Good evening everyone, G, Nancy. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Michael Chamberlain, a proud member of the class of 1993 and I was Lucky enough to have G take my class to London.
I first met G 18 years ago while visiting Roger Williams during my senior year of High School. I remember coming in for the day, sitting in on one of Dorisa’s Technical Theater classes, (where I learned the definition of the word potentiometer), and I remember sitting down with a few professors who are here in this room tonight. I remember sitting down with Peter and G, with G telling me about the London program and the number of shows performed here in Rhode Island per year. And I remember G and Peter assuring my parents, and myself, that I would be receiving a well-rounded liberal arts education that would begin to train me in Theater while also giving me a secure base of knowledge that would serve me well, no matter where the future led me.
I knew by the end of that day that my immediate future was leading to Roger Williams College.
G taught Intro to Theatre and the History of Theatre classes, I loved those classes. Yes there was the required studying of facts and dates, that combined, gave every alumnus in this room an understanding of the origins and the gradual development of Theatre as an art form.
But thinking about those lectures:
The fact that in 560 AD in Dionysus a man named
Thespis stepped out of the chorus and was the first
actor to ever speak directly to the audience, thus
giving birth to what we know of as Western Theater.
That did not stay in my head because I read it, or because G tested us on it. It’s still there because of the way G told a story. And there were a lot of stories. These stories were full of countless facts and details, and if by chance on any particular day a fun little detail was being elusive G would send out his trusty Search Mouse to quickly round it up.
I soon realized that G’s stories provided more than amusement, they provided context. They were the human perspective and they showed that Art, (like everything in life), doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You have to understand the world an artist lived in to fully understand the Art he or she left behind.
This philosophy of interconnectivity and context stuck with me. It is a cornerstone for my working and everyday thought process and I truly believe that it is one of the things that make me a good manager.
While thinking back on our days at Roger Williams the other thing that struck me about G is his amazing openness and generosity. In my era, the entire department had season tickets to Trinity Rep. We went to every show and then back to G and Nancy’s house for a full-on meal and an hour of group analysis of the play, (during the Anne Bogart years it was more like 2, 2 ½ hours of analysis). We all knew that those were special evenings. It wasn’t until much later that I realized just how special. The Idea of a Professor and his wife regularly opening up their home to a large crowd of hungry students in order to encourage the free flow of ideas and to revel in the joys of a shared experience. I don’t know of anywhere else that happens, but then again G is one of a Kind.
Then there is London. What can I say about London, other than Thank You. Thank You for designing a program that gave us all the privilege to not only study Theatre in the best place for Theatre on the planet, but for encouraging us to truly experience London on a personal level, on our own schedule. For giving us a guidebook and a long list of places to see, trusting that we knew enough by then to fully take advantage of the remarkable opportunity.
You wanted us to “Stop being Mole People on the Tube” and to see the city with our own eyes. To start collecting and telling our own stories connecting the dots between the things we were seeing and ourselves.
When Liz and Diane asked me to speak tonight I jumped at the opportunity. I called some old friends, some I see almost daily but unfortunately, most I haven’t spoken to in way too long. We caught up on each other’s lives, where we live, what we are doing for a living and we reminisced about G and our time here. The Stories, and everyone has a few, are far too numerous to tell here tonight.
I also went back and reread some notes and flipped through some textbooks. In the preface of our Intro to Theatre book there is a passage that I find particularly appropriate:
“The Theatre is not merely a collection of crafts,
a branch of Literature, a collaboration of technique,
or even and all encompassing art form.
It is a Life. It is a People.
It is a People making Art out of themselves.”
G, you are a Teacher of Theatre, the Best one I know. Your teaching and personal style has helped to shape the Artists and the People we have all become. Thank you for the stories, the generosity, Thank you for the trust, the direction and Thank you for the Context.
You succeeded in doing exactly what you promised on the first day I met you. We all have a good theatre training and an excellent educational base that has served us well, no matter where our futures have led us. And how can we Thank You for that?
Congratulations on a well deserved retirement. Future Classes don’t know what they are missing.
--Michael Chamberlain