Earle R. Gister
| Earle R. Gister | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Earle R. Gister March 30, 1934 Racine, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Died | January 22, 2012 (aged 77) |
| Occupation | Acting Teacher |
| Spouse(s) | Glynda Gister |
Earle R. Gister (March 30, 1934 – January 22, 2012) was an American acting teacher and was a pioneer in professional theatre training from the mid-1960s. Earle Gister was renowned for his specialty and passion for the plays of Anton Chekhov.
Gister (Carleton College ’56 with a B.A. in history) of New Haven, Connecticut, spent more than 30 years training professional actors. After earning his B.A. at Carleton, he "traveled with Corrigan to Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, and earned an MFA in drama." He credited the foundation of his acting technique to his studies with such people as Robert Corrigan, "the drama professor who would serve as his mentor," and Paul Mann, his acting coach in New York City.
Reported by the Yale Daily News: “Earle had a very large educational impact on the country,” said J. Michael Miller, director of The Actors’ Center in New York and co-founder of the League, which disbanded in 1987. “If there was one man who made a significant difference in professional theater training, it was him.”
Also from the Yale Daily News: "Over a more than 40-year career in the world of theater, Gister mentored some of today’s most celebrated actors, directed the entire canon of Anton Chekhov at the Yale Repertory Theatre and earned a reputation as one of the nation’s most respected theater professors. His reforms to theater education changed the prevalent attitude that “training actors was like training mechanics,” Miller said, and encouraged the development of hundreds of Master of Fine Arts programs in acting across the country."
For a number of years Earle Gister taught at Carnegie Mellon University where he was the chairman of the drama department. From the New York Times archive, "The Board of Higher Education yesterday approved the appointment of Earle R. Gister as director of the Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts at City College. The appointment [was] described by a college official as a step toward transforming the center into a major metropolitan area theater-training program."
Then, under Lloyd Richards who was the dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991, Earle Gister grew into a Master Acting Teacher. Earle was named the first Lloyd Richards Adjunct Professor of Drama in 1994. Following Richards, Stan Wojewodski, Jr., took over the stewardship of the Yale School of Drama from 1991 to 2002. For a total of 19 years Earle Gister was Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Chair of the MFA Acting Program at the Yale School of Drama. In 1999 Earle Gister retired from the Yale School of Drama.
In 1991 Gister shared a Tony Award on behalf of the Yale School of Drama and the Yale Repertory Theatre. He was a member of the National Theatre Conference since 1967, a founding member of the League of Professional Theatre Training Programs in 1972, a Tony Award nominating committee member in 1980, and a member the first grants award panel in theater for the National Endowment for the Arts. He and his wife have three sons.
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