After 40 years, two longtime leaders of Muhlenberg’s storied theatre program take their bows and reflect.
An audience files into a theatre (or, in pandemic times, fires up a Zoom). Then—without leaving their seats—they’re transported to another time and place, be it the deck of an ocean liner, a New York City fire escape or a fictional small town at the turn of the century.
Building these worlds, and making them meaningful, takes both an overarching vision and meticulous execution—a grasp on the big picture, then hours of rehearsal, choreography and nuts-and-bolts set and costume construction to bring it all to life.
Few people know this better than Charles Richter, professor and director of theatre, and Curtis Dretsch, professor and director of design & technical theatre. Over careers spanning four decades, Richter has directed more than 80 performances at the College and Dretsch has designed for more than 100.
The same combination of vision and execution also, it turns out, works for building an acclaimed Department of Theatre & Dance.
For many years, the College was best known for its science and premedical programs, albeit with a liberal arts grounding. But in the late 1960s, leadership noticed the burgeoning creative community on campus. To nurture this, it commissioned world-renowned architect Philip Johnson to design the Dorothy and Dexter Baker Center for the Arts.
The site was dedicated in 1974, and four years later, Richter, then 28, was brought on to help Muhlenberg further develop dramaturgically. “When I walked into that building, I got the sense these people were serious about what they were doing,” Richter says. He and the approximately 16 students in the Muhlenberg Theatre Association wasted no time, staging a production of Our Town that fall. Shortly afterward, he hired a designer he’d met in graduate school, Curtis Dretsch, to join him.
The greater vision? “A bachelor of arts program that was about students getting a broad-based education but also getting excellent professional instruction as artists,” Richter says. To build it took countless hours on and around the stage and teaching classes. In addition, Richter served as department chair for 25 years, while Dretsch oversaw building projects on campus and spent a decade in College administration.
Community performer Jeffrey Lentz with Richter and Dretsch during the 1986 Summer Music Theatre season
Community performer Jeffrey Lentz with Richter and Dretsch during the 1986 Summer Music Theatre season
Today, theatre & dance is the largest department on campus, repeatedly recognized as among the country’s best by The Princeton Review and other authoritative organizations. The students it draws are just the type of curious, multifaceted individuals Richter had in mind—and alumni have gone on to significant success both in the performance world and outside of it, as stars of stage and screen, creators of hit Netflix series, medical ethicists, attorneys and nationally known psychiatrists.
Richter and Dretsch retired at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year. As they look back, they can hardly believe the scale of the growth to which they’ve contributed. And their impact goes beyond the metrics of enrollment numbers or rankings. After all, theatre is far more than a means of entertainment, they believe—it’s a way of looking at the world and creating connections within it.
“I know we don’t get to decide our legacy,” Dretsch says. “But I believe it has much less to do with the product we’ve put on stages or the physical manifestations of our contributions than with the way we’ve helped generations of students, along with our colleagues and collaborators at the institution, understand the world in a way that makes them healthier human beings.”
After 40 years, two longtime leaders of Muhlenberg’s storied theatre program take their bows and reflect.
An audience files into a theatre (or, in pandemic times, fires up a Zoom). Then—without leaving their seats—they’re transported to another time and place, be it the deck of an ocean liner, a New York City fire escape or a fictional small town at the turn of the century.
Building these worlds, and making them meaningful, takes both an overarching vision and meticulous execution—a grasp on the big picture, then hours of rehearsal, choreography and nuts-and-bolts set and costume construction to bring it all to life.
Few people know this better than Charles Richter, professor and director of theatre, and Curtis Dretsch, professor and director of design & technical theatre. Over careers spanning four decades, Richter has directed more than 80 performances at the College and Dretsch has designed for more than 100.
The same combination of vision and execution also, it turns out, works for building an acclaimed Department of Theatre & Dance.
For many years, the College was best known for its science and premedical programs, albeit with a liberal arts grounding. But in the late 1960s, leadership noticed the burgeoning creative community on campus. To nurture this, it commissioned world-renowned architect Philip Johnson to design the Dorothy and Dexter Baker Center for the Arts.
