Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2010 - 13

Mentor is an eponym. When Odysseus went to the Trojan
War, he entrusted his young son, Telemachus, to an old friend,
Mentor. When Odysseus returned, Athena took the form of
Mentor to help Odysseus and Telemachus clear the palace of all
the suitors to his faithful wife, Penelope.
I have had mentors who I remember with great fondness.
I think most of us who are older can look back with gratitude
to those who were instrumental in teaching us or helping us
get started. but I know of cases when a mentor turned out to
be a false friend and turned on their mentee. (Mentee is a construction like employer/employee but seems awkward. I prefer
protégé.) In these relationships that went bad, it could be that
the mentor was using a young person until that person was no
longer useful. Or maybe the mentor felt insulted or slighted by
an unintentional word or deed. In any case, it is a bitter experience for a young person.
When I was in school, Frank McMullan, a professor of
directing took me under his wing and helped me get a State department grant to accompany him to start a theatre department
at the University of Panama. We stayed friends and he lent me
his cabin on lake Champlain for my honeymoon.
When I started working in New York, I was hired by the
Manhattan School of Music to design their opera productions.
I started as an opera ignoramus but after twenty or so productions, I became an opera lover. This was largely due to Carlton

Gauld who directed the operas and taught me along the way.
Carlton was a bass who sang in all the great houses but most of
all at the Opera Comique in Paris. So most of the operas we did
together were from the French repertoire. Carlton was the picture of a gentleman with his tailored tweeds and silver cigarette
case and he was a gentleman in his dealings with others.
Robert lewis, bobby to everyone, started with the Group
Theatre, was a founder of the Actors Studio, a successful broadway director, and for years a teacher of acting at Yale and at his
private studio. He was the funniest person I have ever known
and I would cry laughing at his stories. His autobiography,
Slings and Arrows, is filled with delicious anecdotes. He hired
me to design, and, to reduce collaborative difficulties, insisted
that I do sets, costumes, and lights. I learned many things from
him, not the least being that one could be completely moral in
a profession that is not always so.
being a mentor to the young is not a one-way street. There
is the selfish good feeling about helping someone else, like giving blood and donating to a good cause. There is a parents
pride when a protégé has success. And there is the ego boost to
have a youngster look up to you with respect and gratitude.
My father told me I need not thank him for what I was
given, but to honor my debt I must give to my children. In that
spirit, I hope that every theatre person has had a mentor and in
payment in return, becomes a mentor. v

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2010