Arts, Media, and Performance

Curtis Stage: AMP Department Chair and Professor of Multimedia/Photo/Art
AMP Gallery Director
Curtis is currently showing photographic art work with Durden and Ray in Los Angeles and has shown in galleries around the world. He is the Chair of Arts, Media, and Performance at Los Angeles Mission College where he has been a professor for 20 years. Curtis has been a professional photographer for the last 20 years and most notably photographed major events such as the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Emmys.

Curtis also owned and directed a Multimedia Production company that produced broadcast commercials, documentaries, motion graphics, and websites. Currently, Curtis works in Multimedia Production on a freelance basis doing Post Production and Motion, Camera Operation, and Web App/Web Interface design. Clients have included: MGM Studios, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Touchstone Pictures/ILM, Suissa Miller, and Sierra Club. Curtis produced and co-hosted the Best Coast Show which had weekly hour-long shows focused on the Los Angeles sports world.

Curtis has taught in higher education since 2000 at Claremont Graduate University, Cal State Long Beach, University of La Verne and Cerritos College.

BFA - CSULB
MFA Claremont Graduate University

Curtis Stage

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Deborah Paulsen: AMP Department Vice Chair and Professor of Art
Working with seascape and landscape themes, Deborah Paulsen is inspired by the local scenery in Ventura, California and other travels. The methods used with the encaustic paint create luminescent and sensual colors as the paint is applied and manipulated in a molten state. Fantastical shapes and textures are revealed through the processes. Layers of the encaustic medium are fused with a torch so that the colors mix and marble to create surreal effects as the layers are excavated with pottery tools. Elements of the land, such as rocky protrusions, are carved in as relief design elements.

Paulsen loves making encaustic paintings because they allow her to reflect on where she has been and bring it to the present. Working with encaustic paint is an alchemical and magical process full of surprises.

Deborah Paulsen holds an Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Eastern Washington University. She has created and exhibited work for over three decades.

Deborah Paulsen 

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Bob Cucuzza: AMP Department Vice Chair and Professor of Theatre Arts
Robert Cucuzza is Professor of Theatre Arts at Los Angeles Mission College, where he has been a full-time professor since 2015. In Los Angeles, he has directed productions at REDCAT, South Coast Rep, CalArts, Son of Semele, and Los Angeles Pierce College. As a playwright, director and producer in New York City, he spent six years as an artist-in-residence at Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theater, where he mounted many original plays and was a co-founder of the Obie Award-winning Blueprint Series. He has been a member of the Obie Award-winning company Elevator Repair Service since 1997, with whom he most notably originated the role of Tom Buchanan in Gatz — a complete staging of the entire text of “The Great Gatsby.” He performed in the Gatz company over fifteen years, across the globe, Off Broadway at The Public Theatre and on the West End in London. As an acting and script analysis teacher, he has taught both BFA and MFA actors at CalArts, and at the legendary Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. 

   Originally from Bradford, PA, Cucuzza is a 1990 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University where he received a BFA in Literary and Cultural Studies with a minor in Theatre. He holds a 2011 MFA in Directing from CalArts. He was the recipient of a 1990 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a one-year independent study of experimental theater in Europe and was a 2010-11 recipient of a Beutner Family Award for Excellence in the Arts at CalArts.

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Adam F. Scott: AMP Assistant Professor of Art
AMP Art Gallery Assistant Director

Adam F. Scott (b. in New York City, lives and works in Los Angeles) is a nationally and internationally recognized contemporary artist. Adam received his BFA in Painting at California State University Long Beach and his MFA Drawing and Painting at The School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Selected exhibitions include: The Museum OF Contemprary Art, Chicago, IL; The Yokohama Museum Of Art, Yokohama, Japan; The Prague Biennale, The National Museum of Prague, CZ; DoArt Gallery, Seoul, Korea; The Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago IL.; Roebling Hall, New York, NY.; GAD, Oslo, Norway; The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL; Kavi Gupta Gallery Leipzig, Germany; Sade Gallery, Los Angeles; Durden and Ray Gallery, Los Angeles; 65 Grand Gallery, Chicago, IL.; Dogmatic Gallery, Chicago, IL.; Converso Modern, New York, NY; Gallerie Schuster, Berlin, Germany. Gallerie Schuster / Sauermann Frankfurt, Germany.