The site was dedicated in 1974, and four years later, Richter, then 28, was brought on to help Muhlenberg further develop dramaturgically. “When I walked into that building, I got the sense these people were serious about what they were doing,” Richter says. He and the approximately 16 students in the Muhlenberg Theatre Association wasted no time, staging a production of Our Town that fall. Shortly afterward, he hired a designer he’d met in graduate school, Curtis Dretsch, to join him.
The greater vision? “A bachelor of arts program that was about students getting a broad-based education but also getting excellent professional instruction as artists,” Richter says. To build it took countless hours on and around the stage and teaching classes. In addition, Richter served as department chair for 25 years, while Dretsch oversaw building projects on campus and spent a decade in College administration.
Community performer Jeffrey Lentz with Richter and Dretsch during the 1986 Summer Music Theatre season
Community performer Jeffrey Lentz with Richter and Dretsch during the 1986 Summer Music Theatre season
Today, theatre & dance is the largest department on campus, repeatedly recognized as among the country’s best by The Princeton Review and other authoritative organizations. The students it draws are just the type of curious, multifaceted individuals Richter had in mind—and alumni have gone on to significant success both in the performance world and outside of it, as stars of stage and screen, creators of hit Netflix series, medical ethicists, attorneys and nationally known psychiatrists.
Richter and Dretsch retired at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year. As they look back, they can hardly believe the scale of the growth to which they’ve contributed. And their impact goes beyond the metrics of enrollment numbers or rankings. After all, theatre is far more than a means of entertainment, they believe—it’s a way of looking at the world and creating connections within it.
“I know we don’t get to decide our legacy,” Dretsch says. “But I believe it has much less to do with the product we’ve put on stages or the physical manifestations of our contributions than with the way we’ve helped generations of students, along with our colleagues and collaborators at the institution, understand the world in a way that makes them healthier human beings.”
ARTISTIC BEGINNINGS
Richter grew up on Long Island. His older sister acted and dragged him onstage alongside her: “I was a snow child in Carousel at about age 10,” he says. During high school, he worked at a summer stock theatre at the Lakewood Playhouse in Barnesville, Pennsylvania, ascending from apprentice to lighting designer and assistant stage manager.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in drama at Syracuse University, then his M.F.A. at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he and Dretsch first met (Dretsch designed the costumes for Richter’s master’s thesis production, Molière’s The Doctor in Spite of Himself). A Fulbright scholarship funded a year with the field’s top scholars at the University of Bristol, then two more years of graduate study at Cornell, before he accepted the position at Muhlenberg.
Though Richter’s theatre knowledge is vast, his specialty lies in classics of the golden age. “That man knows more about musical theatre than anyone else alive,” says Frankie Grande ’05, now a Broadway performer and TV personality. Grande starred under Richter, whom he calls “a phenomenal person and director,” in productions like On the Town and The Pirates of Penzance as an undergraduate; he also returned for the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre productions of George M!, Crazy for You and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Charles Richter (left) and Curtis Dretsch (right) in their Ciarla yearbook portraits from their first years with the College
Charles Richter (left) and Curtis Dretsch (right) in their Ciarla yearbook portraits from their first years with the College
Dretsch, meanwhile, spent his childhood in vocal and choral music and other creative pursuits in South Dakota. He attended Montana State University intending to study architecture, but after two and a half years, transitioned to theatre and music. He headed straight to SMU to earn his M.F.A. under legendary husband-and-wife design team Bill and Jean Eckart, then spent about a year designing for the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre before Richter called him to Muhlenberg.
Dretsch is a “brilliant designer of all disciplines,” says Donald Holder, who began working for the department as a technical assistant in 1981 and is now a Tony Award-winning Broadway lighting designer. He’s also a doer, Holder says—an expert carpenter, electrician, scenic painter, tailor and draftsman who combined a legendary work ethic with an infectious laugh. “I’ll always remember Curtis’ clear tenor drifting through the theatre at midnight, singing excerpts from whatever musical we were in the midst of building, despite his exhaustion after working a 16-hour day still several hours from ending.”
Dretsch’s aesthetic range is broad, but he’s passionate about drawing an audience in with details. During a production of H.M.S. Pinafore at the Summer Music Theatre in 1982, he wowed the crowd with a moon that moved across the sky during the act. He added crystal chandeliers, drapes and other frills to the Parisian flat for Georges Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear in 2008-2009. And the three-story row of brownstones he built for the school’s second production of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene six years ago is the stuff of legend.
