The Launch of a New Department

When Radford College approved a major in Speech and Dramatic Arts for the academic year 1966-67, it also approved the addition of a Speech course to the General Education requirements. (The requirements were: Speech 114: Public Speaking, Speech 116: Oral Interpretation of Literature; or Speech 326: Speech for the Classroom Teacher. Speech 326 was required for all Education majors, and there was great demand for this class.

The name of the new academic unit was: “The Department of Dramatic Arts and Speech.” The production budget for the 1967-68 season was $100.00. It is interesting to note that even when accounting for inflation over the 53 subsequent years, $100 only amounts to $781 in 2020 buying power!

Dr. William (Bill) Morehouse was the only full-time faculty member, and he taught all the Speech courses, and the few courses in Dramatic Arts. Based on the addition of Speech to General Education, two additional faculty members were hired. During the summer of 1967, Mr. John C. Irvine, who was finishing his M.A. at UNC-Chapel Hill and Mr. Charles L. Hayes (Chuck), who was finishing his M.A. at Indiana University, joined the faculty.

Dr. Morehouse established a regular niche for an annual children’s play It is significant that the department is still strongly committed to doing a quality show for children each year.

After the spring semester of 1968, Founders Hall was demolished to make way for Muse Hall. The academic year 1967-68 was the last year that old Founders Hall, which stood where Muse Hall now stands, was in use. In Founders, the auditorium, with all wooden seats, also served as the theatre. The stage was very shallow, and the draperies were so old and rotten that they were falling apart. The scene shop occupied part of what, in earlier times, had been an indoor pool. There were two large closets that served as storage for costumes and paint supplies. At that time, Radford College was all female, and the assumption was that girls could not construct scenery. As a result, the maintenance department built flats and anything else that was needed. The flats were lovely, built with finished lumber and like on Broadway, were held together with counter-sunk brass screws. Even though the entire production budget for that year was one hundred dollars, the new faculty immediately instituted the change that required all construction and painting to be done by the students.

In addition to the class work projects, most of the ongoing work of the department was done by two organizations: Alpha Psi Omega (APO) and the Curtain Club. Once the classes began to fully take over the construction work, the Curtain Club fell by the wayside, and APO became much more just an honorary society.

At that time, APO had only one initiation per year, in the spring, and this ended with a steak cookout at the house of Jean Einstein, who was a faculty member in the Music department and an APO member

One of the first tasks that Dr. Morehouse asked of Hayes and Irvine was the construction of a curriculum for the theatre section of the major. Additionally, Hayes was given the task of building the library holdings in theatre.

One of the new courses offered was The Development of Film. It was taught on a regular basis until the quarter system was converted to the current semester system. This conversion required the reduction of the number of courses by roughly one third. The theatre education series was eliminated at the same time. The first major in Dramatic Arts and Speech, Lynda Jean (Lynnie) Raybuck, graduated in the spring of 1968

Mr. Charles (Chuck) Hayes wrote this original narrative history of the theatre department and provides some fascinating glimpses into the early days. “After being moved out of Founders Hall in 1968-69, the department did not have a performance space. At first, it was given the basement of Lucas Hall (located on the site of CHUBS). This looked to be a good location until the first rehearsal there and it was discovered, very quickly, that the noise from the railroad drowned out most of the efforts.”

Any Wednesday was performed in the old band room to the west side of Preston stage and on Preston stage. The band room had a tile floor, and we were cautioned not to get paint on it.” “When we performed Three Sisters on the Preston stage, we were told that we could not drive nails into the floor (it was kept waxed) and, again, to make sure we did not get paint on the floor.” “We also toured one show, Ex-Miss Copper Queen on a Set of Pills, to the rec rooms of various dorms.”

Next, they were assigned to McGuffy Hall, and used the auditorium there as the theatre. The stage area was shared with Home Economics and this arrangement was difficult. Eventually, the department was given exclusive use of McGuffy and that is where all performances took place until Porterfield was occupied. It was a small and under-equipped space, but, according to Hayes “we were just happy to have a place to call home and to have complete control over its use.”

In those early years, Hayes and Irvine would alternate responsibilities between directing and technical director. The person not directing served as the technical director, and vice versa. For most shows, both men also acted. Aside from these two, some (college) faculty did play male roles, and they had two dependable high school students who did a lot of performing for them.

During the 1968-69 year, Betsy Hayes, Chuck Hayes’ wife, worked as a speech therapist for Project Helping Hand, a federally funded initiative that put support specialists in the area schools. This was also the last year of its funding. When the funding ran out, they needed to disperse their equipment. It was suggested that Radford College would be the place for the Hearing Suite, a rather sophisticated and specialized piece of equipment. Once Radford took possession of the Suite, they had to hire someone who knew what to do with it. Bonnie Vaden, a speech therapist living in Blacksburg was hired. Within two years there were four speech therapists on faculty, and it was just a matter of time until they split off to form their own department.

1967/1970 the department was called the Dramatic Arts and Speech Dept. In 1973 it changed to Theatre, Speech and Communication Disorders. It became the Department of Theatre when CVPA was formed. Then the School of Dance and Theatre and then Theatre and Cinema. The academic year 1969-70 brought significant changes. Dr. Morehouse took a position at another college, and Dr. Mary Bridget Gallagher was brought in as chair. Her area of expertise was in Speech, but she was extremely supportive of the theatre program and classes.