Purdue University Fort Wayne’s newest theatrical performance pays tribute to legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

According to retiring director Craig Humphrey, this month’s performance of Sondheim on Sondheim will be the first time the production has been put in in Fort Wayne.

There will be five shows at the university’s Williams Theatre, beginning Friday, Feb. 18, and ending Saturday, Feb. 26.

Since the show got its start in 2010, the cast has grown.

“When it was done originally, it was a cast of eight,” Humphrey told Whatzup. “I thought this was a great opportunity to bring in four community members who I’ve had a relationship with, as this is my swan song.”

He mentioned that bringing in community members gives students the opportunity to work with more “seasoned” people and to learn from them.

Humphrey says he initially chose to do Sondheim on Sondheim because he felt the allure of Sondheim’s works.

“When it came time to choose my show for this season, I thought, ‘Well, I have always been drawn to Sondheim’s works, and I’ve directed many of his shows over the years.’”

Sondheim, the show’s writer, died in November. Now, the director says, the show has taken on new importance.

Added Meaning

“The first thing I thought after I reeled from the news was how appropriate that we were doing the show this winter,” Humphrey said. “It’s our opportunity to honor his greatness.”

A release from the PFW Department of Theatre says, “This live multimedia presentation, filled with over 40 songs, dances, and Sondheim’s own reflections, will be an opportunity for legions of local fans and devotees to pay tribute to one of the most prolific and profound masters of the stage.”

Humphrey says with those reflections, the show becomes kind of a dialogue between Sondheim’s character, the cast, and the audience.

Hard to Say Good-bye

While Humphrey officially retired from the university in May 2020, he has not been able to completely leave the theater department.

Oklahoma!, which was supposed to be his final show, was canceled due to the pandemic. Other pandemic-related delays pushed his final show to 2022. Sondheim on Sondheim will mark the end of a three-decade run for Humphrey at PFW.

After finding his first teaching job at the University of Mississippi and staying about three years, he moved to Indiana. The rest is PFW history.

“And when I came here, honestly, I never thought I would stay as long as I did,” he said. “I thought I’d be here three to five years and move to a bigger market. And things clicked.

“The people I worked with were all terrific,” he added. “And I got to do things here that I wouldn’t have gotten to do in a larger market. It felt comfortable. It was big enough, but not overwhelming. And I liked it here.”

Humphrey appreciates that the department has allowed him to address sensitive topics.

“I love the fact that even though we are in overly conservative Indiana, we never shied away at IPFW or PFW from tackling material that spoke to the human condition,” he said. “Whether it was met with welcoming arms by our audiences or not.”

And during his PFW tenure, he kept himself busy.

“On most of the shows I’ve directed over the years, I’ve also designed or acted in,” he said. “My primary job was (that) I was the resident costume designer.”

Ultimately, Humphrey came to find that directing was an even more delightful pursuit.

“And then I kind of stumbled into directing around the mid-90s, and so every opportunity I had after that I sought out directing because I found that I really enjoyed it more than anything else,” he said.

Big Loss to Department

John O’Connell, dean of the college of Visual and performing arts said Humphrey’s retirement means the department will not only lose a longterm faculty member but also the “institutional memory” Humphrey brought to the table.

“You know, when someone has been here 30 years, they hold a lot of memory about who we are, where we’ve come from, who we’ve been, and that leaves with him,” said O’Connell, who came to the university in 2007. “And that’s a great loss because the Department of Theatre has been in existence since the first day of IPFW in 1964. It (was) one of the first departments. So, he is the last faculty member to retire from the Department of Theatre that has, really, a 20-year, 30-year memory of where we’ve come from.

“So, you know, that’s a loss. And we lose his incredible skills as a director and costume designer,” he added.

O’Connell also noted that Humphrey is an “incredible collaborator as an artist. You know, he comes with an artistic point of view that is both creative and a willingness to get what I call ‘into the sandbox’ and play with us collaborators to come up with (ideas). Especially me as a director, because I directed and he was a costume designer often.”

‘best Part of My Job’

Humphrey’s favorite part about PFW wasn’t in directing or collaborating with fellow faculty members, but in helping students reach their full potential and watching as they excel in mastering their craft.

“I loved working with students,” he said. “I found it so personally rewarding to see their growth, to watch them develop. And there was nothing more exciting than seeing someone come in as a freshman who showed ability and proclivity toward what they were doing. But then to look at them when they left as seniors and see the amazing growth that they had made. And to know that I had been in some way responsible for that was always the best part of my job.”