Artistically speaking, Richter and Dretsch have each had considerable success beyond the College as well. Richter served as artistic director of the Pennsylvania Stage Company, worked extensively with New York City Opera, spent a season as artist-in-residence at the University of Music and Art of the City of Vienna in Austria and directed productions in regional theatres and at high-level New York venues. Dretsch’s work, meanwhile, has graced stages from Baltimore to New York City to London. He has designed for the Dallas Shakespeare Festival and Terry Beck Dance Troupe; for 12 years, he was principal guest designer at the Pennsylvania Stage Company.
While they could have easily spent their lives pursuing their own dreams, the pair dedicated themselves to Muhlenberg. There, they found the freedom to create, the stability often lacking in artistic careers and the fulfillment of teaching. “It was the best combination of possibilities and opportunities,” Dretsch says.
ARTISTIC BEGINNINGS
Richter grew up on Long Island. His older sister acted and dragged him onstage alongside her: “I was a snow child in Carousel at about age 10,” he says. During high school, he worked at a summer stock theatre at the Lakewood Playhouse in Barnesville, Pennsylvania, ascending from apprentice to lighting designer and assistant stage manager.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in drama at Syracuse University, then his M.F.A. at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he and Dretsch first met (Dretsch designed the costumes for Richter’s master’s thesis production, Molière’s The Doctor in Spite of Himself). A Fulbright scholarship funded a year with the field’s top scholars at the University of Bristol, then two more years of graduate study at Cornell, before he accepted the position at Muhlenberg.
Though Richter’s theatre knowledge is vast, his specialty lies in classics of the golden age. “That man knows more about musical theatre than anyone else alive,” says Frankie Grande ’05, now a Broadway performer and TV personality. Grande starred under Richter, whom he calls “a phenomenal person and director,” in productions like On the Town and The Pirates of Penzance as an undergraduate; he also returned for the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre productions of George M!, Crazy for You and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Charles Richter (left) and Curtis Dretsch (right) in their Ciarla yearbook portraits from their first years with the College
Charles Richter (left) and Curtis Dretsch (right) in their Ciarla yearbook portraits from their first years with the College
Dretsch, meanwhile, spent his childhood in vocal and choral music and other creative pursuits in South Dakota. He attended Montana State University intending to study architecture, but after two and a half years, transitioned to theatre and music. He headed straight to SMU to earn his M.F.A. under legendary husband-and-wife design team Bill and Jean Eckart, then spent about a year designing for the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre before Richter called him to Muhlenberg.
Dretsch is a “brilliant designer of all disciplines,” says Donald Holder, who began working for the department as a technical assistant in 1981 and is now a Tony Award-winning Broadway lighting designer. He’s also a doer, Holder says—an expert carpenter, electrician, scenic painter, tailor and draftsman who combined a legendary work ethic with an infectious laugh. “I’ll always remember Curtis’ clear tenor drifting through the theatre at midnight, singing excerpts from whatever musical we were in the midst of building, despite his exhaustion after working a 16-hour day still several hours from ending.”
Dretsch’s aesthetic range is broad, but he’s passionate about drawing an audience in with details. During a production of H.M.S. Pinafore at the Summer Music Theatre in 1982, he wowed the crowd with a moon that moved across the sky during the act. He added crystal chandeliers, drapes and other frills to the Parisian flat for Georges Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear in 2008-2009. And the three-story row of brownstones he built for the school’s second production of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene six years ago is the stuff of legend.
Artistically speaking, Richter and Dretsch have each had considerable success beyond the College as well. Richter served as artistic director of the Pennsylvania Stage Company, worked extensively with New York City Opera, spent a season as artist-in-residence at the University of Music and Art of the City of Vienna in Austria and directed productions in regional theatres and at high-level New York venues. Dretsch’s work, meanwhile, has graced stages from Baltimore to New York City to London. He has designed for the Dallas Shakespeare Festival and Terry Beck Dance Troupe; for 12 years, he was principal guest designer at the Pennsylvania Stage Company.
