The Nineteen Seventies
1977-78
The University Theatre’s fall season opened on October 28 with Kenneth Graham’s production of Twelfth Night in the Thrust, 
followed by Miss Julie, adapted and directed by Charles Nolte in the Arena. Hay Fever, an amusing Noel Coward piece, was presented in November in the Proscenium. The Lady from Boston directed by Eleanor Heck was the fall Workshop and Theatre of the Word presented Venus and Adonis.
Winter quarter’s first production was No Place to Be Somebody, a play about a young black man trying to make it in a white man’s world, directed by new faculty member Elton Wolfe. It boasted powerful action, fiery language, tender emotions and music to tell the story of Johnny Williams, the owner of a bar-disco. Memorable for many good reasons it also stands out as the production in which an actor took a 4-inch dart into the shoulder on opening night and was taken to Boynton Health Service. The stage management team of Mary Piper and Barb Begich contrived to write the character out of the play over the headsets and the audience never missed him until his
return in the final scene when they wondered who he was! Kiss Me Kate directed by Robert Moulton in the Proscenium and the YPUT production of Tales of the Old West, an original story theatre about legends Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and Pecos Bill, rounded out winter offerings.
Moliere’s The Miser directed by Gary O’Brien performed in the Thrust spring quarter. And we borrowed the Experimental to stage Marat/Sade on the mainstage season.
Workshops this season included Masque of the Red Death in the Experimental, and The Three Cuckolds and When We Dead Awaken in the Arena. Theatre of the Word: “One Half of Humanity”.
David W. Thompson became chair of the department and Elton Wolfe and Doug Berry joined the faculty.
Summer on the river was Dracula (the first), adapted and directed by Charles Nolte, with Linda Gehringer as Mina, Galen Schrick as the Count, and Lee Walker as Van Helsing. There were flying bats, mysterious appearances and disappearances, lights in castle windows, fog, and fangs, but no olios. Cathy Cragg (now Davis) designed it all and TD Stan (now Weld) Ransom provided the noise of the buzzing fly for Renfrew from his position at the dimmer board house left. The Peppermint Tent performed Dragons and Pearls, an original collection of Oriental folk tales, and The Bell, a participatory play about finding the bell of happiness – both directed by Pam Everett.
