Ethan Slater Comes Back to Vassar

In his remarks announcing that Slater had won the AAVC’s Young Alum Achievement Award, Eddie Gamarra ’94, chair of the Alum Recognition Committee, noted that Tina Landau, who directed Slater in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical, had once remarked, “Ethan is a joy generator.”

In accepting the award, Slater said receiving it “feels funny because I don’t think I’ve accomplished very much.” But he added that his Vassar liberal arts education “makes you dream constantly about what might come next.” Looking out at the hundreds of students in the audience in the Martel Recital Hall in Skinner Hall, Slater said, “I hope Vassar is as beautifully formative for you as it was for me.”

By the time he had received the award from a classmate and Vice Chair of the Alum Recognition Committee Stephanie Goldberg ’14, Slater had already proven Tina Landau’s point. Earlier in the day, he spent an hour with about 40 Vassar drama majors in an intimate setting in the Powerhouse Theater, talking about the trajectory of his career and answering questions fielded by two of his Vassar mentors, Shona Tucker, Professor of Drama on the Mary Riepma Ross ’32 Chair, and Christopher Grabowski, Professor and Chair of Drama. Three hours later, these mentors hosted an hour-long conversation before a more expansive, near-capacity crowd in the Martel Recital Hall.

Slater’s session at the Powerhouse Theater began with a surprise the drama majors had concocted for him. As he walked in the door, they burst into song, adapting new lyrics written by drama major Nicholas Monsion ’27 to a tune Slater had written for his senior thesis, a musical called “Hubcrawl.” As Slater walked through the gathering of drama majors, they sang:

Slater was stunned. “This is crazy,” he said, laughing and shaking his head as he headed into the theater.

During his first conversation with Tucker and Grabowski, Slater tried to set the drama majors’ minds at ease by telling them that some of his early ventures on stage had been difficult for him. He recalled how terrified he was when he first auditioned for membership in a choral group at his high school in Washington, D.C. “My voice was wobbly, and my leg was shaking so badly, I had to grab it to keep it still,” he said.

Slater said he spent his first year after graduating from Vassar working in a coffee shop in Manhattan from 5:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., leaving him time to write and attend auditions in the afternoon and evening. He had secured a role in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical while at Vassar, but the play was still in the planning stages, and he wasn’t being paid.

“The coffee shop job prepared me for the early calls you get when you’re acting,” he joked. “I was not an early riser when I was at Vassar.”

Slater said the classes and the multiple drama productions he had taken part in at Vassar had prepared him well for his career. One course, titled The Question of the Animal, about how animals move in the wild, had taught him “how to use my body as an acting tool,” he said. And a class about clowns that Tucker had taught had shown him “clowns don’t always have to be funny; it’s the range of emotions they have that’s important.”

Following the event, two drama students said they were inspired by Slater’s comments and advice. “I plan to do what Ethan did—go to New York City and look for work,” said Levi Srebalus ’26. “Hearing his stories made it seem less scary.”

Sophia Steadman ’26 agreed. “Starting out in the business can be terrifying,” she acknowledged, “but Ethan made me realize that my Vassar education can provide a real path for what I want to do.”

During his talk at the Martel Recital Hall, Slater said he didn’t know much about Vassar before he applied, but his father encouraged him to choose a liberal arts college that would prepare him for almost any career he chose. “Dad was right,” he said. “I had all these academic options at Vassar, and I took advantage of them with classes in drama, music, and political science. The class I took on animal movement was very Vassar—it included readings on animal rights organizations—and it taught me how to move. And years later, I was a sponge.”

Slater said his next project is a play about the famous French mime Marcel Marceau. Before he was a mime, Marceau, who was Jewish, joined the French Resistance during World War II and helped Jewish children escape from Nazi-occupied France. The play will be about a train ride Marcel took with some of those children, Slater said.

The final question of the night came from an eight-year-old who asked Slater what part of his job was the most fun. Slater said it was an excellent question. “Nine times out of ten, I’m working with people who love what they’re doing as much as I do,” he said. “And it's just very joyful. We get to do make-believe for a living. I know that's very basic, but I think, at the end of the day, the best thing about anything that you can do is the people that you do it with.”