While they could have easily spent their lives pursuing their own dreams, the pair dedicated themselves to Muhlenberg. There, they found the freedom to create, the stability often lacking in artistic careers and the fulfillment of teaching. “It was the best combination of possibilities and opportunities,” Dretsch says.
EXPANSION & EXCELLENCE
To grow the department, Richter took a hands-on approach to recruitment. Each year, he’d fly to Los Angeles to meet prospective students; he estimates he’s conducted somewhere around 5,000 to 8,000 auditions and interviews. “There is no one who’s come through the theatre program who Charlie didn’t help, either by shaping their admittance to Muhlenberg or their experience while they were here,” says Rebekkah Brown ’99, who’s now the College’s vice president for advancement and an adjunct professor of tap.
Another key to expansion was a focus on exemplary faculty. “We’ve looked for people who are not only master teachers but were also really fine artists,” Richter says. Take Karen Dearborn, a talented performer and scholar who joined the faculty in 1993 to become the founding director of the Dance Program (she’s now chair and professor of dance). “When I interviewed for the position with Charlie and Curtis, I felt their energy and commitment to creating an excellent program,” she says. “I was inspired by their drive and vision and the tremendous sense of potential to make something wonderful.”
This degree of talent required and enabled Muhlenberg to continue mounting high-quality productions, some during the academic year and others at its renowned Summer Music Theatre. These gave students important opportunities to perform while enriching culture and the Lehigh Valley theatre community.
In addition to classics, the department embraced a more challenging repertoire, including experimental pieces by Jeffrey Weiss and other emerging artists. Dretsch set the bar high for production values, making the results beautiful in addition to presenting compelling content. Many involved dance—Dearborn says they’ve collaborated on more than 25 productions—and some involved guest artists, as well.
“Charlie and Curtis were not just putting on little college shows. They were daring to think bigger and more boldly than I’d ever imagined,” says David Masenheimer ’81, whose acting resume includes five Broadway shows and who now owns a business designing and building scenery for special events and parties. “And they were challenging their students to join this journey with them, constantly raising the stakes, raising the bar and, in the meantime, putting Muhlenberg on the map as a first-rate training facility for aspiring actors and theatre technicians.”
EXPANSION & EXCELLENCE
To grow the department, Richter took a hands-on approach to recruitment. Each year, he’d fly to Los Angeles to meet prospective students; he estimates he’s conducted somewhere around 5,000 to 8,000 auditions and interviews. “There is no one who’s come through the theatre program who Charlie didn’t help, either by shaping their admittance to Muhlenberg or their experience while they were here,” says Rebekkah Brown ’99, who’s now the College’s vice president for advancement and an adjunct professor of tap.
Another key to expansion was a focus on exemplary faculty. “We’ve looked for people who are not only master teachers but were also really fine artists,” Richter says. Take Karen Dearborn, a talented performer and scholar who joined the faculty in 1993 to become the founding director of the Dance Program (she’s now chair and professor of dance). “When I interviewed for the position with Charlie and Curtis, I felt their energy and commitment to creating an excellent program,” she says. “I was inspired by their drive and vision and the tremendous sense of potential to make something wonderful.”
This degree of talent required and enabled Muhlenberg to continue mounting high-quality productions, some during the academic year and others at its renowned Summer Music Theatre. These gave students important opportunities to perform while enriching culture and the Lehigh Valley theatre community.
In addition to classics, the department embraced a more challenging repertoire, including experimental pieces by Jeffrey Weiss and other emerging artists. Dretsch set the bar high for production values, making the results beautiful in addition to presenting compelling content. Many involved dance—Dearborn says they’ve collaborated on more than 25 productions—and some involved guest artists, as well.
“Charlie and Curtis were not just putting on little college shows. They were daring to think bigger and more boldly than I’d ever imagined,” says David Masenheimer ’81, whose acting resume includes five Broadway shows and who now owns a business designing and building scenery for special events and parties. “And they were challenging their students to join this journey with them, constantly raising the stakes, raising the bar and, in the meantime, putting Muhlenberg on the map as a first-rate training facility for aspiring actors and theatre technicians.”
