This week, UNC Greensboro celebrates Homecoming, a time to welcome alumni back to campus. We’ll hear from these alumni about their memories of the Caf, the dorms, and their professors, and we’ll have the chance to share with them proudly all that their alma mater is doing today.
Many of these alumni will speak of lifelong friendships and sometimes marriages and relationships that began on campus, and they’ll talk about career interactions that have occurred within their network of UNCG alumni.
In the spirit of Homecoming, we caught up with four School of Theatre alumni who have stories about all of that and more. All four have had successful careers in higher education and as theatre professionals; each of them has been a head or chair of a university theatre department; and, as of last year, all four of them hold the distinction of being inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.
Take a trip down memory lane with Jim Fisher (’75 MFA Acting/Directing), David Grapes (’76 MFA Acting/Directing), David Leong (’75 MFA Acting/Directing), and Ed Simpson (’76 MFA Acting/Directing).
SHaring a high honor
The College of Fellows of the American Theatre originated in 1965 within the American Educational Theatre Association with the purpose of promoting and encouraging the highest standards of research, writing, and creativity. Membership includes actors, critics, designers, directors, playwrights, producers, program administrators, educators, and scholars associated with the commercial and educational wings of the American theatre.
Investiture in the College is one of the highest honors bestowed on educators and professionals of the American theatre. David Leong was inducted in 2013, Jim Fisher in 2019, David Grapes in 2022, and Ed Simpson in 2023.
Fisher is a UNCG Professor Emeritus and served as Chair of two university theatre departments, first at Wabash College then at what is now UNCG’s School of Theatre. He has published more than twenty books, four of which are on playwright Tony Kushner and the latest of which is a history of vaudeville.
Grapes is Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the School of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Northern Colorado. He has also worked as a producer, director, and freelance arts reviewer.
Leong is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Theatre Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also a certified Fight Master (one of only seventeen in the country) with a career as a fight choreographer on Broadway, and now, with his wife, does “edutainment” on cruise ships and other venues on topics such as the Great American Songbook and the Golden Age of Theatre.
Simpson is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Theatre and Dance at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and served as Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at High Point University. He is a playwright, director, and actor.
finding their way to tate street
How did four UNCG Theatre alumni from a small cohort of graduates in the mid-1970s find their way to Tate Street and wind up with such similar career trajectories?
It’s something they say they’ve thought about:
All four of us have spent our lives in higher education and in professional theatre,” muses Leong. “And here’s an interesting thing. Each of us served as long-time chairs of theatre departments. All four of us have been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. And, if you add up all our years of teaching in higher education, it’s over 150 years, which blows my mind!”
All of them say they came to UNCG because of the theatre program’s stellar reputation:
“UNCG has one of the nation’s best programs in children’s theatre,” says Leong. “My undergraduate degree was a self-designed major in children’s theatre from the University of New Hampshire. I had looked around the country and was very attracted to UNCG because of the program and for an assistantship that former head Tom Behm offered me.”
Grapes says it was also the diversity of the degree that drew him to UNCG:
“When I was searching for a graduate school, UNCG had a unique program that allowed you to receive an MFA degree in both acting and directing. Also, in the mid-’70s, the UNCG Theatre Department had a national reputation for excellence.”
Fisher agrees:
“If you were on the performance side of the program, you could be an MFA in Acting/Directing. A lot of places it was either one or the other. I think having the MFA in Acting and Directing is a good thing. Even if you wanted to be an actor, you had to direct. And Directors had to do some acting. So, you know both sides of it. I think the program expanded our experience. There was no one or the other. I think that served most of us well. And that’s why our career arcs are so similar.”
“I don’t think that there was a UNCG style or philosophy, so we weren’t following some blueprint,” adds Simpson. “You know, you start out thinking you’re going to be an actor, and you set your sights on Broadway or television or film, but the reality of it is you take what is available.
“I think that’s one of the things we got from UNCG. We picked up lots of skills and ideas so that we really felt like we could figure it all out when the time came. There were a lot of times I really didn’t know what I was doing. But I felt comfortable trying things. We were being prepared more than we ever knew at the time.”
lessons learned and the value of a theatre degree
Fisher, Grapes, Leong, and Simpson say perhaps the most important lessons they learned at UNCG are that they didn’t know what they didn’t know and how to figure it out:
“Every student, whether they’re at the undergraduate or the graduate level, thinks they know a lot,” says Leong. “And yet, at the same time, we were all thinking are we ever going to work? Are we going to get jobs in theatre? We bonded. We all thought our professors were good, but that we were actually learning from each other. First of all, that’s not true because our professors were very wise. But as grad students, we really did mentor each other. The faculty provided so many opportunities, unlimited opportunities, and it was up to us to take advantage of them.”
