take her post-graduation.

Hi! I’m Giovanni Marinilli (he/him), a Sid Rich senior majoring in History + Theatre (minor in Politics, Law, and Social Thought). I’m directing our capstone production of "Sunday in the Park with George," and my favorite part of the process is auditions—there’s nothing like solving the puzzle of piecing together the ensemble and seeing a cast emerge. 🎭

At Rice, I’ve directed "Merrily We Roll Along" (SRCTC) and assistant directed "The Comedy of Errors" (VADA) and "Fun Home" (Wiess Tabletop). I’ve also appeared in "The Mousetrap," "Street Scene," "Great Comet," "Merrily," and "Much Ado."

Offstage, I bake, hike, and ride horses—and I’m often in the Hamman Hall conference room with way too many history readings. After graduation, work (hopefully legal), then law school, then dream judicial clerkship. ⚖️

Spencer Rembert is an emerging playwright, librettist, and actor from Camden, NJ, currently pursuing a Visual and Dramatic Arts degree at Rice University. His works include the jukebox musical 2024 Soul Night Awards: One Night Only (book, Rice Black Student Association, 2024), the two-act tragedy Set The Table (self-produced public reading, 2025), and a ten-minute play, everyone keeps leaving (Play in a Day, The Rice Players, 2025). He co-wrote the libretto for the opera PHREAKED: The Boy Who Broke The Telephone (premiere, Jake Berran/Shepherd School of Music, 2025). Spencer is also a recipient of the Barbara Chilton Theatre Excellence Award and Scholarship. His work spans multiple theatrical forms, often exploring themes of family and religion. In the Spring 2026 collaborative senior capstone production of Sunday in the Park with George, Spencer is serving as a supporting actor.

A letter to Rice Theatre as I close out my time at Rice, as George, in “Sunday in the Park with George”:

It feels like ages ago since I got my first casting email in my junior year of high school. I felt clueless even for someone who’d never acted before, and perhaps it was an opportunity I hardly deserved. Nonetheless, I was excited and determined as ever to really make that role my own, even if I only saw it as a “side quest” at the time.

Since then, Rice has completely opened up my perspective on not only what it is to be a performer, but also a member of a thriving and connected theatre community. At every step, I just wanted to learn from those around me and continue growing. Even as I was figuring out my career path as a “sports manager” or businessman, I always made sure to take at least one theatre class per semester. I knew that, whenever I stepped foot in the Hamman Hall rehearsal room, things just felt different. At Rice, performing became my passion and, soon enough, one of the best ways I knew to express myself.

I’m truly blessed to have shared the stage with people who inspired me in all facets of life — the following are a few I’d like to shoutout in particular: Katie, Sophia, and Jonathan for being my “Old Friends” from the beginning; Elise and Zev for guiding and helping me blossom into this new life; everyone involved in Wiess Tabletop’s “Company”, a production that I will always treasure very dearly for the impact it had on me personally; Celeste and the “Little Shop” team, who serve as a reminder of the power of teamwork, perseverance, friendship, and community in student theatre; Auggie, Spencer, and Birdie for their constant support and “crowding me with love” everyday.

In every sense of the word, these people and so many others made Rice Theatre feel like home. I will miss the stage and hope to perform again soon, but I know for a fact I can look back on my time here and feel proud of everything we accomplished.

In many ways, the finale of “Sunday” reflects how I feel about the stage, and I hope others can connect with this when they see our show: “White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities…”

Julian Puerto

Just a few weeks away...

Sunday in the Park with George opens in Friday, February 27th!