"Today, I Get to Brag About You"

Dr. Barbara Gitenstein
President
The College of New Jersey

I am honored to be able to say a few words about Donald Evans.  We at The College of New Jersey were blessed to have his wisdom, humor, creativity, and grace as an integral part of our community for 30 years.  A great professor, an inspired playwright, and the kind of citizen of a community that makes others proud to be in that community, Don Evans founded theatre groups, worked at regional theatres across the country, wrote plays, advised college presidents (both formally and informally), taught students to be good writers and to be aware of the power and meaning of difference.  He was recognized by peers and admirers as one of the leading voices in African-American theatre and he was loved by his students – and those students included those who learned from him in the classroom, those who learned from him on the stage, and those of us who learned from him as we strolled across a college campus. 

His role as teacher brings to mind the words of the contemporary poet, May Miller, who was celebrating the significance of the poet Robert Hayden to the African-American poets who followed him.  She writes of Hayden that:

He extended to truths

he believed abide

and called to comrades,

those faltering in the run

(the hopeless and the doomed)

and to those who, gifted,

lighted their flares

at his larger flame.

He had known them all,

. . .

while tracking the path

to a high green garden

where honor etches

a crystalline goal:

love of all mankind and art.

I join the others in the room who would acknowledge the important ways in which we have lighted our flares by Don’s larger flame.  I also join those of us in the room who will be honest enough to admit that Don was there to call to us when we faltered.  For all of us, I say “thank you.”

But good as he was, Don really was terrible at one thing – personal aggrandizement.  I can’t tell you how many times I pressed him to send me information on his recent successes and recognitions.  One of the pleasant tasks of my job is to brag on the work of an excellent faculty.  But I can’t say what I do not know.  I could never get one single tidbit of professional accolade from Don.  He was always very gracious when I asked to help and he always promised to send me details.  He always promised, but he simply never did it.  Just a little information on let’s say, the 1998 summit at Dartmouth where Don joined Pulitzer prize-winning playwright August Wilson to discuss the state of African-American drama, or his 18 plays which have been produced locally and nationally (indeed recently in Louisville, Kentucky and currently in Chicago), his leadership in the National Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts and the Black Theatre Network, his stint as Guest Artist at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, or his various fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, from the New Jersey Council on the Arts and from the New Jersey Historical Society. 

But you see, Don, I found this stuff out anyway.  And because I know, today I get to brag about you. 

For The College of New Jersey, my deepest condolences to the entire Evans family.  We will miss Don terribly, but his impact on the campus is such that he will never be forgotten at The College of New Jersey.

______________________________

Remarks delivered at the memorial service, October 24, 2003.