Simpson remembers: “When you’re a student, you really don’t know anything. I remember coming in scared to death because it was grad school. They gave you a list of 150–200 plays that you should have read by the time you leave, and we had comps to do. There was a rigor. And you had to just jump in.”
“College is a time to experiment and grow,” says Leong. “We were willing to take a risk, and we didn’t even think about this thing called failure. So, our time at UNCG prepared us for what we all wound up doing. Faculty supported us. They didn’t say ‘no,’ they said ‘yes,’ go ahead, and try it. They told us to spread our wings and fly. Figure it out. Fail. You know something will stick.”
Grapes adds, “We learned to believe in ourselves and our talent and to be lifelong learners. Dream big! Never limit yourself. And never forget the importance of mentors, colleagues, and friends in this crazy business.”
Throughout their careers, they’ve shared those lessons, not only with students but with their parents. Simpson remembers the day he decided to announce he was changing his major to theatre:
“I had struggled in undergrad, then I took my first trip to New York City. I saw eight plays in six days. I came home and was trying to figure out how to tell my parents that this was where I wanted to live and what I wanted to do. After I floundered for a bit, my dad asked, ‘What took you so long? It makes no sense to do something that you think will make me happy. This is your life.’ I used to tell that story to students and their parents all the time.”
As Chair of the department at VCU, Leong would ask parents to raise their hands if they were nervous about funding their child’s education in theatre:
“All the hands would go up. I’d ask them to leave their hands up if you’re hoping we’ll train them in skills that will help them get a job immediately after school. All the hands would stay up. Then, I would say keep your hands raised if you are doing exactly right now what you thought you were going to be doing when you went to college, and most, if not all, of the hands would go down.”
Leong says that’s when he would tell parents, “Regardless of how successful a student is in theatre, they’re going to be better prepared to do whatever they do– actor, lawyer, teacher, dentist. They’re going to be better off in life with a theatre degree because of the skills they gain.”
Making Memories and Forging Careers
“I loved the intensity of the program at UNCG. We were always busy both acting in and directing productions,” reminisces Grapes. “I remember being in some amazing productions including playing Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Ed was also in that production. I played the lead in David Leong’s thesis production. I also had the opportunity to direct Ed in my first production as a playwright. And my thesis production of Noël Coweard’s Hay Fever made me realize that I had a gift for directing and working with actors. I had several faculty mentors who I adored including John Joy, Kathryn England, Sonny Bell, Herman Middleton, Tom Behm, and Andreas Nomikos.”
“The level of production and design was so good,” adds Simpson.
“Some of the real stars of the program during our time there were the designers,” says Fisher. “A lot of design students came specifically to work with Andreas Nomikos.”
Fisher continues:
“My first year, Herman Middleton directed Aeschylus’s The Oresteia–the whole damn thing. We were all cast in it and put it together in just four weeks. We were selected to go to Washington, DC and perform it at the Kennedy Center as part of the American College Festival. The visuals were unbelievable because Andreas Nomikos designed them. It was like work he would have done during the time he worked at the Met Opera.
“There’s this scene between the second and third plays where Orestes has killed his mother and he’s about to go on trial before the Gods, and this full stage copper curtain descends. It was made of copper pipes–like the biggest windchime you’ve ever heard–and it’s so perfect because this sound happens when you’re being tossed from earth to the heavens in the play. I had the chills every time that curtain came in.”
“My favorite memory is The Great Magician,” says Leong. “One of the other students then was David Wells, and he and I were both clowns in the show. Wells was the stupid clown, and I was the silly, acrobatic clown. There’s a scene where we have a fight. You know when you throw a stage punch you stop just short of hitting the other person and you make a noise with your hand to make it sound like you’ve landed the punch. But this time, David Wells didn’t miss. He actually punched me square in the jaw! Right after that bit, Jim Fisher’s character, El Capitano, gets angry at the clowns and throws us both in a box and shuts the lid. The box is maybe four feet by four feet. So here we are, like upside down and I’m like, I’m saying, ‘Wells, I’m gonna kill you for this!’”
