Press Release

The Eyes Have It -- Profile of Don Roebuck
Article regarding ECTC alumnus Don Roebuck and his career in theatre.
Citation for article: Rusch, Christine. "The Eyes Have It; A Profile of Don Roebuck," Circa 83, Vol. 4, No. 1, Sept./Oct. 1983.
His mother read Grimm with the Bible and sang The Mikado, his father smuggled children to the movies, and his grandmother was fond of exclaiming, "I'm a Roebuck and I'll damn well do as I please."
Doing what he pleases has brought Don Roebuck a lifelong involvement with music and theatre, most recently as the director of DAMN YANKEEES with the Farmville Community Arts Council Theater.
He credits his mother with encouraging -- sometimes pushing -- her four sons to "make your name stand for something," and Don's name has stood tall in every type of musical theatre -- opera, operetta, musical comedy, and concert piano -- throughout the U.S. and Europe, in productions from Gilbert and Sullivan to Jacques Brell, and from Noah's Flood to his favorites, Carousel and La Boheme. In school, "I was presidenty of everything, even MYF, and I wasn't even a Methodist.
"I didn't realize I'd had a rich childhood until I went away," he explains. But childhood riches have a way of reflecting in the eyes, like a cloudless sky in his native Stokes.
"We had lots of plays and operettas in elementary school because of our teacher, Kathryn McLees. She was my inspiration! During breaks, she'd improvise on the piano and wrote her own operettas. Then in high school there was no music or theatre program, so we wrote our own." His parents, considered Bohemian by their more conservative neighbors, urged their youngest son to develop his interests in music and theatre. "Dad built a garage with a playroom loft for us," he recalls. "We had a phonograph and lots of records up there, from pop to opera. There was no live theatre here then, but he took me to the movies at least twice a week. We had a choice of Robersonville, Greenville, or Bethel, and sometimes we'd catch an early show in one town and get the late show in the another. Dad felt sorry for some of the kids whose fundamentalist parents were really strict with them, so he'd let them slip under the car seat and go with us." Don still maintains a collection of old flicks, second only in value to his 1890's Bechstein piano.
His father's leniency was more than balanced, however, by a mother who was so strict that when Don's brother returned from Marine boot camp, he said it'd been a snap.
Don began his undergraduate studies at ECTC (now ECU) before there was a drama department. "In those days the Wesley Foundation was the powerhouse for drama in Eastern North Carolina. We did everything, even Tolstoy and Chekhov, and it was so good everybody came, even the Methodists."
Don chose his courses carefully to allow plenty of time for his performance schedule. "Dr. Lucille Charles wanted a drama department, but in the early 50's ECU was still a teachers' training school. She is the one who really laid the groundwork for the present theatre department." A voice and diction teacher, Dr. Charles impressed Don with her dedication to theatre and her independence. "It was just after the war, and women just didn't wear slacks. But Dr. Charles wore slacks . . . Groups from all over came to her Eastern Regional Drama Festival, and I was in Everyman, the first production in McGinnis Auditorium." Dr. Charles had McGinnis built for teacher training, the only purpose acceptable to funding sources at that time.
Don, who has played by ear since he was six, graduated from ECTC with honors in piano, "which meant I had to practice a lot. They offered me a teaching assistanceship, so I stayed and got my Masters."
From the early days when his mother's evening ritual included readings from Grimms Fairy tales and the Bible, followed by piano singalongs, religion for Don has always been inextricably involved with spectacle. "I love the idea of celbrating the Eucharist, though I'd be bored being a parish priest. Church services are inherently dramatic." Don insists that there must be a distance, a holding in awe of religious spectacle which parallels the need he sees for distance in theatre. "Guitar masses made it relevant, but got rid of the beauty. It was like Theatre of the Absurd: theatricality was missing. I don't mean the robe, I mean how it's done. That's a problem with Protestantism. You can't keep that distance if the minister is just another good old boy. I think if you're not a performer, don't go into the ministry."
After a European tour with the Army Special Services, Don continued his postgraduate work at the University of Wisconsin. "Going to Madison was like Christmas morning; I could do anything!" One of his "presents": voice teacher Bettina Bjorsten. "She was a great teacher, very strict. A lot of people couldn't take it. But I could do it because I'd been raised by my mother." Another "gift," Professor Johnannsen, told Don he could've been a concert pianist. Don's students in nearby Lodi included Jerry Nelson, who is now a well-known actor in New York; Carla Reinke, now a producer for Paramount Studios; and Tom Wopat, "who is wasting his time on the Dukes of Hazard. It's a comment on our society that great artists are drawn to roles that aren't worthy of their talent."
"I think opera singers should always study drama first," he insists, chuckling at the recollection of an anonymous opera star he worked with in Europe whose acting ability was considered good: "she could raise her right arm in three different positions -- forward, up, and sideways." She could do the same with her left arm.
"I can tell a performer when I see one. The eyes betray sensitivity and intelligence. And that's what I look for in an actor: sensitivity, intelligence -- someone who wants to work -- and energy . . . I love DAMN YANKEES. It's a modern day morality play based on the Faust legend. We're media oriented today, and the play speaks to our preoccupations with sports and entertainment. People do sell themselves for football and TV."
The Farmville Community Arts Council and its children's theatre group bring many adolescents into contact with their sparkly blue-eyed director, who gives this advice when asked the inevitable, "Should I go into Theatre? Is it worth it?:" "That's a question only you can answer. If you can't stay away from it, you can do it." All artists, Don believes, are compelled. But theatre is special. "Theatre is the greatest thing in the world. It lets us learn something different about outselves, to be bigger than what we are."