The Lewis Center’s long-time producer for Theater and Dance, Darryl Waskow, retired after 31 years at Princeton on December 4. His retirement was recognized with a celebratory reception on December 3 in, very appropriately, the Drapkin Studio at the Lewis Arts complex.
Darryl Waskow. Photo by Frank Wojciechowski
Waskow joined what was then the combined Program in Theater and Dance in 1993, hired by former Director of the Program and former Lewis Center Chair Michael Cadden. In his remarks at the reception, Cadden, recently retired himself, shared stories from those early days of the program when there was a very small production staff, and he and Waskow did everything from building sets and securing licensing to printing programs and selling tickets. Since then, Waskow has provided staff leadership on hundreds of theater and dance productions in a continually growing season that now presents as many as 35 theater and dance productions a year with a production team of 15 professionals.
Darryl speaks at his retirement party on December 3, 2024, in the Drapkin Studio at the Lewis Arts complex. Photo by Steve Runk.
Over the years, Waskow played key roles in advising on performing arts venues on the Princeton campus. He worked with Cadden and McCarter Theatre leaders on design of the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Theatre, which opened in 2003. The Berlind is shared and co-programmed by McCarter and the Lewis Center, which produces several theater and dance productions in the venue each season. Waskow also had input into the performing spaces within the Lewis Arts complex, which opened in 2017. Growing from a single small black box theater and makeshift dance studio at 185 Nassau Street, the 145,000 square-foot arts complex is shared with the Music Department. It includes the Wallace Theater, Hearst Dance Theater, Drapkin Studio and four other theater studios, and three dance studios, as well as the Hurley Gallery, CoLab and music studios.
In her remarks at the reception, Lewis Center Executive Director Marion Friedman Young said, “Darryl has been at Princeton for over 30 years and his impact is immeasurable.” She recalled her first encounter with Waskow when she was a student, Class of 2000, and stage managing a senior thesis production of Cabaret, adding, “I was both educated and respected by Darryl, and that gave me both training and confidence in my ability to do the work.”
Young then worked with Waskow 10 years later when, as managing director of The Civilians theater company, she was part of the team that brought the climate-change musical, The Great Immensity, to campus.
Darryl Waskow (left) with Program in Theater and Dance colleagues in the old Matthews Acting Studio at 185 Nassau St. Photo courtesy Lewis Center Archives.
In 2015 she returned to Princeton as Waskow’s colleague at the Lewis Center. “I quickly realized that Darryl would be a vital source of information, perspective, and partnership,” she shared. “Very little surprises or rattles Darryl. You can bring him the craziest and wildest ideas and he’ll respond with the same patience and perspective, pointing out what might be possible in the idea… and what you might need to rethink… But he always wants to help you get where you want to go.”
Jane Cox, current director of the Program in Theater and Music Theater, and Tony Award-winning lighting designer, noted she first met Waskow in 2006 when Waskow and then-director of the program, the late Tim Vasen, hired her to light Playboy of the Western World as the fall show.
Cox also shared the impact Waskow has had over the years on Princeton students. Addressing Waskow directly at the reception, she said, “The number of students whose creative careers have been launched by your willingness to experiment, to let those seniors just have a go at something really ambitious that they know very little about, combined with a constant behind the scenes supervision so that they don’t actually hurt themselves, is impossible to quantify and has had an enormous impact in the world.”
Cox concluded by sharing, “It’s very difficult to imagine our program without you. You know how to make just about anything happen, you know who does what all over campus and far beyond. You have been the anchor of the Princeton theater program as long as anyone can remember.”
Darryl in 2005. Photo courtesy Princeton Weekly Bulletin.
Other colleagues who feted Waskow with remarks at the reception were longtime McCarter Theatre collaborator and Stage Supervisor Steve Howe, playwright, director and former faculty member Bob Sandberg, and Waskow’s daughter Dorothy.
“I’ve enjoyed working with many talented students, faculty and staff, and guest artists during my 31 years in Theater and Dance,” said Waskow. “It’s been a wonderful career, and I look forward to being in the audience and seeing what new students come up with.”
Before coming to Princeton, Waskow worked in regional theater at Alaska Repertory Theater, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Coconut Grove Playhouse, and McCarter Theatre. He earned his M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama in 1986 and an M.B.A. from Rider University in 1997.
Waskow is an avid sailor and frequently travels internationally as a race official for championship events. He also recently became a first-time grandfather of twins.