The drama of that production wasn’t all on stage:
Simpson: “The designer had done some shows in New York, and the costumes were just gorgeous, especially the women’s costumes. My costume included tights, and they were actually fabricating the tights.”
Fisher: “I played El Capitano and my costume was lined. No one but me could see it, so I asked why. Am I going to have to drop my pants at some point? They said it was for comfort and would make the costume move well.
“During rehearsal there was a lot of improvisation, and it was hilarious. Then we got into these expensive and elaborate created costumes, and they were so constricting. One of the women was supposed to take a pratfall over me, but when she got ready to do the fall you could hear the designer shout out about us ruining the costumes, and a big fight broke out with the director.”
collaboration Beyond Graduation
Fisher’s, Grapes’s, Leong’s, and Simpson’s lives have been intertwined for five decades, starting with theatre at UNCG and extending throughout their careers:
“We were all appearing and acting in each other’s productions during our years together,” says Grapes. “Jim was a year ahead of me, but I was still auditioning for his productions. We also took classes together and spent hundreds of hours together in rehearsals. There was always some rivalry for roles, but we were also friends. That continued after graduation. We remained in touch and in 2010, Jim, who was then Theatre Chair at UNCG, brought me to campus to premiere my new musical on Nina Simone. We always enjoy seeing each other at conferences and at the College of Fellows of the American Theater annual weekend in Washington, DC.”
Leong and Simpson have collaborated, as well:
“Ed is a great writer. My wife, Patty, and I have worked with him for years as he helped us develop material and script several talks that we give on cruise ships in our edutainment business.”
Simpson remembers the first time he met Fisher, or as he calls him, “Fish”:
“The first time I saw ‘Fish’ I thought he was a faculty member. He was wearing that same shirt he has on now,” he says poking Fisher across the table. “He was the grad assistant for Theatre Appreciation, and with four hundred students in that class, he always had a giant stack of papers. I thought he must be someone important. Then I learned the startling truth.” Fisher and Simpson howl with laughter.
Fisher says, “It’s funny with old friends. You don’t see each other for years, but when you do, you’re just picking up where you left off. I made a lot of reconnections coming back to UNCG as faculty and department chair. It was one of the happiest parts of coming back to Greensboro. One of the most interesting things was realizing that pretty much everyone I’d gone to school with was doing some kind of theatre somewhere. That’s not typical. It’s a hard career to get into and stay employed in.”
In addition to directing shows at UNCG, Fisher honed his skills at Greensboro’s Barn Dinner Theatre, which gave him enough of a resume to land directing jobs in Nashville. Fisher hired Simpson to act in his shows there, and when Simpson started a summer theatre program with Indiana University of Pennsylvania, he called on his friend:
“The first person I thought of was ‘Fish.’ He was cheap.” Again, the two break into roaring laughter. “But seriously, it’s not just about hiring someone you like. That’s a good way to ruin two careers. You want someone who you know you can trust and who’s good.”
At the Barn Dinner Theatre, Fisher didn’t just find a directing career. He also found Dana Warner, who’d been brought in from New York to star in the lead role of Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun:
“I followed her around like a sick puppy. She stayed in town to take a job as manager for the Theatre for Young People tour. It took me six months, but I finally wore her down and got her to go out with me.” (Dana and Jim have been married for 47 years.)
Simpson: “These friendships are precious things.”
Fisher: “I think one of the reasons we’re both still kicking around here is the number of laughs we’ve shared. Theatre can be great fun. It can also be a pain in the ass. I also think it’s because we don’t take ourselves seriously. We take our work seriously, but not ourselves. And that has fueled these friendships.”
Simpson: “Right after I retired, my wife and I were walking on the beach, and I started thinking about this next chapter. And I thought back to being in graduate school and thinking what’s going to happen? Is this even going to work? Am I wasting my life? Am I going to be able to do this? There are always people lining up to say, ‘You can’t make any money at this.’ And then I realized that this is what’s going to happen. I’ve come to the end of a good career and look back at all the opportunities I had.
When I went to UNCG, whether I realized it or not, I was really committing myself to what my life was going to be. UNCG really did a good job preparing me for the rest of my life. There, in that building on Tate Street.”
Story by Terri W Relos
Photo credits: Dana Warner Fisher, UNCG Theatre Archives