George Woodyard, 1934-2010

George and Eleanor
Woodyard, Latin American
Theatre Today Conference

Y cuando te hayas consolado (uno siempre se consuela) te sentirás contento de haberme conocido.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The empty screen is always daunting, but never so daunting as when faced with the piece that I never wanted to have to write. On November 7, 2010, after nearly four years of silently battling cancer, George Woodyard peacefully departed on his final trip, leaving all of us wondering how to say farewell to the man who founded this journal, who produced the next generation of Latin American theatre scholars and aficionados, who put Latin American theatre on the world map, and who selflessly served his students, colleagues, and the Lawrence community.

In 1997 we organized an homage and dedicated a special issue of the Latin American Theatre Review to George as part of the III Latin American Theatre Today conference. Ever humble, George was mortified to see us acting as if he had already died, and on his own soil to boot. Now, thirteen years later, George is not in Kansas anymore, but rather enjoying a quiet moment in the LATT in the sky, and it is finally time to express openly our thanks and admiration for a man who had a remarkable and indelible impact on the field of Latin American theatre and on all of the students, colleagues, and theatre practitioners, both here and abroad, who found in him a source of inspiration, support and good humor.

Born in 1934 in Charleston, Illinois, George Woodyard was the youngest of nine children. A true wunderkind, he was reading and writing by the time he set off for kindergarten in a one-room schoolhouse. He finished high school at the age of 15 and just five years later had a Masters degree and a position teaching high-school Spanish in Illinois. After an Army stint that involved teaching English in Puerto Rico, George returned to school, earning his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1966. In 1967, just one year after arriving at the University of Kansas, he founded the Latin American Theatre Review, which he directed for more than forty years. Throughout those years he taught, published, edited the journal, and traveled extensively. Always up for new challenges, he also served in increasingly larger administrative capacities as Dean of the Graduate School, Associate Vice Chancellor of Research, Graduate Studies, and Public Service; Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and Dean of International Studies.

George was a shaker and a mover. He walked fast, talked fast, and thought fast. Never prone to basking in his achievements, he was ever eager to initiate new projects, whether it be a book, a conference, a press, an arboretum, a community theatre, or a Lawrence summer camp for his eight grandchildren. Somehow he found time to do this and more, and he did it all with grace, modesty and a smile. He was a relentless e-mailer, never dodging the opportunity to help someone near or far. As Sandy Cypess explains, "I would often write in alarm asking for help, guidance, wisdom — and he was always ready to offer suggestions — even if he said 'what do I know?' Well, George knew a lot."

The epitome of selflessness, George was always more interested in helping others than in building his own resumé, which is, nonetheless, a monument of scholarly production.¹ During the past 45 years, he edited nearly 20 books, provided more than 15 chapters to edited volumes, published more than 70 articles, prologues, and reviews, and delivered well over 120 papers and talks. He was Latin American theatre, a reputation officially recognized through several awards including the Ollantay Prize (1979), two Fulbright fellowships (1987, 1995), the Premio Armando Discépolo for Theatre Research (1995), the Teatro Avante Life-Time Achievement Award (2000) and the Premio de Teatro Latinoamericano George Woodyard, established in 2005.

Between 1974 and 2005, George was dissertation director for 16 Ph.D. students, while serving on the committees of many others. Even those who never studied at KU acknowledge George...