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Official Name
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En-US
INGE 226 - 25th Tribute Jo Ann McDowell
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Description
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En-US
Dr. Jo Ann McDowell President Metropolitan CC Omaha, NE interview
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Place Name
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En-US
Omaha, Nebraska
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Internet Media Type
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En-US
video/mp4
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YYYY-MM-DD
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En-US
2006-03
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ISO or Range
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En-US
2006-03
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transcript of
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for someone new to the inch festival in 2006.
How would you describe Margaret Goi? Well,
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Margaret was a force of nature. She was in from
my perspective, she was a lot of things. She
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was my teacher, my mentor, my second mother, my
inspiration. She she was she made everyone believe
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what she believed and because of Margaret the in
festival and the collection uh became a reality
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because of her making us all believe and wanted
to go out there with her and make this happen.
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So there's not any word that could explain
Margaret other than what has happened since
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uh the festival became a reality there. uh I
went on with my career and and I've run the
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Edward Alby conference for the last this will be
the 13th year and uh many other of her students
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are out there maybe not running conferences but
enjoying the theater loving it be they're great
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educated audiences. She was an amazing woman. Uh
I walked into her classroom when I was just 17 and
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uh from that day on I she was she was
one of the most amazing people I've
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ever known. I still think of her almost on
a daily basis and how she affected my life.
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Um for someone new to the festival in 2006,
how would you describe Margaret Go? Margaret
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was a force of nature. She was so many things
in my life. She was an inspiration. She was
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my teacher. She was my mentor. She was my
role model. She was my second mother. I I
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can that's how I would explain her in and her
um effect she had on my life. But to students,
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she was she was an inspiration. You could walk
into her classroom and if you'd never been to the
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theater in a play, she could make you understand
the magic of theater. and she was she was
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uh she was a citizen of the theater, that's for
sure. And uh I there are not words to explain
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this amazing woman. Uh there's hardly a day that
goes by that she doesn't creep into my thoughts
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and I don't think about her. And especially when
I'm planning the Edward Albby Theater Conference,
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I I think how would Margaret do it or this is
what she would think. So after all these years,
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she still remains my inspiration, my mentor, and
that that benchmark by which I I make decisions.
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Let's keep going with it, Joey. Or do you want
to look at this one? I think we should just go
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with it. Just go with it. That was goosebumps.
The first part of it, goosebumps. What was your
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position at ICC in 1981 when the collection
was dedicated? Well, at in 1981, I had been
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the public relations director and the director of
development. I had uh I was moving into the dean
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of students position. So, I was in a trans it was
a transitional time, but I can remember it very
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very well. Uh exactly that year when Margaret came
over to my office and I was in the front of the
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student union then and she walked in and and uh
said, "We must put this collection together." and
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uh how well we actually had put the collection
together by that time and she said we must have a
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festival to bring attention to the collection.
We'd never been to a festival. We didn't know
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what that was, but she wanted to do it. So,
we were all very willing to to follow her and
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to make it happen. And it's amazing what
has happened there in the last 25 years.
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Tell me how Helen Connell was related
to the festival. Helen uh Canel was um
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William and his sister. She was she lived
with him at the time that in 19 I believe
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it was 73 when when he took his own life.
She was uh a good sister. She was she was
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uh I believe the the inspiration for Reie and Dark
at the top of the stairs. uh she was she was the
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quiet one but she was she was also a protector of
uh reputation and his and it when we got ready to
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uh begin the festival we invited her as we
did other Joanne and other family members and
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uh Helen was very willing and very um excited
about having a festival in his name. However,
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she was somewhat protective of uh what would be
talked about what what the panels would do. So,
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um Margaret and I went out to uh Lagona Beach
many many times to her uh she lived in an assisted
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living home, a beautiful apartment out there
over the ocean. And we would go out and talk
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with her about what our what we planned and what
our inspiration was for this festival. And she
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became a full partner with us. And over a number
of years, I think that it certainly helped that
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family understand the significance, the impact
that he made on on the American theater and also
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gave them some healing time over his uh his tragic
uh early death. Ina affected the theater. I mean,
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he won the Triple Crown, the Pulitzer Prize, the
Academy Award, the Tony, uh, for those four great
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plays on Broadway, one after another. Every time
I'm in New York, and I go by the music box. Um, I
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understand he used to run back to the Al Gangquin
Hotel and they'd be yelling, "Author, author." He
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was a very shy, very humble man. But, uh, when I
I walked by there, I think of bus stop, dark at
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the top of the stairs, picnic, come back, little
Sheba, up on that marquee. And then of course he
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went on and wrote the uh screenplay for Spinder in
the Grass. And uh he he was a remarkable person,
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remarkable writer and it was a magic time
for for his work uh during those late 50s.
