  | Theatre Professor Paula McGlasson treats all student performers as potential stars. | |||
That Others May ShineJohn Pantalone '71 Paula McGlasson, who took over as chair of the Theatre Department last July, remembers organizing shows in her neighborhood as a child. "It's been my thing since I was five years old," she says of theatrical production. "It can be chaotic, but I enjoy being around talented artists with vision who need someone to provide the environment for their talent to flourish." URI's resident theatre manager since 1985, McGlasson says she's "perfectly happy to let others shine," and she does just that as an instructor, production manager, and director. "She's the best," says junior theatre major Heidi Beckmann. "She's like my mom away from home." McGlasson grew up in Illinois and graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University's Speech Education Department with a theatre minor. After college she took a stage management job with a dance company. A later experience as a graduate student at the University of Illinois running a summer theatre drove her in the direction of theatre management. Her career, however, illustrates a point she often makes about studying theatre arts. "The skills you learn in a theatre program help prepare you for a number of related fields and for jobs you wouldn't expect," she says. "I did quite well for a time as a travel agent, and I also taught high school for two years before coming to URI." Sometimes, she says, parents worry that their children have chosen a hopelessly difficult path by majoring in theatre, but McGlasson encourages them to apply yet another athletic strategy: positive thinking. "Any time a parent asks me, I tell them their kids know there are dues to be paid. Your career can take detours because you learn skills here that can serve you in many ways." "You can teach school, work in sales, become a performing arts administrator--or an agent. Everyone doesn't become a star. It's the learning process that's important." McGlasson has high praise for the students in her program, who put in as many as 40 hours a week during rehearsal periods in addition to attending classes, studying, and, in many cases, working to help pay for their schooling. "In this program you get to know the students in a wonderful, close way," says McGlasson, who is carrying on the work of such dedicated theatre faculty as URI Theatre founder Robert E. Will and former department chair Judith Swift '68, M.A. '71, a legend as a college theatre director in Rhode Island. "Seeing student performers I have worked with up on stage receiving applause is the same payoff for me as taking a bow myself." A lecturer in the URI Journalism Department, John Pantalone '71 is the former editor of Newport This Week and Newport Life Magazine, the former regional editor of Art New England, and the former arts and living editor at The South County Independent. |
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