Virtual Activity
For today’s challenge, we’ve put together a bingo card with the titles of varying forms of media that feature Brown alums, include mentions of Brown or were created by a Brown community member.
Get bingo by figuring out who or what we’re referring to in each square — fill out a row of four plus the free space, or the entire card, if you can — then share your answers.
Hamsa Shanmugam
Congratulations to all the keen-eyed pop culture fans out there who identified five in a row (or more) of the Brown University references in our Sept. 3 Pop Culture Playlist bingo challenge.
The participants seemed pretty caught up on their Brown pop culture, but one clue eluded everyone: For the TV show “Empire,” the Brown reference was actor (and alum) André Leon Talley, who guest stars in the season 2 premiere.
Here are all of the references mentioned in the bingo card:
1. “The Marriage Plot” author Jeffrey Eugenides is a Brown alumnus.
2. A reporter interviewing Tony Stark in 2008’s “Iron Man” says she’s a graduate of Brown (not UC Berkeley).
3. Both “Black-ish” star Tracee Ellis Ross and one of the show’s executive producers, Jonathan Groff, are Brown graduates. Ross’s character Bow also is a fictional alum, and in an episode in season 2 she shows her eldest daughter around campus.
4. "Sex and the City" columnist Carrie Bradshaw went to Brown (although it’s not revealed in the series but in author Candace Bushnell’s novel “Summer and the City,” published in 2011).
5. Brown alumna Wendy Carlos composed the music for the 1982 Disney film “TRON.” She also taught electronic music at Brown.
6. The Netflix series “You,” which premiered in 2018, is based on the thriller by Brown alumna Caroline Kepnes. Several people pointed out that main character Guinevere Beck is also a Brown grad.
7. “LEGACY! LEGACY!” is the second album from singer-songwriter Jamila Woods, a Brown graduate.
8. Brown alumna Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote the play “Daphne’s Dive,” along with other plays and musicals, including Tony Award-winning “In the Heights.”
9. Brown graduate Daveed Diggs played two roles in the original Broadway production of “Hamilton” — Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson — and also stars in the film version on Disney+. Several people let us know that Diggs also has a guest appearance on “Black-ish” as Bow’s brother Johan (starting in season 3).
10. In the film versions of the Harry Potter series, Hermione Granger is played by Brown alumna Emma Watson.
11. In the television series “Gossip Girl,” main character Serena is accepted to Brown (which her older brother Erik also attends), though she doesn’t end up enrolling.
12. Brown alumnus Ira Glass is host and producer of National Public Radio’s “This American Life” podcast.
13. “Treehouse” is the debut studio album of electronic dance music duo Sofi Tukker, whose members include Tucker Halpern and Sophie Hawley-Weld, both Brown graduates.
14. The television series “The Office” (U.S. version) stars Brown alumnus John Krasinski as Jim, the will-they-or-won’t-they love interest of office receptionist Pam.
15. Brown alumnus Benjamin Moser won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize for his biography “Sontag: Her Life and Work,” about writer and activist Susan Sontag.
16. Actor Kate Burton, a Brown alumna, plays a reporter in the 1986 film “Big Trouble in Little China.” You may also recognize Burton from “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” among many other roles.
17. Brown alumna Yaya DaCosta plays Whitney Houston in the Lifetime Original Movie “Whitney,” about the singer’s life.
18. Brown alumna Marin Hinkle plays the mother of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” in the hit television series on Amazon Prime.
19. If anyone found this cameo, they didn’t tell us: Brown alumnus André Leon Talley guest stars in the season 2 premiere of the television show “Empire.”
20. Over all the roaring (and drama) in the popular Netflix docuseries “Tiger King,” you’ll hear a soundtrack curated by Brown alumnus Randall Poster, the show’s music supervisor.
21. Brown graduate Zoe Chao stars as Isobel in the Facebook Watch web series “Strangers,” which premiered in 2017 and ran for two seasons.
22. In the 1997 rom-com “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” Julia Roberts’s character Julianne says she minored in psychology at Brown. (Of course, we know she meant “concentrated.”)
23. Brown alumna and playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play “Fairview.”
24. The Netflix show “Ozark” stars Laura Linney, a Brown alumna, as Wendy Byrde.