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Gisselman to present spring Mellby Lecture

By Tom Vogel
February 9, 2006

Gary Gisselman, the St. Olaf Theatre department's artist in residence, will deliver this year's spring Mellby Lecture on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 7 p.m. in Holland Hall. The lecture, "Sustainability and the Theatre: Landscape, Intimacy, Sex and Violins," is free and open to the public.

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The title of faculty member Gary Gisselman's Mellby Lecture is "Sustainability and the Theatre: Landscape, Intimacy, Sex and Violins."
As the title indicates, Gisselman's lecture will address the issue of sustainability, particularly as it relates to the theatre in the 21st century. Gisselman said he chose the title also to reflect St. Olaf's theme for campus sustainability during the 2005-06 academic year. "I'm interested in what will keep the theatre alive and well and useful over the next 100 years," Gisselman says. Some of the questions to be addressed in the lecture are how the United States supports its theatre programs and how the theatre must face the challenge of getting people into the seats.

"The theatre is notorious for always being in a state of dying," Gisselman says. "It's always facing challenges from other competitors -- first from radio, then television and now with the Internet. These are really just other forms of communication and narratives. But theatre is live," he says.

This distinction is significant to the theme of intimacy in Gisselman's lecture. "There's an intimacy between the actor and the audience in the theatre, and that's intense and important," he explains. Part of theatre's goal, he says, is not necessarily the creation of new artists, but the creation of new audiences. To do this, states Gisselman, theatres must keep admission affordable. "The price of a ticket determines the type of audience you're going to have," he says. "That's why we don't charge students for theatre admission at St. Olaf. There's no obstacle between them and the theatre."

Gisselman says the thrust of the theatre program at St. Olaf, and in a liberal arts education, is to teach not about the theatre, but about everything else, as well as how to appreciate those things. "That's what will sustain the theatre in the future, but the absence of that appreciation will make the theatre marginal," he says.

Gisselman is the artistic director of St. Olaf Theatre, and previously served as the founding artistic director of the Chanhassen Theatres, the artistic director of the Arizona Theatre Company and a member of the artistic staff of the Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis. He has taught at the University of Minnesota School of Music, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. Gisselman has directed nearly 200 productions of plays, musicals, industrial films and operas during the course of his career at such venues as the Guthrie, Cricket, Illusion and Park Square theatres in the Twin Cities, the Pioneer Theatre in Salt Lake City and A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle. He recently directed the Guthrie Theatre's 2005-06 production of A Christmas Carol.

The annual Mellby Memorial Lectures are given twice a year in remembrance of St. Olaf faculty member Carl A. Mellby and were established to let St. Olaf faculty share their research with others. Mellby, known as "the father of the social sciences" at St. Olaf, started the first courses in economics, sociology, political science and art history at the college. He was professor and administrator from 1901 until 1949, taught Greek, German, French, religion and philosophy, and is credited with creating the college's honor system.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.