SPRING 2024 | 17 December to participate in or enjoy Sametz’s final Christmas Vespers as director. Many also will return May 3-4, when Sametz leads the Choral Arts for the final time. It will conclude with Sametz’s “I Have Had Singing,” which speaks, appropriately, to the simple love of singing and the lasting joy it can bring. It’s not an overstatement to call Gus Ripa the founder of Lehigh’s Department of Theatre. Lehigh had theater classes and performance opportunities when Ripa arrived in 1979 as an assistant professor in the Department of English, division of speech and theater. But his goal was to create a theater department and bring the joy of theater to a wider group of students. The Department of Theatre was officially established in 1989. And Ripa took it one step further, securing accreditation in 1990 by the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST). Over the years the department has grown from three to seven tenured faculty, with many more staff and adjuncts. Ripa was department chair for 18 years. After earning his MFA in directing at Northwestern, Ripa spent three years teaching students at Illinois Wesleyan. He came to Lehigh, he says, “in search of a good school with bright students, accomplished faculty and the dedication to ‘going to college’ as a major undergraduate goal.” Ripa’s style and vision led to prestigious positions outside the theater department. He was associate dean of undergraduate programs for four years and director of the Eckhardt Scholars program, the arts and sciences flagship honors program, also for four years. Ripa says those positions made him feel like a full “citizen of the college and of Lehigh.” Ripa says he felt the most pride and satisfaction in “instructing, coaching, mentoring and directing students from all walks of Lehigh’s undergraduate life.” Some students have gone on to work in commercial/professional theater or as college professors. Most have used the skills earned from a serious study of theater—collaboration; oral, physical and written expression; analysis; empathy; diligence; and hard work—to enrich their chosen professions, he says. Ripa loves telling the story of Kashi Johnson ’93, who was struggling as an undergraduate when Ripa cast her as the lead in a production of Samuel Beckett’s tragi-comedy “Endgame.” She fell under his spell and it changed her life—she’s an actor, director and professor who is now guiding Lehigh’s theater program as the department chairperson. Says Johnson: “His mentorship of students, the advising, the wisdom he carried and shared freely, it has been invaluable—we all knew it was a gift. We tried to absorb as much as we could.” Johnson says her goal for the department is to “continue to innovate. To produce new works—world premieres. The department has been forward-thinking for so long. Gus has laid the foundation, and we want to continue to exceed expectations.” As one of his last imprints on the department, Ripa engineered the hiring of assistant professor Joseph Amodei to teach the cutting-edge field of immersive media. Amodei is designing alternative realities for theater productions, taking the department to a place it has never gone before. Gus Ripa says he felt the most pride and satisfaction “instructing, coaching, mentoring and directing students.” Theater AUGUSTINE RIPA CHRISTINE T. KRESHOLLEK
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