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Few teachers would ask their students to hold onto their finals
and keep them in a safe place for the next decade or two. John
Orlock, the Samuel B. and Virginia C. Knight Professor of Humanities
and 2002 Carl F. Wittke Award winner for undergraduate teaching,
did this spring.
 He
told the "Theater and Culture" class that the three quotes they
selected for the final from among the 15 assigned plays-passages
that held some particular relevance to their current lives-someday
would offer a "snapshot of who you are in May '02." He added that
their selection of quotes would be a reminder of what was important
to them and what was on their minds at this point in their college
experience.
Orlock, as he asked his students to do, saved a paper from one
of his theater professors at Penn State University where he earned
his B.A. in English in 1967 and M.F.A. in theater arts in 1970.
He copied this paper and gave it to his students as a parting
gift.
Kelly Yeaton, the Penn State professor, quoted "Readiness of
all" from Hamlet and went on to explain how teaching is
a vocation and calling. Orlock said the calling comes from the
student, and it is the teacher's responsibility to stay alert
to the call of the student who is ready and willing to hear what
a person has to say.
"I told them they may not be ready to hear this but asked them
to put it away with the essays from class," Orlock said.
He described the final as a way for students to make personal
connections to materials in the two-sequence course that examined
the roots of the theater from the rituals of more than 2,500 years
ago to contemporary theater.
"We experience art not just to get a story, but as a means to
triggers stories within ourselves," he said.
Orlock, a director and playwright, served as chair of CWRU's
department of theater arts for 10 years. He came to CWRU in 1989
as a visiting professor and a year later was appointed chair.
During his chairmanship, he regularly taught two theater arts
classes for majors and several graduate-level courses. He also
helped forge the M.F.A. Actor Training Program collaboration between
CWRU and the Cleveland Play House, which trains graduate students
for professional careers.
Two years ago, he began teaching the theater and culture survey
course that fulfills the core arts requirement. He had not taught
to the general student body since he was an adjunct professor
in the late 1970s and early 1980s at the College of St. Thomas
and Carleton College in Minnesota. The survey class attracts between
50-70 humanities students as well as some from science, engineering
and nursing.
"It was a challenge, connecting with materials that I have not
had taught for a number of years, and it brought back thoughts
of what my experiences as an undergraduate were like, facing the
frontier of new ideas and putting shape and names to titles floating
out there," Orlock said. "I asked what makes these plays last
for 2,500 years while others pass us by in 15 minutes," Orlock
added.
He credits the University Center for the Innovation of Teaching
Education (UCITE) as a source of support for his teaching as well
as junior and senior faculty members whom students talk about
with excitement. He also recalls that as a youth, growing up in
Philadelphia in the 1950s, he listened and was inspired by the
energy that Leonard Bernstein brought to the Young Audience Concerts
and made composers such as Bach relevant to listeners.
Orlock also confessed that he has always had an ideal image of
what a professor is. He found it was hard work and time consuming,
but adds "as corny as it sounds, it made me feel useful in that
I could bring tools and insights for exploring art and literature
into these students' lives that they may not have had otherwise."
Teaching about the theater and culture has seen many rewards,
such as chemical engineering students who now make it a point
to attend theater performances.
"They also find it refreshing to express their feelings about
the plays-something that is not done in the creative and imaginative
process of solving science's puzzles," Orlock said.
In addition to teaching, Orlock is the author of numerous plays,
among which are "Indulgences in the Louisville Harem," which will
open at Chicago's Rivendel Theater this summer and "Some Things
That Can Go Wrong at 30,000 Ft.," which is slated to open Off-Broadway
in New York City later this year.
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