Meadows Theatre Department and Students Lure Wojewodski 'Back to School'

In a way, Stan Wojewodski is going back to school, but make no mistake: he is not at SMU to audit a night class about molecular biology. Wojewodski came to SMU this year to share with students in the Division of Theatre the knowledge and experience he has acquired during his impressive career. The former dean of the Yale School of Drama, Wojewodski is in the second of a two-year stint as the Division of Theater’s Distinguished Artist in Residence. Although he has spent most of his life on the East Coast, he had some knowledge of SMU and the Dallas theatre community before he arrived.

“I directed The Importance of Being Earnest in the fall of 2004 for the Dallas Theater Center, so I was a little bit familiar with the area,” Wojewodski said. “I also came and talked to Meadows students while I was here.”

Wojewodski said that the decision to accept the position at Meadows brought with it an element of uncertainty.

“I had been an artistic director for 25 years, at Yale and also at Center Stage in Baltimore,” he said. “I did master classes before, at Yale, and then chaired the directing program. SMU asked me to come, and I was curious, because I’d never worked with undergraduates before. I had only taught graduate students before at the conservatory.”

Wojewodski said he accepted the offer in part because the curriculum Meadows students must take varied from that at many other schools.

“Most B.F.A. programs narrow their focus too soon for students – they need a broader base, and that’s one thing that I really liked about Meadows,” he said. “The curriculum is uniquely structured here – they make sure that students still study English and math and sciences, and that’s important, because they need to have a well-rounded base in their educational experience, whether they’re on the acting track or on the directing track.”

The requirement that Meadows students take a wide array of classes from different academic disciplines is reflected in the quality of students he now teaches, Wojewodski said.

“I’m very impressed by the students here – by the intelligence, the wit, the passion,” he said. But he admitted also to being caught off-guard by the personality and demeanor of many of his new students. “I had to get used to how polite they are, compared to the students at Yale.”

In addition to the classes he is teaching, Wojewodski also is directing the Division of Theatre’s production of She Stoops to Conquer. The satisfaction he gets from the two aspects of his career, he said, are very different, but equally gratifying. In a way, he said, his current position, and the path he followed to get to Meadows, have been educational, as well.

“For me, the rewards are extraordinary in both teaching and directing, but very different,” he said. “Honestly, I’m only now ready to work with undergraduates. I had to have more self-knowledge, to know more about the craft before I felt comfortable teaching undergraduates, to respond with background and spontaneity.”

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