A Chorus Line, 2003
A Chorus Line, 2003
Candide, 1981
Candide, 1981
The Student Prince, 1981
The Student Prince, 1981
Especially in the department’s earlier years, students could act in multiple productions each year, as well as try their hands at various tasks on other parts on the stage. “I was able to explore nearly every facet of theatre from acting to stagecraft, including lighting, construction, properties, costuming and more,” says Neil Hever ’82, who is now operations director at WDIY, one of the Lehigh Valley’s NPR stations. “Having such a diverse experience makes you more aware of the team effort needed to pull off a production. It was helpful to know how all the parts fit and what challenges others may have.”
This broad-ranging, practical approach undoubtedly benefited many students who became professional performers, directors or designers. But it paid dividends, too, for those who would go on to careers in unrelated fields.
Dr. Lucy Puryear ’81 (in wedding dress) in Our Town
Dr. Lucy Puryear ’81 (in wedding dress) in Our Town
Dr. Lucy Puryear ’81, who starred in Richter’s original production of Our Town and is now a psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine and a Muhlenberg trustee, credits Richter and Dretsch with the skills essential in both her professional and personal lives. “Every time I pick up a hammer or a jigsaw, I remember Curtis giving me the confidence as a woman to build things,” she says. “Every time I give a lecture to medical students, I rely on the training as an actor I received from Charlie.” Brown, too, says the curiosity, coordination and listening skills she fine-tuned in the program now pay off in the emotional intelligence needed to successfully connect with prospective donors to Muhlenberg.
“Theatre production is a great training ground for the working world,” Richter says. “You have to learn how to work collaboratively and be sensitive to other people’s feelings. You have to work on a deadline and get the job done. No matter what our students end up doing after they graduate, the experiences they’ve had in theatre make them more efficient and creative.”
Especially in the department’s earlier years, students could act in multiple productions each year, as well as try their hands at various tasks on other parts on the stage. “I was able to explore nearly every facet of theatre from acting to stagecraft, including lighting, construction, properties, costuming and more,” says Neil Hever ’82, who is now operations director at WDIY, one of the Lehigh Valley’s NPR stations. “Having such a diverse experience makes you more aware of the team effort needed to pull off a production. It was helpful to know how all the parts fit and what challenges others may have.”
This broad-ranging, practical approach undoubtedly benefited many students who became professional performers, directors or designers. But it paid dividends, too, for those who would go on to careers in unrelated fields.
Dr. Lucy Puryear ’81 (in wedding dress) in Our Town
Dr. Lucy Puryear ’81 (in wedding dress) in Our Town
Dr. Lucy Puryear ’81, who starred in Richter’s original production of Our Town and is now a psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine and a Muhlenberg trustee, credits Richter and Dretsch with the skills essential in both her professional and personal lives. “Every time I pick up a hammer or a jigsaw, I remember Curtis giving me the confidence as a woman to build things,” she says. “Every time I give a lecture to medical students, I rely on the training as an actor I received from Charlie.” Brown, too, says the curiosity, coordination and listening skills she fine-tuned in the program now pay off in the emotional intelligence needed to successfully connect with prospective donors to Muhlenberg.
“Theatre production is a great training ground for the working world,” Richter says. “You have to learn how to work collaboratively and be sensitive to other people’s feelings. You have to work on a deadline and get the job done. No matter what our students end up doing after they graduate, the experiences they’ve had in theatre make them more efficient and creative.”
INSTITUTIONAL COMMITMENT
Dretsch recruited and interviewed many design students and has also served the College in other ways. In 1993, after he began informally advising the administration on remodeling projects, Dretsch was named dean of the College for academic life. There, he oversaw academic advising, academic records and the Trexler Library. He then was named dean of the College for faculty in 1996, and added the title of vice president for academic affairs in 1999.
His calm-under-pressure style served him well in administration, says President Kathleen Harring. “In his leadership roles, Curtis really modeled the selfless academic leader, who is driven by a support for and commitment to the institution,” she says. “He was in academic affairs at a time when there was a lot of transformation and always worked to make sure the strength of the academic programs was reinforced.”
In addition, Dretsch stayed highly involved in campus planning and design. “I was an agent of the College who spoke design, so I could sit in a room with architects and speak with them about the institution’s priorities, goals and programs in ways they understood,” he says. He worked on the renovation of the Haas College Center, the Ettinger Building and the General’s Quarters in Seegers Union and played a part in the design and construction of Moyer Hall and Robertson and South Halls.
