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Staff photo by Mark L. Thompson Jim Ackley, here on the set of ‘The Wiz,’ is the drama teacher at E.C. Glass where students say that he is hard, but he gets the job done. He says he’s willing to take chances on the stage. |
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By Molly Roper Jenkins The News & Advance E.C. Glass High School Theater has won more Virginia Theater Association championships than any other school in the state. That level of excellence is not reached overnight — and it is not accomplished alone. Administrators, students and the directors themselves define the secret of Glass’ success as a combination of school system support, parental involvement, talented students and a dedicated director who knows when to lead and when to step behind and push. For the past 19 years, that director has been Jim Ackley. But all four components have been at work since the first curtain went up in the school’s theater. Virginia Wiley was teaching in Covington when, in 1949, Lynchburg City Schools superintendent Paul Munro called her home to teach English at the newly-opening E.C. Glass High School. “And how would you like to direct a play?” he asked her as an aside. “I directed my first year, then I’d figured I’d better learn how to do it,” she said, “so I spent the next three summers with Bob Porterfield at the Barter Theater, learning how to be a director.” Wiley’s comments about the program in those early years still echo today: “I had wonderful children to work with. The program would not have survived without all the parental support,” Wiley said. When Glass principal John Wright called Ackley in 1979, two theater directors had moved through Glass in the years since Wiley’s 1972 retirement. “I was teaching at John Marshall, in Richmond,” Ackley said, “And we were in the middle of ‘Hello, Dolly.’ We had just moved into a new house and my wife had begun a new job. It was not a good time to be considering a change.” Wright waited until “Hello, Dolly” had run, then called Ackley again. |
James Ackley
Who influenced you?
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“I just couldn’t
pass it up,” Ackley said. “‘You build the program
and we’ll give you what you need — I can’t promise
money, but I can promise class loads and full support to build
a top-rate theater program,’ Wright said when we talked.
In 19 years, Lynchburg Public Schools have always stuck to that
promise — to let the program become what it could become.
There has been a lot of trust.” The first years were hard, Ackley said, and the 21 students in his first class were resistant to any changes he tried to make. “That’s not the way we’ve done it before,” was all Ackley heard. Interestingly, the greatest fight came over trying to make the theater program more inclusive. “I wanted to involve kids who were involved in other things, those who understood focus and knew how to budget their time. A kid who wants to do nothing but theater usually doesn’t make it in theater for four years,” Ackley explained. As an experiment, he took his students to the late fall Virginia Theater Association conference “so they could see what others were doing.” They finished second in the state competition. “Success breeds success,” Ackley said. For the holidays, he cast “lots of kids” in Edith Carrington’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol.” “The roles were challenging but not threatening,” Ackley explained. “We always have more boys than my colleagues’ programs — this year more than 50 percent — and they can’t figure out why. You can’t ask teen-age boys to play snowmen and expect them to come back for the next play.” Next, Ackley chose “A Lion in Winter” and recruited football and soccer players. He staged it for theater-in-the-round — with the audience on the stage with the actors — and got a “You can’t do that. It won’t work” response. “”We could — and we did,” Ackley declared. For the spring musical, the director chose “Carnival” and decided to stage it in the gym with the audience sitting on bleachers, as if at a real carnival. Every cast member had to learn a circus act. And that was just the beginning. “After that first year people knew that theater at Glass would never be the same,” Ackley said. “I’d like to think I had a grand scheme, but I really think, looking back, that I was flying by the seat of my pants. I know I was sure that high school theater should be fun — and it always has been.” Ackley doesn’t pretend he’s done it alone. “I’ve tried not to take my work home, but my family support has made an enormous difference. They have spent a lot of hours here — and waiting for me. “The community, too, has been very supportive although there have been plays — “Equus,” “Agnes of God,” “A Chorus Line” — when they said ‘You can’t do that. It won’t work,’ and it always has. “The greatest help has come from the students and their parents. We operate on an annual budget of $65,000, $3,000 of which comes through the school budget. Parents sell program ads and season tickets, they operate concessions. They make outright gifts. We have operated in the black for the last 10 years,” Ackley said. A good part of the success of the program, suggested Deborah Grabeel, former music director at Glass, is “the luxury of choice.” Going back to Ackley’s “success breeds success” explanation, students now vie for the opportunity to participate in Glass theater, Grabeel said. When the directors cast “West Side Story” last year, she said, “111 students auditioned for 40 roles. Students perform better when they know there are three more waiting for the role you have.” Also contributing to the program’s success, Grabeel said, is Ackley’s ability to mobilize people, particularly the parents. He also holds parents to the same standards he sets for their children. “If you’re going to commit, you’d better produce,” she said with a laugh. Earlier, Ackley had commented that he rarely “covers” for a student. Learning the consequences of failing to do your part is an important dimension of the program, he said. “If you don’t sell the tickets, you’ll be playing to an empty house,” he said he tells them. Ackley is an asset both to the school and to the community, said Glass principal Susan Morrison. “Glass theater offers students opportunities to work in an environment like no other in the high school experience,” she said. “Jim challenges, helps students find a niche and develop skills many didn’t know they had. The proof of the community’s support is measured in its attendance as well as its financial support.” “My job is to instill a love of theater and to prepare those who want to move on,” Ackley said. Measured by those criteria, Ackley is an unquestioned success. Dozens of his students are now working in the fine arts: graduate Perry Payne is in an off-Broadway revue, Spence White is in commercials, Connie Womack is a regular on television’s “Spin City,” Hope Harris is working on a musical about the Civil War. The list goes on. “Mr. Ackley is a great director,” said Brian Horner, a senior in his fourth year with Ackley. “He’s the toughest guy at the school, but he gets the job done. He knows what his students are capable of and pushes us to give our best. “But even when he’s pushing you, he makes you feel like family. And when the show is over, he’s the first one backstage with his arms open.” |