College Announces 2008 Graduation Speakers
April 2008
The College of Arts and Sciences has selected alumnus Marc Platt and senior Maya Ondalikoglu to speak at this year’s graduation ceremony.
Platt is an award-winning independent producer who has worked in the entertainment industry for 24 years. He has served as president of production for three movie studios (Universal, TriStar and Orion), produced live theater and television, practiced as an entertainment attorney and handled business affairs at a major talent agency. He now heads Marc Platt Productions, an entertainment company for the production of feature films, television and live theater.
Platt’s theatrical productions include the musical Wicked, which has garnered blockbuster success with four U.S. productions and four international companies. Wicked won a Grammy, three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics Circle Awards and the 2004 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Musical. He also produced the Broadway debut of Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg’s play Three Days of Rain starring Julia Roberts, and Matthew Bourne’s ballet Edward Scissorhands, for which he won a Drama Desk Award. Platt’s film credits include this summer’s action movie Wanted starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman, and the box-office hits Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2 starring Reese Witherspoon. In television, Platt won a Golden Globe Award for producing an adaptation of Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Empire Falls. Also among his television productions is the Emmy Award-winning miniseries The Path To 9/11.
Platt is a graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences and of New York University Law School. He and his wife, College alumna Julie Beren Platt, made a lead gift supporting the construction of Penn’s Platt Student Performing Arts House. They have also established a scholarship for a student in the College, as well as supported the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and various facilities projects.
Senior Maya Ondalikoglu is a double major in Near Eastern languages and civilizations and political science, and a minor in religious studies. She came to Penn from Istanbul, Turkey, where she was born and raised. Ondalikoglu is a member of the University Scholars program, the Phi Beta Kappa Society, John Marshall Pre-Law Honor Society and the Theta Alpha Kappa Honor Society for Religious Studies and Theology. She has also taken active roles in the Penn Microfinance Club, the Kappa Alpha Theta women’s fraternity and the Spruce Mentors program for West Philadelphia public elementary schools. After graduation, Ondalikoglu plans to spend a year traveling, improving her Arabic and French language skills, working in a vineyard during harvest and obtaining an amateur aviation license. She will then come back to the United States to attend law school.
The College of Arts and Sciences graduation ceremony will take place on Sunday, May 18, at 6:30 p.m. on Franklin Field.