In just over 40 years, Muhlenbergs theater program has gone from non-existent to nationally recognized. Two men who have recently retired, had major roles in making the colleges theater program what it is today.
(pictured, Charlie Richter, left, and Curtis Dretsch, right; photo by Marco Calderon)
In 1978, Muhlenberg College had recently built the Baker Center for the Arts on its Allentown campus, and was looking for an enterprising teacher to build a drama department from the ground up.
With an MFA in directing from Southern Methodist University under his belt, and having just studied in England as a Fulbright Scholar, Charles Richter was ready for a challenge.
"I had been in college for nine years and that was enough," Richter says. "My plan always was to go into college teaching. When I went for my interview they said make a theater. It seemed like an interesting opportunity to build a program and I felt Muhlenberg was serious in its commitment to the arts."
Richter also had plenty of on hands-on experience, having done summer stock for three years in a row at Lakesville Playhouse in Barnesville.
"We did 10 musicals every year," Richter says. "It was quite a training ground."
When he showed up at Muhlenberg, he wasted no time.
"Me and 16 kids who had an interest in theater arts put on a production of "Our Town" and it was very well received," Richter says. "That first year was very exciting. I realized very early on that this would work."
Richter also got involved in the Lehigh Valley theater community, becoming artistic director of the Pennsylvania Stage Company, and directing at Guthsville Playhouse.
But to start a theater program, Richter also needed a designer, and he remembered a fellow MFA student at Southern Methodist University who had done costume design for his thesis play.
Richter tapped Curtis Dretsch, who was working as scenic artist with Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.
"I got a phone call," Dretsch recalls."One of the things that interested me about the job is I would get to design my own operations. Plus my friends in New York told me you have to design a show a month to make a living. I naively thought I would be doing less than that."
Like Richter, Dretsch quickly became involved in local theaters.
"In the first year, I was invited to design season for Pennsylvania Stage Company," he says."Between that, the college and a dance theater in Philadelphia I was designing for, I designed 15 shows."
With Dretsch on board, Richter went big, planning to do the splashy Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "Pirates of Penzance."
"That was the start," Richter says.
Dretsch says they threw themselves into big physical over-the-top productions.
"People were surprised they could find that kind of theater in Allentown," Dretsch says.
Thinking of his experiences in summer stock, Richter thought it would be a good idea to start a summer theater program. The first year of the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, they staged three big musicals all perfromed by the same company “ Gilbert and Sullivans "Mikado," the classic operetta "The Student Prince" and Leonard Bernsteins "Candide."
Richter says from the beginning he always "found money to have a full orchestra."
"A live orchestra puts it on a certain level," he says. "We became known for doing consistently high quality work."
Richter adds the acoustics in the Empie Theatre in the Center for the Arts are very good, and for the first 20 years performers never used microphones.
"The collaboration was extraordinary," Dretsch says."It was an exciting time."
He says designing the grand musicals was a welcome challenge.
"The Empie is a greedy space that needs to be filled with lots of stuff," he says. "There was lots of space to explore and lots of opportunity to invent solutions to problems."
Richter says they had good support at Muhlenberg and were given a lot of free reign.
"It was a very fertile ground for developing theater," he says. "We did plays that challenged audiences and challenged students."
Meanwhile Richter also was developing an academic curriculum that he says was "more hands on than most programs."
The program started to develop a national reputation.
"Our musical theater component is very strong and we have a solid background in liberal arts," says Richter. "There is a really solid commitment to academic excellence that is as important as studio training, and both are very high quality."
In 1993, while Richter continued to grow the program, Dretsch moved into administration, encouraged by the then president Arthur Taylor, becoming Dean of the College for Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Dretsch says he had been "burning the candle at muliple ends for so long" it was a welcome break.
He says Taylor "was dynamic and a visionary," and Dretschs background as a designer made him invaluable working with $45-50 million in building projects.
In 1997, Muhlenberg opened the Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance and added a dance program.
When Taylor left in 2002, Dretsch returned to the theater department where he became Director of Design and Technical Theatre.
"Things were realy bubbling over in the theater department," Dretsch says.
Richter says graduates were going on to work in Broadway and television, and coming back to teach.
Both men continued to keep striving for grand productions.
"I always believed in letting my reach exceed my grasp," Dretsch says."I naively set really high goals
and one of the challenges is becoming comfortable with never quite reaching finish line you set for yourself."
He recalls building a fully realized working carousel for the prologue of "Carousel."
"It was rolled off stage after the prologue and the audience never saw it again" he says."Looking back it seemed really self indulgent, but it set the scene for what people expected from the rest of the show.
I was being nurtured enough that I did it over and over again."
He says in 2015, he designed Kurt Weills "Street Scene" which featured a towering cityscape.
"It was the largest piece of scenery ever put on that stage," Dretsch says. "It would have fit on the Metropolitan Opera stage. The Empie stage is 64 feet wide, and the Met is 65 feet wide."
Richter fondly remember collaborating with Allentown native and playwright Jeff Weiss on the play "Spring Awakening" in 1981.
"That was a real high point," Richter says. "He is an artist of extraordinary skills who brought a completely different perspective. Hes a real treasure."
Richter also relished working with composer Charles Strouse on his new musical "An American Tragedy" which was staged at Muhlenberg in 2010.
"I also had wonderful colleagues who were highly skilled artists," Richter says."I was privileged to do the plays I wanted to do. We did some great productions of classic musical theater."
Because of the pandemic, the last musical Richter directed was "Anything Goes" in 2019.
"I was very happy with that production," he says. "I feel I left on a high."
Dretschs last job was helping stage the Muhlenberg commencement at PPL Center in May.
He also donated old models and drawings from his more than 110 designs to the colleges Trexler Library for its archives.
Both men indepenently decided to retire at age 70.
"The world has changed and its time to let younger people take over," says Richter who directed more than 80 productions. "It was great fun being head of the drama department, but at a certain point, you dont have to keep working."
He says he feels confident that the program he started will continue to be successful.
"Our replacements are really interesting artists just like Curt and I were," Richter says. "Exciting things are happening. It will be different but thats fine."
Dretsch says he knew he would know when it was time to retire.
"When the Center of the Arts was built in 1976, it was a big idea, and Charlie and I were lucky to be part of that. Ive been very blessed for a long time. Its time for a reset and there are many talented faculty to reinvent the program."
Richter says he hopes to "kick back and relax, something I didnt do much for 41 years."
But already he is volunteering, driving for Meals on Wheels, doing recruiting work for Muhlenberg and teaching an online seminar in Jewish theater for a Canadian theater.
"Ill be keeping busy," he says.
Dretsch says he wants to go slow and spend some time in his garden.
"I want to stay engaged but dont want to find myself with too many commitments," he says.
However, he hints he would like to get involved in choral music.
"Music was my first love," he says.
But for both, their combined 81 years in Muhlenberg theater left an indelible mark.
"I always got great satisfaction from making theater for the Lehigh Valley," Richter says. "I think it made a difference."