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LYCOMING COLLEGE 2015 SPRING MAGAZINE
F E AT U R E S
Though she loved performing, Stanley
quickly found an affinity for directing
at Louisiana State University, where
she majored in theatre. “One of the
reasons I tried directing was that I wasn’t
being cast as much as I wanted in the
productions in college,” she recalled.
“Plus, the bossy side of me loves being a
director.”
After finishing her bachelor’s degree
at LSU, Stanley went on to earn a
master’s from Florida State University
and a doctorate from Indiana University.
From there, she began a peripatetic
professional career.
“It wasn’t by choice,” Stanley said.
“I had landed a great teaching position
at Agnes Scott College in Georgia, but
was lured to California by a friend in
the movie business to take an almost
dream job with Walt Disney Feature
Animation. It was at the height of their
success; they were riding the crest
of “The Lion King” and those other
lucrative animation features. They
decided to open their own school to train
the kind of artists and technicians they
needed, and I was sort of the principal.
As corporate life goes, it was ideal, but it
wasn’t for me. I deeply missed teaching.”
So Stanley soon returned to the
academic world, teaching at Bucknell,
Franklin & Marshall College and
St. Lawrence University theatre
departments until finding a home at
Lycoming in 2002.
When she landed at Lycoming,
Stanley brought an inclusive and
eminently practical approach to theatre
with her. “My belief is that everyone in
the entire class should be involved in the
production. Not just on the backstage
crews, but hands-on, major stuff,” she
said. “Undergraduate theatre should be
about getting real experience but also
building up your resume. That’s why
students come here.
I can guarantee
you that you’ll be involved, and that
the faculty are fully engrossed, working
right alongside you. That’s something
really important that we offer here.
It’s a small, big, theatre program, and
by the time students leave, they have
learned about every aspect of bringing
a production to the stage. I want my
students to have that ‘Let’s do this!’
attitude.”
She takes her own advice. While
maintaining a rigorous schedule of
four productions annually at the Mary
L. Welch Theatre, she has upped the
number of shows at the black box
theatre, known as the Dragon’s Lair,
which is exclusively devoted to student
productions.
“My first year here, there was only
one student production, and it was
because a student came to me and
asked if I would mentor him doing a
one-person play,” Stanley said. “Now
we have from five to seven student
shows per year, and we created a
senior project that requires all seniors,
whether they are in acting, directing
or design, to do a full-length play. It’s
a philosophy of participation.” That
philosophy perhaps finds its roots in the
spirit of her hometown, not just in the
spontaneity and unbridled creativity of
its celebrations, but also in its response
to misfortune-a second line is, of
course, a parade of all-comers that
typically follows a funeral procession,
comprising those who join in to walk
and dance behind the first line of
mourners and musicians.
Or catastrophe. Stanley returned to
visit New Orleans the Christmas after
Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.
“There were areas that looked is if the
I go
moved.
Listen,
theatre
to the
to be