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What was a major challenge to be overcome in
launching the collection and the festival? Oh,
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the challenge was we didn't have experience nor
did we have any funding. We went to Arco and I
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believe Tom Snyder wrote that grant and we asked
for the money to catalog that collection and and
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we received it. I believe it was $25,000.
And then the festival we went to Arco again
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and I believe that the early grant was like
$5,000. It was it was not a very large amount,
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but we we didn't know what we were doing.
We'd never been to one. And in 1981,
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it was a few scholars gathering on stage to speak
about work. I know Kobe Coleman was there and he
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was a graduate student at KU and and Kobe has gone
back every year. He comes to the my Edward Albby
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uh conference. Uh but it was a it was an
interesting time and it was folks that
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believed it was more important almost than
having experience or having funding because
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it was a passion and Margaret had passed that
torch for the love of theater on to so many of
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us. We were excited and for the opportunity to
pass it on to others and that's what the inch
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festival has done for 25 years. It's inspired
people to love the theater, to write plays,
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to understand the entire craft of playwriting,
not just the wonderful works of William.
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How did Jerry Lawrence come to be involved in
the festival? Well, Jerry uh was for some reason,
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I think Margaret wrote to him, I can't remember
for sure, but after we had the first conference
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or the first festival, uh Jerry Lawrence wrote
back and said, uh we were looking for direction.
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We were trying to hone in on something that was
really different and special. And there was the
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Eugene O'Neal conference, but there weren't many
festivals at that time. And Jerry Lawrence said,
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"Honor playwright. Playwrights don't get enough
attention there. They never it's everyone knows
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who the director is or the actors but they don't
know who the playwright is and so we chose to
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honor a playwright and the next year we honored
Jerry Lawrence the next year Bob Anderson they
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were both extremely important in the direction
in the founding of the that festival and they
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were the the folks that that Margaret turned
to to give us direction and where we should
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go forward and I I think about Jerry. Margaret
and I went to his home many times up in up in
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um up over the beach. Uh and he it was like going
into a museum of history. He lived in Malibu.
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That house actually burned uh during one of the
forest fires. But um I remember those moments and
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uh it was it was a magic time for me and for
all of us. And we had no idea what we were
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beginning there. But I think about it, I'm
a consultant to the the one the Hortonfoot
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conference in Baylor and also the Tennessee
Williams conference in in um Clarksdale,
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Mississippi. And all of them came out of the
roots of the Inch Festival. All of the people
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that started those conferences or one of them
started had some experience with the inch festival
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as did the last frontier theater conference
that I founded and now the great plains theater
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conference both Edward Alb's conferences it's
because of the inch festival it all began there.
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Tell me your favorite story about one of the
honored playrs. Well again it would have to
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be Edward Alby. I remember Edward coming to
Independence and I wanted to invite him uh
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before we did and Margaret said, "Oh no, he's very
Alang guard. I don't we we might want to think
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about this." And so finally we did on our 10th
anniversary and Edward came. He was Edward Albby
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and uh he was he was he was rather Alvin Guard.
He was actually it was Edward and that whole group
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of playwrights when they hit in 1959 he did with
the Z story and and that new um village all that
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village off Broadway movement in the early 60s
that's when William Mch fell out of favor. So
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having him there was certainly an interesting time
but I was walking out of the theater the night of
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the tribute and Mike Wood did a beautiful tribute
for Edward and someone ran up to him and said Mr.
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Alby, I really like you, but I don't understand
your work. And I thought he was going to faint.
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And uh we had rented him this great big white car
with a with an inch festival logo on the side. And
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he was kind of uncomfortable driving that car
around. And I I went with him and we spent the
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afternoon going to the to the cemetery uh to see
Ing's grave. I talked with um Edward about Inge
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and his life growing up on the fringes of the the
banking family and the the the country club and
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uh his whole life and how those plays uh
played out those years. Uh a picnic match,
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you know, was supposed to care about the oil
Allen, not about the drifter how and so it it
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Edward and I had that wonderful time together.
Well, from that relationship beginning there
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came the Edward Albby conferences that I've been
honored to run for the last this will be year 14.
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