Curtain Call- Don Shanower's retirement from North Central article

Curtain Call

Theatre in Naperville—be it community fare at Summer Place or college stock with the Theatre Guild at North Central College—is synonymous with Dr. Donald T. Shanower.

Now professor of speech communications/theatre at the College, Shanower has spent almost 40 years of his life as an actor, director and stage technician.

A native of Canton, Ohio, he received his A.B. and M.A. degrees from Kent State University and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan.

While a student at Kent State, he spent one summer showboating on the Ohio River. A major professor had been compiling research for a doctoral thesis on showboating as theatre in America when the two of them chanced upon a showboat docked at Point Pleasant, Va.

Together with a group of theatre students from Kent State and another from nearby Hiram College, the two put together a troupe of 24 people involved in three productions and spent 95 days on the Ohio River, playing in the many little towns which dot the banks of that stream.

“I played a trombone, acted and did about 95% of the advance work,” said Shanower. “I’d get up between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m., travel ahead of the showboat to set up billings a week to 10 days in advance, come back to the boat and act in a play that night, and usually get to bed about 11 p.m. That went on six days a week.

“But it wasn’t all work,” he continued. “I also met Pat Gibbs that summer.” Pat is now Mrs. Donald T. Shanower and she and Don are the parents of five children.

Shanower has acted in summer theatres from Cape Cod to Erie, Pa.; from the Player’s Guild in Canton, Ohio, to the Boulder Hill Playhouse in Aurora, Ill. And he has worked with professional actors such as Thornton Wilder, John Beal and James Daly.

In the summer of 1949, after a performance of “The Glass Menagerie” at the Player’s Guild in Canton, Ohio, Shanower was offered his first teaching position—at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio.

After four years there and another two at the University of Michigan, he came to North Central in 1955 and has been in charge of theatre at the College ever since.

Don Shanower at his desk in Pfeiffer Hall

He inherited a theatre department which had no adult supervision and, in fact, was not permitted to direct the Homecoming Play that first fall.

Since then it has been a matter of building. During one of the highpoints of theatre at North Central—in the mid-’60s—students urged him to expand his offerings into summer stock and Summer Place was founded in 1967. That has remained a 10-month responsibility for its managing director for the past 20 years.

At North Central the Theatre Guild’s fare has changed over the years, but Shanower’s philosophy hasn’t.

“I don’t think theatre should be offensive. I do think it should challenge. I won’t select disreputable material just to flaunt it in the face of people, but I don’t think we should walk away from certain lifestyles just because we don’t espouse them.

“Whatever we have done, we have done with some reason. Oh yes, each president of North Central has received letters about our offerings, but life is simply not always looked at from a highly moralistic view. The variety of approaches contributes to the growth and development of young minds. One has to see all the options to make the best choice.”

The first play Shanower directed at North Central was George Bernard Shaw’s “Candida” and, when recently asked to name his most memorable production at the College, he pointed to “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1984. Unless he returns to Pfeiffer Hall as a guest director, Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest” will have been the curtain call for a man who—simply stated—has been MR. THEATRE at North Central College for 31 years.

Fortunately, he’ll still be around Naperville. This summer he will direct “Fiddler on the Roof” at Summer Place, and he hopes to have the opportunity to direct at least one play there annually.

But a brilliant chapter in theatre at North Central College ended on May 11 when the house lights came up after the final production of the 1985-86 Theatre Guild season, Don Shanower—TAKE A BOW!!!