Photo Courtesy of Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective
A Shift in the Theatre Ecosystem
UNCA Announces Proposed Drama Department Elimination while Local Organizations Consider Gaps
July 10, 2024 | On June 13, in a video statement on YouTube, University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) Chancellor Kimberly van Noort announced that the University will be proposing the elimination of four of UNCA’s academic programs. This proposal will be made to the UNC Board of Governors as a means to settle the school’s ongoing budget deficit. Those departments include Ancient Mediterranean studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and – most applicable to the local arts ecosystem – the school’s Drama Department.
Arnold Wengrow founded the Drama Department in 1970 – a very different time for Asheville and its arts scene. If locals wanted to experience theatre, their options were very limited. Both the school and the local arts offerings have grown in the years since, and anyone who visits the city today knows that the region is ripe with arts experiences. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought up challenges for all arts organizations, including theatre companies that require close-knit casts and seats filled with supportive audiences.
Lise Kloeppel, current Chair & Associate Professor of Drama at UNCA, began her tenure at the helm of the Drama Department in 2019. She came into the role with fresh ideas, noting that the pandemic that followed a few months later pushed departmental needs further. “The whole theatre community was asking itself lots of questions about its sustainability, viability, and relevancy. We did an external review, which I think was really positive,” she shared. Part of the review morphed into a five-year strategic plan.
One area of the plan focused on community partnerships. Because Asheville is a relatively small city and the Drama Department a relatively small academic concentration at UNCA, community bonds are necessary for both to thrive. These unofficial partnerships have existed for many years, but the formalization within a strategic plan would make marketing those partnerships to students and community more viable.
Kloeppel explained, “We wanted to be able to provide students as many opportunities as possible – to be able to give them exposure to other [theatre] professionals and other teachers, too. It’s not just the campus, but the campus within the larger Asheville community that’s a draw.” She envisioned the more formalized partnerships as a way to pull in more students, letting them know about the strong connections available within the region’s rich art history and allow them access to the network within the local scene.
That need for partnership works both ways, too. A number of Buncombe County’s performing arts organizations depend on UNCA student and alumni participation in the life of their organizations. Then, relationships students form with local organizations can lead them to their first professional stepping stones and potentially allow them to stay in the community they’d formed while a student.
Community Connections
The Asheville Community Theatre’s vision is for theatre to be an integral part of the community. Founded in 1946, ACT has a long history of collaboration with UNCA. It’s a place students often seek out after graduation. “Half of our staff are graduates from the department, and many of our board members over the years have been professors from the department,” said Eli Cunningham, Marketing Director and Interim Managing Director. “We also provide performance, crew, and instructor opportunities for many of their students and graduates.” At the time of this article, ACT was running their Summer Masterclasses within UNCA’s Theatre facilities.
Stephanie Hickling Beckman is the Founder and Artistic Director of Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective, a nonprofit organization working to increase and sustain opportunities for diversity within the WNC performing arts community. Like ACT, Different Strokes! has collaborated with the department in the past.
“We’ve worked with them on several productions, and have always been impressed by the talent and dedication of the students,” Hickling Beckman shared. “I have directed five shows, and acted in three others with UNCA, which by design enhances the students’ theatre education by providing them an opportunity to work with a professional theatre organization.” Over the last decade, Different Strokes! has hired currently enrolled students and alumni as interns, actors and designers, too. “In 14 years, four of our seven lighting designers have received training through Rob Bowen at UNCA,” Hickling Beckman continued. “UNCA alumni help to keep many [theatre companies] functional, as actors, technicians, designers, stage managers, directors, administrators, Board Members, and founders.”
The Montford Park Players organization has also worked with the Drama Department at UNCA for many years. The company performs Shakespeare and other classic plays during summer months at the outdoor Hazel Robinson Amphitheater in Montford. Executive Director John Russell notes that the transition from indoor to outdoor theatre can be jarring for some, but they have been pleased with the students they’ve worked with over the years. Russell said, “The quality of the learning experience in the [Drama Department] has been superlative, and we always knew that persons coming from the Department would be exceptionally well-trained in their craft, and able to step right into their positions with us.”
