From the Director:
This is my last show here in the Seelig Theatre at SUNY Sullivan.
I was hired in June 2014 to start a theater program at the college, and to direct, at least two shows a year for the performing arts club. Within a semester, the VP of Academics Dr. Bob Schultz asked me to do the paperwork to create a proper program because he, the President Dr. Karin Hilgersom, and the Chair of Liberal Arts and Humanities, Dr. Paul Reifenheiser, saw the importance of theater arts as a connective tissue for the college, students, faculty, staff, and the community. I had the paperwork finished by January 2015, and we waited for approval from SUNY. In the meantime, we tried to follow the academic plan of a Theater major for several students, in the hopes that it would be completed before they graduated. In February 2018, SUNY approved the theater program at SUNY Sullivan, and we graduated our first four majors. The year before we graduated three that had followed the program, and tranferred to SUNY Purchase, Potsdam, and Plattsburgh on our seamless transfer path I negotiated with all the other theater programs in the SUNY system. Our first five majors transferred to SUNY New Paltz, Buffalo State, and Oneonta. Three of whom finished those degrees and are now working professionally. In 2019, we graduated 4 more majors who transferred to Brockport and New Paltz. In 2020, we graduated 2 majors, who then transferred to Potsdam and Albany, in addition to receiving a BS/MS in nursing. In 2021 we graduated 2 who did not transfer, due to the state of the art, at that time. In 2022 we graduated one theater major. In 2023 we did not graduate any students, as our art form had suffered during the pandemic. In Fall 2023, I developed a microcredential in Stagehand work with the cooperation of the IATSE 353 Union at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. In March 2024, interim leadership decided to move to deactivate the theater program, after only 3 years of existence outside the global pandemic. Regardless of that, in 2024, we graduated 4 students who have transferred and are working on their degrees at New Paltz, Buffalo State, and Oneonta. In Summer 2024, we also had one student complete the microcredential in stagehand work. This year we will graduate three more students, one who has been accepted to schools in the Dallas area, in addition to SUNY Purchase, another who was our first crossover student with Homestead School to graduate with her high school and theater degree, got her first choice school in the competitive program of Howard University (in addition to acceptance to the New School, and many more). This last cohort also saw the college to their first regional competition for a production, and won 5 national awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.
As a blue-collar daughter of a mechanic and a seamstress, I was most saddened by all the work I had done to the Seelig Theatre. I woke up at night lamenting that I had just finished the hat project. (Every year we had little projects with our work study students to organize our equipment, props, costumes, etc. better. And...right before they deactived the program, we had finally got our storage under control.) I leave the theater clean, and move-in ready for whomever would like to take the mantle of this well-loved legacy. There are posters of our three shows per year seasons (even though I was only contracted to do two - the students always wanted more - so I acquiesed), including the pandemic years where we stayed current with all the on-the-edge technology in partnership with Officer Hours Global, Ltd., and partnered with artists all over the globe. Thank you for the 11 years/12 theater seasons of my service to this college and this program. I will miss this community and most of all my students/alumni/faculty/staff.
