Vassar Celebrates Women in Art and Entertainment
As we observe Women’s History Month, we pay tribute to some Vassar alums who have achieved significant success in the arts and entertainment industry.
Meryl Streep ’71
One of the most revered and celebrated actors of her generation, Streep has received 21 Academy Award nominations for a wide variety of roles, winning the Oscar for her roles in Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979, Sophie’s Choice in 1982, and The Iron Lady in 2011. She has also received eight Golden Globe Awards. She won the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 2004 and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2011 for her contribution to American culture. President Barack Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 2011 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. Streep was the 2021 recipient of the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College (AAVC) Distinguished Achievement Award. An ardent environmentalist, Streep co-founded a grassroots organization, Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet, that warned of the dangers of Alar, a chemical used by apple growers. In her 2022 acceptance speech for the AAVC award, Streep credited her Vassar education with helping to raise her social awareness.
Photo: Samuel Stuart Photography
Lisa Kudrow ’85
A biology major who never joined any drama clubs at Vassar, Kudrow has received numerous acting awards, including Emmy, Screen Actors Guild, and Golden Globe awards for her portrayal of Phoebe Buffay in the long-running television comedy Friends. She has followed her success in Friends with a successful career as an actor, writer, and executive producer of several TV series, including HBO’s The Comeback and the U.S. version of the British television series Who Do You Think You Are? She co-created the improvisational comedy web series Web Therapy, which earned her multiple nominations and one Webby for Outstanding Comedic Performance.
Photo: Karl Rabe
Lidiya Yankovskaya ’08
When Yankovskaya was named Music Director of the Chicago Opera Theater, she became the first woman in the United States to lead a multi-million-dollar opera company. Her family fled Russia to escape anti-Semitism when she was 9 years old. Several years after graduating from Vassar, inspired by her own experience, she founded the Refugee Orchestra Project, which showcases cultural contributions refugees have made throughout American history. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization raised funds and staged world premieres of works by refugee composers performed by refugee musicians. Recently, she founded the Vanguard Initiative, a two-year residency program at Chicago Opera Theater for aspiring opera composers.
Photo: Todd Rosenberg
Lilli Cooper ’12
Actor Lilli Cooper ’12 has had major roles in several Broadway and Off-Broadway plays. She received a Tony nomination for her performance in the 2019 musical Tootsie and had a leading role along with Vassar alum Ethan Slater ’14 in the Tony-nominated musical SpongeBob SquarePants. She was a standby for the role of Elphaba in the Broadway production of Wicked. While she was in high school, Cooper made her Broadway debut, originating the role of Martha Bessell in Spring Awakening in 2006, and in 2021 she was a member of the cast of the HBO documentary Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known, a 15-year reunion of the original cast.
Photo: Samuel Stuart Photography
Geraldine Bond Laybourne ’69
Laybourne, who was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2020, built a fledgling MTV company, Nickelodeon, into an industry leader in children’s programming that won Emmy Awards, Peabody Awards, Cable ACE Awards, and Parents Choice Awards during her tenure as a top executive. She left Nickelodeon in 1996 to become President of Disney-ABC Cable Network, overseeing programming and other responsibilities at Disney Channel, Lifetime, A&E, E!, and The History Channel. Two years later she and Oprah Winfrey co-founded Oxygen Media, a cable television company dedicated to programming for women. In 1996 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential People in America and was ranked #1 on The Hollywood Reporter’s 50 Most Influential Women in the Entertainment Industry.
Photo: Karl Rabe
Prudence Fenton ’75
Fenton is a film, television, and music producer. She was Executive Producer and Story Editor for the award-winning MTV series Liquid Television, and she won two Emmy Awards for MTV’s Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where she was the animation and special effects producer. In 1988 Fenton produced a 20-minute film for Amnesty International. The film became part of a touring Amnesty Concert featuring Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Peter Gabriel. Fenton won a Grammy for producing a music video for Gabriel’s “Steam.” She also executive produced Gabriel’s “Big Time” video, which won Billboard and MTV awards.
Photo: Courtesy of the Subject