MINOT, N.D. (AP) - Kevin Neuharth considers his nearly 40 years with Minot State University’s theater program to have been one lucky break.
“I don’t know how many times I keep going back to that word lucky,” Neuharth said in explaining why he’s devoted his career to MSU. “I felt pretty lucky that I got a gig here at the college. These folks took a chance on me and just maybe I owed them a little something. I felt like this is the way to pay it back.”
Neuharth will retire at the end of spring semester in May, having taught theater and directed productions at the university since 1976, the Minot Daily News (https://bit.ly/1Timklj ) reported.
Neuharth’s first experience with MSU was as a student. His English instructor at McClusky High School had instilled an interest in theater, and Neuharth landed an acting role in a production during his first semester at MSU. However, he decided his bent was more toward the technical side of theater, such as set design and lighting. He credits former MSU instructor Tom Turner for impressing on him the value of technical theater.
Theater also was where he met his wife, Cindy, then a student involved in costuming. Cindy worked many years for Minot Public Schools as a teacher. The couple raised a son and daughter and now have two grandchildren.
Neuharth taught a couple of years at Minot High School before the district saw the need to trim staff. He was considering going to work for UPS when a friend, Harold Aleshire, who was then chairman of the humanities department, invited him for a visit. It became a visit about an opportunity to teach at MSU.
In accepting the offer, Neuharth found a true home at MSU. Even his more cutting-edge productions always had the support of the university, he said. It wasn’t until MSU president Gordon Olson retired in 1992 that Neuharth came to understand that the support sometimes had been in the face of public opposition.
Neuharth has directed 147 productions, by his best count. That includes productions at the high school, the old Sawmill Playhouse at Lake Metigoshe, for a former Minot children’s theater and in Oregon, where he did work toward a doctorate after receiving his master’s degree in theatre from the University of Denver in 1979.
He’s also been involved in 275 productions in a technical capacity.
MSU Summer Theater celebrated 50 seasons last year, and Neuharth can say he participated in some way in most of them.
Some of the productions that rise to the top in his memory include “Waiting for Godot,” which he calls one of the great pieces of dramatic theater, the musical “1776” and various interpretations of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
Each production on his resume refined his ability as a director.
“As a director, that’s what I am most proud of besides all the wonderful people I have had to work with, my great family, my great kids and grandkids. I am proud of the fact that I have become a better director,” he said. Being a director isn’t about being in charge but about being a good collaborator, he said.
“People aren’t puppets. If you don’t give the actors the opportunity to explore, to do their jobs, how can you be expected to be successful in yours?” he said.
Krys Zorbaugh, an MSU senior and president of Campus Players, credits Neuharth with helping her develop her skills through that exploration.
“What I have learned most is how to really look at the world differently and in a more objective way,” she said. “As an actor, you really have to look at things in all different sorts of ways. I have learned to really delve into my characters in as many ways as I can to bring out a really developed character.”
She also called Neuharth the “heart and soul of everything we do as students in the theater department.”
“He’s inspiring. He knows so much,” she said. “He commands a level of respect as a person and as an instructor and as a director. That inspires you to want to work harder and want to be better and know more and think deeper.”
Neuharth has considered it a privilege to work with the many students who have come through the MSU theater program, either majoring in the program or simply participating out of a love for the craft. Neuharth said he’s many times mourned the loss of a group of graduates only to discover a new crop of students just as energetic, talented and passionate as they ones who left. But he said he was never more proud of his MSU students than during and after the 2011 flood, when students took time to fill sandbags and help gut houses, including his own flooded house.
“That was the college that I had the luxury of working with,” he said.
Some students went on to obtain advanced degrees, while others found jobs in the industry or stayed involved through community theater.
“You have opened the door for them. That’s all we can expect to do is open the door. Maybe you ignite their passion a little bit, and then they go from there,” he said.
“He’s given me lots of opportunities to learn, and he challenges my ability to allow me to be a great artist in theater,” said Branden Evans, an MSU junior who has worked in technical production.
It was an emotional good-bye when the cast honored Neuharth at the last show he directed, “These Shining Lives,” which ended Feb. 27. Evans recalled Neuharth’s effort to make the final show shine.
“He was very passionate about it. He really wanted it to be the best that it could possibly be and he allowed us to help him get it there,” he said.
Neuharth noted all shows have a final performance. His upcoming retirement is just one more performance coming to a close.
“We have learned from this. We have experienced this. Now go on and do something about it. That’s the way I have felt for the last 20 years. This is just the end of this moment. Now it’s time to go to the next moment,” he said.
In his next act, he hopes to further explore devised theater and solo performance, both of which he has taught at MSU. Devised theater involves collaboratively developing a script through conversation and research.
“I still am very passionate about theater and feel very strongly about the notion that theater can make us better people,” Neuharth said.
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Information from: Minot Daily News, https://www.minotdailynews.com
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