And of course, one of the most important projects he oversaw was the Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance, built in 1999 to accommodate a department bursting at the seams. The striking “fishbowl” effect of curved glass—along with the Baker Theatre’s state-of-the-art stage sound and lighting systems, orchestra pit and fly system, not to mention the scene shop, costume shop and other production facilities—further secured Muhlenberg’s spot on the national scene.
The Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre, located in the Trexler Pavilion
The Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre, located in the Trexler Pavilion
“I’ll never forget when prospective students were coming in while that building was being built, and them saying they decided to come to Muhlenberg because they could see the College cared about the arts,” Dearborn says. “That was a very significant change in the trajectory of the program.”
A WIDER IMPACT
The faculty, productions and space have continued to draw exactly the types of students Richter and Dretsch say they hope to teach—passionate individuals who come to theatre not to feed their egos, but to learn and make an impact. “We’ve always been committed to the idea that theatre should have a significance beyond just entertainment; it should be an institution that reflects the truth of the world,” Richter says. “Students come to Muhlenberg because they get an excellent theatre education, but they also get an excellent liberal arts education.”
Richter (left) gives a community group a tour of the scene shop in 2012.
Richter (left) gives a community group a tour of the scene shop in 2012.
At Muhlenberg, unlike in some bachelor of fine arts programs, students can double-major in a second field, whether that’s music or math, political science or sustainability studies. Grande, for instance, double-majored in theatre and biology, with a minor in dance. “I have two sides of my brain and they’re both firing at full cylinders,” he says. A college advisor at Pine Crest School, the preparatory school he attended in Florida, suggested Muhlenberg. For Grande, it was love at first visit. And the nurturing he received in both sciences and the arts has been crucial to his success—for instance, as an on-air host, he can speak extemporaneously on a breadth of topics.
Harring knows that, thanks to the department’s reputation, those types of conversations are happening in counselors’ offices across the nation. “Theatre and dance strengthens our name recognition; it strengthens our national reputation,” she says. What’s more, the department’s characteristic creativity and innovation add to the intellectual depth of the entire institution. And no matter where graduates wind up, they take those gifts with them.
Dretsch (center) works on a 2010 production of Blood Wedding.
Dretsch (center) works on a 2010 production of Blood Wedding.
“I have worked with many Muhlenberg College graduates over the years on Broadway and across the country,” Holder, the Broadway lighting designer, says. “Without exception, they have consistently been experts in their chosen disciplines, but also thoughtful, inquisitive, articulate thinkers and communicators—a real credit to the world-class and well-rounded education they received from their alma mater.”
INSTITUTIONAL COMMITMENT
Dretsch recruited and interviewed many design students and has also served the College in other ways. In 1993, after he began informally advising the administration on remodeling projects, Dretsch was named dean of the College for academic life. There, he oversaw academic advising, academic records and the Trexler Library. He then was named dean of the College for faculty in 1996, and added the title of vice president for academic affairs in 1999.
His calm-under-pressure style served him well in administration, says President Kathleen Harring. “In his leadership roles, Curtis really modeled the selfless academic leader, who is driven by a support for and commitment to the institution,” she says. “He was in academic affairs at a time when there was a lot of transformation and always worked to make sure the strength of the academic programs was reinforced.”
In addition, Dretsch stayed highly involved in campus planning and design. “I was an agent of the College who spoke design, so I could sit in a room with architects and speak with them about the institution’s priorities, goals and programs in ways they understood,” he says. He worked on the renovation of the Haas College Center, the Ettinger Building and the General’s Quarters in Seegers Union and played a part in the design and construction of Moyer Hall and Robertson and South Halls.
And of course, one of the most important projects he oversaw was the Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance, built in 1999 to accommodate a department bursting at the seams. The striking “fishbowl” effect of curved glass—along with the Baker Theatre’s state-of-the-art stage sound and lighting systems, orchestra pit and fly system, not to mention the scene shop, costume shop and other production facilities—further secured Muhlenberg’s spot on the national scene.
The Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre, located in the Trexler Pavilion
The Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre, located in the Trexler Pavilion
“I’ll never forget when prospective students were coming in while that building was being built, and them saying they decided to come to Muhlenberg because they could see the College cared about the arts,” Dearborn says. “That was a very significant change in the trajectory of the program.”
A WIDER IMPACT
The faculty, productions and space have continued to draw exactly the types of students Richter and Dretsch say they hope to teach—passionate individuals who come to theatre not to feed their egos, but to learn and make an impact. “We’ve always been committed to the idea that theatre should have a significance beyond just entertainment; it should be an institution that reflects the truth of the world,” Richter says. “Students come to Muhlenberg because they get an excellent theatre education, but they also get an excellent liberal arts education.”
Richter (left) gives a community group a tour of the scene shop in 2012.
Richter (left) gives a community group a tour of the scene shop in 2012.
At Muhlenberg, unlike in some bachelor of fine arts programs, students can double-major in a second field, whether that’s music or math, political science or sustainability studies. Grande, for instance, double-majored in theatre and biology, with a minor in dance. “I have two sides of my brain and they’re both firing at full cylinders,” he says. A college advisor at Pine Crest School, the preparatory school he attended in Florida, suggested Muhlenberg. For Grande, it was love at first visit. And the nurturing he received in both sciences and the arts has been crucial to his success—for instance, as an on-air host, he can speak extemporaneously on a breadth of topics.
Harring knows that, thanks to the department’s reputation, those types of conversations are happening in counselors’ offices across the nation. “Theatre and dance strengthens our name recognition; it strengthens our national reputation,” she says. What’s more, the department’s characteristic creativity and innovation add to the intellectual depth of the entire institution. And no matter where graduates wind up, they take those gifts with them.
Dretsch (center) works on a 2010 production of Blood Wedding.
Dretsch (center) works on a 2010 production of Blood Wedding.
“I have worked with many Muhlenberg College graduates over the years on Broadway and across the country,” Holder, the Broadway lighting designer, says. “Without exception, they have consistently been experts in their chosen disciplines, but also thoughtful, inquisitive, articulate thinkers and communicators—a real credit to the world-class and well-rounded education they received from their alma mater.”
FUTURE ROLES
Neither Richter nor Dretsch, both 70, knows for sure what will come next for them. As COVID-19 restrictions allow, Richter hopes to visit family in Chicago and Texas; Dretsch, for his part, plans to garden, return to his musical roots and deepen his relationships to community organizations in Allentown. After four decades of long hours, large course loads and multiple productions, they each plan to relish a bit of rest.
The pandemic upended what they thought their final year might look like, but it also highlighted the resilience of what they’ve built, offering assurances it will endure. Through the turmoil, students and faculty have been incredibly creative in both process and product—creating theatre that lives outside of traditional indoor spaces and addresses issues of politics, culture and justice.
Even as they make their exit, Harring says, Richter and Dretsch have built strong scaffolding for the department. They’ve combined their unique skills to envision a bigger future—and put in the work to make it reality. And even those who arrive generations from now will benefit. “Training theatre people who have a broad vision of the world and are driven to say important things from the stage is something I know will continue to happen,” Richter says. “And that, I think, is a great legacy.”
FUTURE ROLES
Neither Richter nor Dretsch, both 70, knows for sure what will come next for them. As COVID-19 restrictions allow, Richter hopes to visit family in Chicago and Texas; Dretsch, for his part, plans to garden, return to his musical roots and deepen his relationships to community organizations in Allentown. After four decades of long hours, large course loads and multiple productions, they each plan to relish a bit of rest.
The pandemic upended what they thought their final year might look like, but it also highlighted the resilience of what they’ve built, offering assurances it will endure. Through the turmoil, students and faculty have been incredibly creative in both process and product—creating theatre that lives outside of traditional indoor spaces and addresses issues of politics, culture and justice.
Even as they make their exit, Harring says, Richter and Dretsch have built strong scaffolding for the department. They’ve combined their unique skills to envision a bigger future—and put in the work to make it reality. And even those who arrive generations from now will benefit. “Training theatre people who have a broad vision of the world and are driven to say important things from the stage is something I know will continue to happen,” Richter says. “And that, I think, is a great legacy.”
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