“To say that both my organizations, American Myth Center and A Different Myth, relied upon the talent from the Drama Department at UNCA would be an understatement,” said Aaron Snook, Curator and Co-founder of the two organizations. “I employed current and former students in every project that I produced,” Snook also taught at UNCA as an adjunct professor at UNCA for the past five years, having left for the next phase of his professional career. He now dedicates his time to the American Myth Center and A Different Myth to curate stories that spark necessary conversation within our community. He also shared that, “As an artist, I should also say that my teaching at UNCA has provided me with a lifetime of learning. Put simply, I am a better artist today because of the Drama Department.”
Facing the Future
With the proposed department elimination, those same local organizations – and others – are now considering the implications within their work. Cunningham points out that UNCA isn’t the first higher education theatre program our region has lost in recent years. He said, “This is the third higher education [theatre] program that has closed. First we lost AB Tech, then Warren Wilson, and now UNC Asheville.” UNCA spokesperson Michael Strysick notes that within the UNC System, Academic Portfolio Reviews are now a regular part of all campus processes per the UNC Policy Manual to ensure each campus is agile and relevant.
Hickling Beckman also believes the closure of UNCA’s Drama Department will have a significant impact on Different Strokes! and the local theatre community as a whole. “Asheville performing arts organizations depend on young and energetic creators and artists in order to grow,” she said. Noting the many young people who leave the area after graduation, due in part to Asheville’s cost of living and lack of affordable housing, she continued, “Our local performing arts companies have already been struggling, but will eventually be stretched even further beyond capacity to find replacement staff, actors, designers, and production teams.”
Hickling Beckman and Russell both said that their organizations will need to create stronger connections with other local (and not-as-local) universities to meet future needs. “The possible closure of this department will leave a deep hole in the local arts community that will be difficult to fill,” shared Russell. “While there are other arts educational programs in other colleges in WNC, the closure of the UNCA drama department will eliminate this close bond that has existed for many years between ‘town and gown,’ and I’m afraid it will be difficult to replace it from programs located much farther away.”
The distance will be a challenge to overcome logistically, too. Hickling Beckman noted that institutions like Western Carolina University and Appalachian State University currently do not have shuttles or a bus line to Asheville. But she understands, as do the other organizational leaders interviewed, the value in the arts ecosystem here. That’s what will continue to push the solutions conversation forward – both on-campus and off.
Hickling Beckman summed up the importance of theatre – for students and community. “Most of us have heard that dedicated exposure to the arts and drama fosters creativity, imagination, and self-expression; that It requires critical thinking skills to analyze and interpret characters, make creative decisions, and it encourages out-of-the-box thinking,” she said. “But do we pay attention to real life testimonies about how theatre changes lives? I’ve witnessed shy kids open up and come alive…I’ve witnessed young adults who took drama find passion in a career in the arts.”
UNCA’s plan for program consolidation will be presented to the UNC Board of Governors at their meeting on July 24. University spokesperson Michael Strysick shed light on possible outcomes.
“If the proposal is approved, we will first work with impacted departments to structure teach-out plans for currently declared majors that will extend over the next two or perhaps even three years. These plans will in turn influence personnel decisions. At the same time, Provost Yvonne Villanueva-Russsell, who just joined UNC Asheville on July 1, will work with the departments and deans to determine which courses in all the impacted areas will continue to be offered, since the ongoing commitment to our Liberal Arts Core curriculum and humanities sequence remain invaluable components of our liberal arts and sciences tradition,” he said. “Even if we no longer offer majors in the impacted departments, there will always be an ongoing need for some courses in classics, drama, and philosophy in the UNC Asheville curriculum, along with religious studies, which will continue as a minor.”
As both local and campus communities await these decisions, it is still unclear to what extent these academic changes will impact the arts ecosystem over the next few years.