Thank you for making the 2023 Encore Event a huge success!
The 17th Annual Encore Event was Tuesday, April 11, in the rooftop gardens of POST Houston. Event Chairs Victoria & Alex Lazar and Carey Jordan & Brian Simmons welcomed 300 guests to celebrate 2023 Community Honoree Joan Vachule Murrin and 2023 Distinguished Alumna and 8-time Emmy® winner Rachelle Mendez.
Thanks to the generosity of HSPVA Friends supporters, the 2023 Encore Event raised $250,000 for Kinder HSPVA programs. These funds will provide arts supplies, adjunct faculty, specialized equipment and technology, and other essential building blocks of Kinder HSPVA’s rigorous arts curriculum.
Read more about Encore below, and check out photos from the event.
It was a sunny day on the rooftop of POST. Guests roamed the gardens and took in sweeping views of the downtown skyline. Upon arrival at the event tent, they were greeted by two Kinder HSPVA string quartets and a sculpture garden of ceramic artworks by Visual Arts students. As guests took their seats under the tent, the head tables were surprised with one of Rachelle Mendez’s Emmy® statues as their centerpiece.
The program kicked off with a rousing performance by Kinder HSPVA’s award-winning Mariachi Los Pasajeros. Following remarks by HSPVA Friends Executive Director Alene Haehl Coggin and Kinder HSPVA Principal Dr. Priscilla Rivas, there was a spectacular musical theatre performance in honor of 2023 Community Honoree Joan Vachule Murrin.
During the lunch break, guests posed for photos with Mendez’s Emmy® awards. The second act of the program kicked off with 10th-grade Creative Writing students Aspen Rideau and Ethan Stiefel performing their original poem, “The Magic of Storytelling.” Then, Texas Poet Laureate and Kinder HSPVA Creative Writing teacher Lupe Mendez introduced Distinguished Alumna Rachelle Mendez. Rachelle spoke about the positive impact her time as a student at Kinder HSPVA had on her career and thanked guests for their support of arts education in Houston.
After Encore, Mendez spent the day at school visiting with students about her career and answering their questions about life in the professional world. It was important to Mendez to bring her Emmy® awards to school so that students could see them, hold them, and know that winning an Emmy®—or reaching any big, ambitious goal—is achievable.
Thank you to our underwriters!
PRODUCER
The Boblitt Family
DIRECTORS
Kinder Foundation
Victoria and Alex Lazar
CHOREOGRAPHERS
Carey Jordan and Brian Simmons
H-E-B
Janis and Paul Jarosz/Christian Brothers Automotive
DESIGNERS
Affiliated Engineers/Merriman Holt Powell Architects
Brookfield Properties
Kolache Factory
Rachelle Mendez
Julia and Will Robinson
The Family of Isaac Serrato
Lisa and Jerry Simon
Kimberly Hickson Spaw and David Spaw
ENSEMBLE
The Family of Auden and Emerson Chen
DocFest, Inc.
Angie and Grant Dorfman
Casey and Ryan Hackney
Heather and Chris Powers
DUETS
Irma Alarcon and José Rauh-Hain
Kathryn and Mark Artlip
Minnette and Peter Boesel
Patricia Bonner
Algenita Scott Davis
Rhetta Detrich and Bill Horwath
Farell and Colin Diamond
Discovery Green Conservancy
Susan Elmore
Rachel and Tarek El-Yafi
C.C. and Duke Ensell
Jo and Jim Furr
Karen Ostrum George and Larry George
Lainie Gordon and David Mincberg
Rusty Hardin & Associates LLP
The Ivy Family
Tayyba Kanwal and Rashed Haq
George C. Lancaster
Megan and Bradley Lembcke
Christina and Damien Lyster
Simone and Sean Maher
Jenny Mohr and Matt Parker
Renae Holman Murti and Prashant Murti
Robbie Pape
Kathryn Priest
Bob Singleton and Joe Boyd
Austin Thomas
Leslie and Eric Wade
Kerry and Charles Walker
Sylvia and Jerry Wilkenfeld
About Rachelle Mendez
2023 Distinguished Alumna
Rachelle Mendez is an 8-time Emmy® award-winning television producer, developer, and showrunner. She is well known for her work on five seasons of Netflix’s QUEER EYE and was honored with Emmy® award wins for Outstanding Structured Reality Show in 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018. Mendez Executive Produced and Showran Netflix’s SPARKING JOY with Marie Kondo, which received the 2022 Daytime Emmy® for Outstanding Lifestyle Program. She is also the co-creator and executive producer of HBO MAX’s streetwear competition series, THE HYPE. Mendez Co-Executive Produced the critically acclaimed LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY & THE AFTERMATH, winner of the 2017 Emmy® award for Best Informational Series and the 2018 Producers Guild Award (PGA) for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television. To add to her many accolades, Mendez was also nominated for a PGA Award for Nonfiction Television of the Year for her work on UNDERCOVER BOSS, which also received consecutive Emmy® award wins for Outstanding Reality Program in 2012 and 2013. A second generation Mexican-Amer
ican, Mendez was raised in Houston, Texas, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a 1994 graduate of the HSPVA Theatre Department. In 2021, Rachelle spoke to HSPVA Friends about her journey from HSPVA to Hollywood and how she fell in love with the power of non-fiction storytelling – check it out!
About Joan Murrin
2023 Community Honoree
HSPVA Friends is proud to honor Joan Vachule Murrin, who is celebrating her retirement after holding important roles at HSPVA Friends since 1998. In her 25 years of support, she has worked as a parent volunteer and Guild leader, staffed HSPVA Friends as Development Officer, served on the Board of Directors (2008-2017), and chaired the 11th Annual Encore Event. In 2017, she returned to the HSPVA Friends staff as our treasured Volunteer Manager. As the mother of two alumni, Joan has a deep appreciation of the benefits of a Kinder HSPVA education. Her servant leadership has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial support, benefiting all six art areas and the school as a whole. Before dedicating her time to arts and education, Joan was an attorney in Dallas, Texas. She is a 1975 graduate of Bryn Mawr College and a 1978 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.
Encore photos by Jeff Fitlow.
