EDITOR'S NOTE: This story originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of GCU Magazine.
When theatre director and professor Claude Pensis arrived at Grand Canyon College from Wisconsin in September 1982, wearing a wool suit in the Arizona heat, it was just two weeks before the academic year started.
The recent University of Wisconsin-Madison master’s graduate, known for lighting design, had one mission: to light a show.
What he couldn’t predict was that he would be lending his light as the only faculty member to an entire theatre program, one that’s celebrating the 50th anniversary of its home: Ethington Memorial Little Theatre.
“I came from secular universities, so this was a beacon of light,” Pensis said. “It was a bright and hot light, but it was a place that I had not experienced before. It was where I felt I needed to be.”
Originally constructed as a recital hall in 1973 and dedicated in 1974, Ethington Theatre was built in memory of Peter and Anna Ethington, who were heavily involved with the college. After they passed away, their family gifted $325,000 to construct a home for the arts.
Pensis walked into that home eight years after its dedication, greeted by bright pink walls and curtains that hung where doors should have been.
“The theatre was really just a room in the beginning, and when I first came, it was a one-man department,” said Pensis, who did sets, lights, costumes, directed and taught. “ . . . It was tiny back then, but small does not mean ineffective or unimportant.”
Initially, the Ethington space was used for all the arts: band rehearsals, choir performances, recitals and even faculty meetings.
But one by one, the other arts migrated to different locations so Ethington could become what it was meant to be: a theatre.
It started modestly, with close to 25 lights, 15 dimmers and no sound system.
“Back in our day, we shouted,” Pensis said.
Michael Kary, who was one of Pensis’ students before he became a Grand Canyon theatre professor in 2010, said, “You would simply do everything.”
Kary recalls one of his first shows, “The Pirates of Penzance,” in which one of the actors doubled as a lighting designer.
“Between the scenes, he would have to run over to the bank of plugs,” Kary said. “He would be unplugging and plugging in so many things and then would just go back to sing and dance. He was acting, designing and ‘electrician-ing.’ ”
That flurry of activity wasn’t always the case at Ethington.
The college, which became Grand Canyon University in 1989, was on the verge of bankruptcy by 2004, and the arts program was shuttered, leaving the Ethington stage dark from 2006-2010.
Pensis knew one of the people he wanted to hire the year the stage lights were turned back on was scenic designer William Symington, who worked with Pensis at Sedona Shakespeare and at Arizona State University when Ethington Theatre was closed.
The most memorable show Symington worked on was during his first year at GCU. It was a production of Aristophanes’ “The Frogs,” and Pensis decided to do the show in the campus swimming pool, which was where the Student Advising Services Building is now on the Promenade.
“The university closed the pool for a month while we worked on it and rehearsed,” said Symington, now the college’s assistant dean of theatre and dance. “Actors would be in the water fully costumed and would keep warm backstage in the built-in hot tubs that were there at the time.”
Actors had to shout to be heard over passing airplanes.
“It was the first and last time I had to wear board shorts and hold my breath to work on a set,” said Symington, who counts post-World War II drama “All My Sons” and Holocaust drama “Who Will Carry the Word?” as his favorite shows to work on at Ethington.
Theatre professor Joanie Colson, a 1988 GCU alumna who also has been teaching in the department for 15 years, has seen the significant changes in the program, including the enrollment, which went from three students when she studied theatre education in 1984 to more than 100 theatre majors anticipated for 2024-25.
After receiving a call from a friend about attending Grand Canyon College, Colson knew she had to at least visit the school.
“I told her, I can’t afford Grand Canyon,” Colson said. “The next day I got a phone call from the head of the department to go in. I sang for him, he sent me over to Ethington to talk to Claude Pensis, and I got a scholarship.”
Kary said of his GCU undergraduate years, “I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life when I came to college. That first year was really instrumental because I auditioned for the next play that came along and didn’t stop. I left with over 20 plays under my belt, which is an incredible thing for someone in the undergraduate level.
“It paved a path for me into the professional realm of theatre.”
Ethington has been a second home to Pensis, Symington, Colson and Kary since their arrival.
They have devotedly built the theatre program, which they estimate has produced nearly 250 shows in Ethington, a space equipped these days with close to 250 lights, more than 100 dimmers and new sound boards.
The 2024-25 season will add six shows, including “The Glass Menagerie,” “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “Beauty and the Beast” on the Ethington stage and its little sister stage, the Black Box Theatre.
“Going forward, I hope we can keep our foundation strong in the shows we choose to do,” Colson said. “The community and the world are changing. What they expect to see is so different from what we do here. It would be very easy for us to conform, but I am hoping we don’t. Our goal is to keep good, ethical theatre that sticks to our Christian foundation in the next 50 years to come.”
***
More Ethington history
- Concept design: Started in 1971 with Weaver & Drover on Central Avenue. The design was completed in 1972 by Drover, Welch and Lindlan Architects (now DWL Architects + Planners). The original concept, though not realized, included a music wing connected to the theatre by a colonnade to the west. An amphitheatre also was envisioned to the northwest, where Global Credit Union Arena and the Quad are now.
- Construction: Completed in 1973, though not in time for the fall production. Theatre students made do in Fleming (now the Lope Shop). The drama department’s home at the time was Antelope Gymnasium.
- Description: It’s shaped like a quarter circle with its outer arc forming the lobby and the vertex the backstage. The theatre came equipped with an orchestra pit and trap door for special effects.
- Dedicated: In 1974, during GCU’s silver anniversary
- First play to be performed: “Candida” in spring 1974, followed by “If A Man Answers” later that fall.
- Seats: Around 330
***
Related content:
GCU News: Ethington's season opener computes with math, science, romance
GCU News: From beasts to menageries, GCU theatre to stage something for everyone
GCU News: GCU's Ethington Theatre dressed up for 2023-24 season
