Much Ado About Nothing rehearsal, 1965
B ILL HARVE Y A L L T HE WO R L D ' S A S TAG E W R I T T E N BY T E R R I G L E I C H
W
hen theater professor Bill Harvey mounted an Olympic College production of “Lysistrata” during the early years of the Vietnam War, the publicity poster featured the anti-war slogan, “Make Love, Not War.”
It was deliberately provocative and OC administrators feared a backlash to the poster and the play, in which the women of ancient Greece plot to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex. “I was told to cancel the production,” recalled Harvey. “They said I could not say that in a Navy town.” Harvey didn’t back down. The show went on. And, except for one woman who walked out in response to a racy "sight gag" and wrote a scathing letter to the editor of the thenBremerton Sun, the audience was appreciative. Now 86 and battling cancer, Harvey still relishes his reputation as a rabble-rouser. He pushed his students to take risks and led by example, inspiring such devotion that many former students still keep in touch with him and one student anonymously endowed a $25,000 scholarship fund in his name. His contributions are being recognized in the new College Instruction Center, where the state-of-the-art performance space and classroom is called the William D. Harvey Theatre. It’s the first time an OC faculty member has been honored in this way and it took a vote by the Olympic College Board of Trustees. The Olympic College Foundation Board of Directors led the effort with support from faculty and Harvey’s loyal students.
In addition to teaching drama, speech, interpersonal communications, and the history of American culture during his 36 years at OC, Harvey was active in the community, helping create the Bremerton YWCA’s Alive Shelter for victims of domestic violence and their children. After retiring in 1995, he served on the Kitsap Regional Library Board, the West Sound Arts Council and the Olympic College Foundation Board, including serving as president in 2010-11.
His first production was “Our Town” and he went on to stage a play each quarter – 100 by his count – introducing students to Shakespeare, Chekov and Beckett, and requiring them to learn all facets of production from costumes to lighting. “I wanted them to learn literature. I wanted them to learn to work together. I wanted a commitment. And, if they happened to have talent, that was nice, too,” he said.
Still, it was his impact in the classroom that cements his legacy. “He would say, ‘Swindle with conviction,’” said Kate Wilson, a Silverdale Realtor who was Harvey’s student in the 1970s. “He wasn’t encouraging us to break the law, he was encouraging us to have confidence and it opened up all these doors. I think that’s really impacted me throughout my life. It’s really helped me to take on new challenges in life.” “He taught me more about working with people and organizing things than I ever learned in business school,” said Catherine Worley, another former student from the 1970s who went on to a career in banking and finance. Harvey is credited with resuscitating OC’s ailing theater program when he joined the faculty in 1959. “They hired me, gave me a box of rancid makeup and said, ‘Do a play.’”
2015 P. 5 OLYMPIC COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION