Vol. 17, No. 23	March 13, 1998

Staff member's play wins regional festival

The theatre was the farthest thing from his mind when Richard Gaw, housing, was growing up-basketball and baseball were his top priorities. "I wouldn't have been caught dead in a theatre in high school," he said. His first taste of the stage was a lead role in All My Sons during his senior year at Iona College.

As time went on and he moved from Westchester County in New York to Delaware 10 years ago, Gaw became involved in community theatre as an actor and most recently as a playwright. His newest play, Farther, was selected as winner of the Chapel Street Players play festival in January, and it will be performed as an entry in the statewide Delaware One-Act Play Festival, to be held Saturday, March 14, at the Everett Theatre in Middletown.

It's a "triple whammy" for Gaw, he said. Not only did he write the play, he directed it and is a supporting actor. The light comedy is a recollection of an incident in a man's life when he and his boyhood friend learned about life though a "men's" magazine. And yes, he said, it is based on his own experience.

This is a return performance to the festival for Gaw, who was named Best Actor in 1992 for his role as Victor Spinnilli in Lou Gehrig Did Not Die of Cancer.

Gaw's first play, Man at Desk, was performed at the City Theatre Company play festival in Wilmington in 1996. About a man who is involved in the writing process and the "creative muses" who exist in his head, the play was recently filmed at the Bacchus Theatre, using UD student actors. It will be shown on SLTV several times this spring.

A journalism major in college, Gaw first started writing fiction in his early twenties. "I am still learning to write plays, but the best way to learn to write plays is to do it. Play writing is a different kind of medium than fiction. There is no need for description. I 'hear' dialogue in my head and then write it down. At this point, I am more interested in writing plays than in acting in them," he said.

Gaw's avocation as a playwright and his job in housing assignment services dovetail to some degree. He is involved in producing TV commercials, videos, presentations and promotions for campus life in residence halls, and, he said, these call upon his creativity in different ways.

-Sue Swyers Moncure