Adam was an associate adjunct professor of art at The School Of The Art Institute of Chicago from 2001-2018, where he taught in the Contemporary Practices Department and the Drawing and Painting Departments. He has also taught studio and seminar classes in Contemprary Art Practices at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL., and the University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL. He is now Associate Professor of Art, in the Arts, Media, Performance Department at Los Angeles Mission College.

Adam F Scott

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Thomas Folland: AMP Professor of Art History
Thomas Folland, Professor of Art History,  is a Modern and Contemporary Art Historian and the author of numerous essays and peer-review journal articles. Dr. Folland is also contributing writer to SmartHistory.org (https://smarthistory.org/author/dr-tom-folland/) a center for public art history. Dr. Folland has a PhD in Modern/Contemporary Art History from UCLA, an M.A. (University of California, Riverside), B.F.A. (Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax, Canada). Other academic achievements include a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship with the Smithsonian Institution (Archives of American Art) and a critical and curatorial fellowship in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program, New York, New York. Aside from his work as an art historian and educator, his experience includes working as a curator of contemporary art 
in Los Angeles, Toronto, New York, and Sao Paulo.

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John Huynh: AMP Professor Multimedia/Cinema/Film

John Huynh has worked over the past twenty years for CBS, FX, and Paramount Pictures. He has worked on such films as the John Woo action pic, Paycheck, and the FX telepic, 44 Minutes: Shootout in North Hollywood.  While in Los Angeles, John has shot two independent feature films and also edited numerous features as well. His own short film, Minimal Criminal, has played in many U.S. and international film festivals.  His script, Yet Another Superhero Movie, was optioned by one of the producers of Catch Me If You Can and his web series, Labor Days, won multiple awards at Webfest.  He has also taught at Los Angeles Mission for the last decade.

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James Lemmon: AMP Assistant Professor of Interior Design

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Joshua Wentz: Assistant Professor of Music

Dr. Joshua R. Wentz has had the privilege of performing throughout the US and abroad and is in high demand as a singer, director, and conductor of opera, oratorio and musical theater worldwide. Wentz holds a DMA from the University of South Carolina, where his published research on American Opera has become a leading source. Dr. Wentz serves on the voice faculty at CSU Northridge, Los Angeles Mission College, and manages his own private voice studio. He is often featured in choral festivals, voice competitions, and conferences around the world. He is the Artistic & Executive Director of Mission Opera in Los Angeles and Director of Music at Santa Clarita UMC and a two-time quarterfinalist for the Grammy Educator of the Year Award.

Josh Wentz

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The 1500 square foot  Arts, Media, and Performance (AMP) Art Gallery at Los Angeles Mission College serves as a valuable arts resource for students and the community of the northeast San Fernando Valley. The AMP Gallery is committed to presenting both professional and student arts exhibitions that represent the diverse population of the Los Angeles basin.

Our 146-seat theater has an orchestra and mezzanine. The combination of a proscenium arch and a thrust stage allows us to create visually arresting productions while maintaining intimacy.

The AMP TV/Photo Production studio with chroma key wall is 1300 square feet and gives our students the opportunity to train on industry standard lighting and sound equipment. Students learn live TV studio production with broadcast streaming switchers and 6K camera packages.

Our scene shop and sculpture studion is fully stocked with industrial and hand tools. Art, Technical Theater and Design students get hands-on experience building set pieces, props, and sculpture with a wide variety of materials. 

Learn to paint in our large studio that features 16 foot high windows that let in the perfect amount of natural light.