Support from donors and alumni across USC has been critical to the renovation of the historic building for the School of Dramatic Arts.
One gift, from Rod and Elsie Nakamoto, has named the School’s Center for Community and Culture, a light-filled space on the building’s second floor.
But in a truly inclusive gesture, the Nakamotos did not put their own names on the center. They named it for Anita Dashiell-Sparks, the SDA professor who is the School’s associate dean of community & culture, and her husband, SDA Board of Councilors member Anthony Sparks, BFA in Theatre ’94, MA and PhD in American Studies & Ethnicity, a showrunner, executive producer and writer for television who also has had a notable theatre acting career.
The Sparks Center offers programming for students across the university. Its 620-square-foot space is a central hub for USC’s diverse artistic community members to connect, collaborate and support one another.
Rod Nakamoto ’83, MBA ’94, a USC Trustee and past president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors and USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association, and Elsie ’82, thought it would be an honor to have their names on the center, says Rod. But they asked SDA Dean Emily Roxworthy if there was another name that would resonate with the artistic community.
After giving it some thought, Dean Roxworthy suggested the Sparks’ names, recognizing the work Anita and Anthony do to promote community building initiatives throughout USC and beyond.
“The name ‘Sparks’ is beautiful and fitting,” says Rod. “It’s one of those things where everything kind of fits together.”
The Nakamoto name is represented in the center, on a plaque with the names of his mother, Virginia, and brother Brian, who died in 2021. “My mom was the one who, on a really tight budget, created the opportunities for us to visit museums, visit the aquarium, go to performances when we could, giving us a lifelong love of the arts,” says Rod. “Brian enjoyed the arts and also was a pretty big proponent of culture work at Eli Lilly, where he worked. It will be nice to honor them in that space.”
As for the Sparks, the news that donors wanted to put their family’s name on the center was a complete surprise.
When Anita, who also serves as the School’s vice chair of performance, was told by Dean Roxworthy and Sara Fousekis, the School’s associate dean of advancement, “I was completely speechless,” she said. “And I immediately started crying. I was so deeply honored by that gesture, and humbled by it.”
Said Anthony: “Simply put, we are elated, overjoyed and full of gratitude.” He said SDA played “a huge, transformational role in helping me realize my dreams” when he was a student. “To my surprise, USC continues to be a powerful, life-changing force” in his life and his family’s life.
“This most unexpected and generous honor from trustee Rod Nakamoto and the Rod and Elsie Nakamoto Endowment Fund is something that touches Anita and me in a profound way,” he continued. “As Black artists long committed to incorporating a sense of community and justice in our theatre, television and film work, we generally expect the reward to be the work itself. And indeed it is. So to have our commitment acknowledged in a dedicated space to those values is literally a dream that I didn’t know I could dream.
“I believe my mother — a Black woman sharecropper from Mississippi, a woman whose name I carry — is smiling from heaven at this most extraordinary honor.”
Anita, in addition to her teaching responsibilities, oversees training to SDA faculty and staff, and gives workshops to incoming and existing students. She has joined counterparts in USC’s other arts schools to promote equity in curriculum and representation in projects. She has been a leader in this work for over two decades and is a fierce advocate for artists of color.
She sees the center as a community gathering space and a hub for sharing resources to aid community engagement initiatives, such as the L.A. vs. Hate project, a collaboration with the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission and the Los Angeles County Office of Education. For that project, SDA students help mentor youth at five area high schools using theatre and other arts for anti-hate, anti-bias efforts.
Rod Nakamoto praises Dean Roxworthy’s support for these efforts, and the openness to include the entire artistic community at USC in this vision. “It’s that inclusiveness that makes this important,” he says.
This article appeared in the 2024-25 issue of Callboard magazine. Read more stories from the issue online.