Hello, Henrik!

Love this! Just discovered that my Honors Thesis from my time at Ball State University is available to read from their library site. Check out Henrik Ibsen: “An Enemy of the People” here: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/bitstr...

today, i realized that my honors thesis still exists, and i have copied it and made a notebook. that experience has informed me to this very moment and is the hugest reason of all i was fortunate to have been an honors student which made me the activist and individual i am today at age 73. stay bright and plucky! my cat died monday and i am beside myself but the honors college and dr. strother have perked up my soul to say the least!

i am at last humbled? jesus! i am even reading through it, white-out blemishes and all. too bad i was such an abominable typist! and that drawing? looks like i might have been in kindergarten when i sketched it? i am no artist i fear. and either i was smart enough to use big words way back then or dr. strother had a strong impression upon "this writer" as i refer to myself throughout the "thesis". strother was a true gentleman and a delightful, darling puckish fellow who even attended campus plays i had bit parts in at the time. he had a deep fondness for henrik, so i sense strother thoughts and concepts and language in my dissertation. and this experience made me the man i am today...a rugged individualist and activist.

Troy LaRue, a fraternity brother of my son’s commented on facebook: “Dr. Ed Strother - quite a big deal at BSU! How very neat! I wrote a paper on Ibsen for a theater class at Wabash College. It wasn’t that great. 😂 ...but in fact, some of my research was done at Ball State including discussion with a theater professor (father of a good friend) who worked under Dr. Strother. Perhaps he referenced your work and I didn’t even know it!”

i friended a person named strother years ago on facebook and he was a great person but was not related to dr. ed. who was just an exceptional human. i wrote to dr. ed long ago after i had grown up and faced the real world and he wrote back and i still have that letter...somewhere!

holy moly! i am thinking i may feel proud on this day when i am still grieving for my wonderful disney cat who has left my side forever...but my typing sucks. my excuse? a portable manual typewriter and onion skin paper and white-out which i occasionally sniffed to accomplish staying up all night in a creepy dormroom reading by candlelight and typing and never dating nobody at no time! i love you dr. ed strother. where are you now? what a cute cute person he was and worthy of writing alongside neil simon. those were the days! indeed they were!


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“Roy Sexton is outstanding as Buddy. He has some of the most complex songs exploring the most complex emotions. His takes on ‘The Right Girl’ and ‘Buddy’s Blues’ are vocally strong and emotionally engaging as he conjures up a dialogue with his girlfriend while still yearning for the love of his wife.” Read more: https://pulp.aadl.org/node/399787. Theatre Nova’s Follies in Concert runs ONE more weekend, starting Thursday: http://www.theatrenova.org

“Follies” continues Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 14-16, at 8 pm and Nov. 17 at 2 pm. Theatre Nova, 410 W. Huron St., Ann Arbor. For tickets, call 734-635-8450 or go to theatreNOVA.org.


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Review from EncoreMichigan.com … excerpt:

Follies’ premise – aged alumni of the Weisman (think Ziegfeld) Follies reunite at their derelict theatre to relive their youth and ponder their life choices just before the place is leveled for a parking lot – is challenging to stage for any theater because of the intermingling of time, but Theatre Nova carries it off. …

Dramatic highlights of this show are “Losing My Mind,” a solo performed by Sue Booth, as Sally, and “Live, Laugh, Love” by Thomas Murphy, as Ben, and the ensemble.

Comic highlights are the rollicking “Buddy’s Blues” by Roy Sexton as the sad sack traveling salesman Buddy Plummer, and “I’m Still Here,” performed by Olive Hayden-Moore as Follies veteran Carlotta.

Diane Hill, who directs the play and co-stars as Phyllis Rogers Stone, also performs two of Follies’ funniest songs, “Could I Leave You” and “Lucy and Jessie” with spot-on comic timing.

Follies’ famous mirror number, “Who’s That Woman,” is given nice treatment by Carrie Jay Sayer, as showgirl Stella.

The most effective time-splicing number in the show is probably “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs.”

Eddie Rothermel, Kryssy Becker, Connor Thomas Rhoades, and Annie Kordas do a fine job of portraying Ben and Phyllis, Buddy and Sally in their younger years.

Read the full review here: https://www.encoremichigan.com/2019/1...


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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

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