Though this is a late posting, we feel that it is important to acknowledge the passing last February of Vera Mowry Roberts, Professor Emerita of The Graduate Center of CUNY and Hunter College, last February. There will be a special session at this summer's Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Los Angeles in remembrance of Vera on Wednesday, August 4th at 11:30 a.m. If you are attending the conference and would like to participate in the program and share your memories of Vera, or write a written remembrance to be read or shared, please contact Dr. Jeannie Woods at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

 

Vera Mowry Roberts was a pioneer in legitimating U.S. theatre as a subject of serious scholarship, a founding member of the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and a co-founder of the CUNY Graduate Center PhD program. Early in her career she maintained a desk in the stacks of the Library of Congress and was active in the theatrical life of the District and nearby Virginia. She taught and directed at Rose Robinson Cowen's Children's Studio, directed at the Little Theatre of Alexandria, the Crossroads Theatre and other venues. Her most significan association during this period was with the Mount Vernon Players at the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church. The Arena Stage, the first fully professional resident theatre in the nation's capitol, emerged out of this association; Vera was one of its founding members. In 1955 she started her fifty year long teaching career as Instructor in Theatre at Hunter College, where she became full Professor in 1969. At this time The Graduate Center of the City University of New York was being constituted. At the invitation of CUNY President Mina Rees, Prof. Roberts chaired a committee to draw up plans for a PhD program in Theatre and from thence forward served on the faculty of The Graduate Center as well as Hunter College. From 1970 until 1980, Vera chaired the Department of Theatre and Cinema. She retired from full-time teaching at the end of 1984 but continued teaching part-time at Hunter College until the end of 2004. Her association with The Graduate Center continued, where she advised doctoral dissertations and, in 1989, conceived, implemented and edited the Journal of American Drama and Theatre (JADT). Vera endowed a scholarship for an incoming graduate student at Hunter and a dissertation fellowship at The Graduate Center. In 2003, at a reception and dinner held at The Graduate Center on the occasion of her 90th Birthday, Vera announced the endowment of a Vera Mowry Roberts Chair in American Theatre.

 

For her various contributions, Professor Roberts was awarded three Presidential Honors: one from Hunter President Donna Shalala (1984); and a Presidential Medal each from Graduate Center Presidents Harold Proshansky (1990) and Frances Degan Horowitz (2004). During her long career she was also active in national and international levels of theatre education. She was the International Liaison Officer for the American Educational Theatre Association (AETA) and was also one of a group of five people who conceived and implemented the American College Theatre Festival; she was ultimately awarded three medals for her work in this area. She has been the recipient of career achievement awards from both ATA and the American Society for Theatre Research, and in 1972 was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. In 1973, she was elected President of the American Theatre Association (successor to AETA). It was at ATA that Vera established the Women's Program (which continues today as ATHE's Women and Theatre Program), a Senior Adult Theatre Program, and Theatre for the Handicapped Program. Over the years, in addition to many articles in professional publications, Vera wrote five books (including On Stage: A History of Theatre and The Nature of Theatre). She served on the boards of the Playwrights Horizons, Direct Theatre, and Teatro Español.