Jack Barefield

 

 

Exit Stage Left


Jack Barefield Ph.D., age 91 and Executive Director of NewWorks/Vantage Theatre, passed away 3/12/05. He had been ill on and off since Thanksgiving. He returned to 303 47th Street, as was his wish. He still felt he had more to do! Jack founded NewWorks/Vantage Theatre, a twenty-year-old San Diego nonprofit organization dedicated to bridging the gap between young people and the universal values of dramatic art. It was begun in San Diego in 1984. NEWWORKS originated a program for school children called PLAY BY PLAY designed to introduce them to live theatre attendance and to instruct them in various aspects of dramatic history:


THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYERS, history of the American
Theatre from 1915
THE MIDDLE AGES, story of the first plays
THE MYSTERY OF HAMLET
ANTON CHEKOV & HIS PLAYS
TWELFTH NIGHT, Act Six


...and other titles, all based on the California Social and Arts Frameworks, written for a cast of local actors to perform with sound, lights, and costumes at the Coronado Playhouse and the San Diego Repertory Theatre.


PLAY BY PLAY was an outstanding success and performed for several thousand students It was a featured program during the Russian Festival of The Arts. However transportation by bus for the students to the theatres became too expensive for many schools, NEWWORKS was urged to bring the shows to City and County school campuses for a fee less than the cost of busing.


Barefield met the need of schools for on campus performances by developing six plays to be performed in repertory, each program 40 minutes in length, plays, based on the State Arts and Social Science Frameworks, dramatizing stories of our literary and historic heroes, to be performed by two actors in a classroom or school auditorium with music, props, and in costume. CLASSROOM CLASSICS was an immediate success and enthusiastically received. The San Diego School District’s GATE program accepted it as did many Parent Teacher Associations. Since 1988, hundreds of bookings for $175 each performance were filled. Presentations at schools with no funds for outreach cultural events were given at scores of schools free of charge, sponsored by the Fleet Foundation, Doctor Seuss, San Diego Community Foundation Target and various private and corporate donors.
San Diego’s Arts and Culture Commission has supported the project and NEWWORKS THEATRE every year since 1991. The Commission has designated Classroom Classics as a model outreach program. This year NewWorks/Vantage Theatre received a rating of 4-A rank signifying excellence, usually reserved for larger theatre institutions such as the Globe and Playhouse. NEWWORKS THEATRE became noted amongst school officials for its school projects, and Roosevelt Junior High invited the company to come on campus in its Little Theatre.

 

Dr. Barefield then created a professional company called VANTAGE THEATRE to produce plays for San Diego theatre-goers while NEWWORKS remained the home of PLAY BY PLAY and CLASSROOM CLASSICS.


For three years, Vantage Theatre Vantage presented nine full length plays in the Roosevelt Little Theatre for San Diego’s Theatre-goers, free to students. Vantage provided after school workshops, and apprenticeships for the students to the professional company. The Powerhouse Players was created for Roosevelt Junior students. They performed onstage with the professional company of players, gained experience in stage and lighting design, box office management, publicity and promotion and theater management. The Workshop also produced the Senior Class Plays. Vantage also was placed at Hoover high school and produced two seasons of plays. A theatre company ‘s presence on campus was an innovation that answered a serious cultural need, and provided opportunities for students to participate with professional artists in the maturational experience of dramatic art. A most gratifying result of our presence on two school campuses, was the initiation of a formal dramatic arts program within the curriculum. It should be noted that City Council members, Christine Kehoe and Juan Vargas have provided letters of commendation for VANTAGE and NEWWORKS’ service to San Diego.

All of the actors who worked in Play by Play and Classroom Classics knew how devoted he was to theatre and for the younger generation to be exposed to the arts. Just about every San Diego actor performed at some time in these.


Jack hailed originally from Birmingham Alabama. He was acting, directing and writing plays in high school. He continued his theatrical studies in college. He received his Bachelor of arts from Birmingham Southern College, his masters of fine arts from NYU and his PhD from Florida State. While in college, to earn extra money he worked as a reporter for the Birmingham News. He moved to New York City after college with his sights set on Broadway.
He worked as a publicity man in New York, with Murray Martin Public Relations. In 1965 Catstick, his play about a Southern political candidate and his wife, was produced for Broadway by Elaine Perry, The play was oddly presaged events similar to Bill and Hillary, 20 years later. It was optioned yearly by MGM under the name The Loyal Opposition. He also adapted Virginia Woolf’s The Waves for Broadway producer, Eddie Dowling.
He also loved " mystery radio plays and was the author of numerous radio and TV scripts for national networks. He was an executive for NBC and was in charge of scripts for NBC’s Syndicated Programs Division. He developed, wrote and supervised programs for national syndication. He was a member of NBC’s speaker’s bureau.


He was a friend and confidante of Tennessee Williams He also was a colleague of Gore Vidal and when NBC rejected Mr. Vidal's "Small Planet" Jack stepped in, thought it was fine and sent it elsewhere for him. He was in the stable of "Southern writers "of the most powerful and respected Literary agent at William Morris in New York, Audrey Wood. Ms Wood was also Tennessee William's agent.

He also was an account executive for Mcann Erickson, a powerful ad agency in New York whose clients( Westinghouse, Chrysler, National Biscuit Company), sponsored and underwrote television shows and soap operas He was one of the six original members of the public relations division and also a member of the Creative plans board. It was well known if you were a struggling actor and needed some working hours for your AFTRA health benefits, a plea to Jack Barefield could get you a small part on a soap or two, if you could get in to see him. He tired of being the “Ad Man in the grey flannel suit” and left New York entered the world of academia to become head of the Theatre department for Troy State University (AL) Morehead State (KY) and Pan American University (TX) He had many plays published by Performance Publishing of Illinois, and Bakers ‘s Plays, Boston. Some of his published work include, TwelfthNight,(adaptation)Bottom’s Dream, American Women, an Americanized version of Enemy of The People, An Agent from the IRS (original comedy) And various short stories in University Publications.


In 1982 He then retired to Coronado, San Diego but his love of the arts overcame his need for sun and sand. He started in again in theatre in Coronado, then set up a theatre downtown, then got involved with the schools when he kept seeing a "sea of gray" in theatre seats. He started Vantage and placed us at Roosevelt for 4 seasons, then Hoover. He held speech seminars at Hoover and helped coach a young Vietnamese student in his valedictorian speech. He would create literary scavenger hunts and word games that children adored. During ‘88 ans ’89 Barefield appeared three times each week in his own radio program called SAY IT RIGHT! On KPBS in San Diego which was a precursor to KPBS A Way with Words. He also created a manual on standard American English pronunciation for NAL, New York. He loved words, language and dictionaries. He collected them and actually has a project that he put in his will. He wished to send some material that he developed using the diacritical symbols he developed to Charles Harrison Ulster( an author of pronunciation books).

As founder of New Works/ Vantage, he was the force behind charming and successful The Importance of being Earnest the musical! which was produced three times in San Diego. It was his adaptation, and he found the musician to write the music and encouraged his co- artistic directors Dori Salois and Nanci Hunter to collaborate and produce it. He also designed the system of tracking attendance at Belmont park for the Vantage theatre installation piece ARTERY 2000t He also wrote several plays under the pseudonym Timothy Gerald Ashe. He was a member of the Dramatist Guild, New Dramatist and mentored many local actors, directors and playwrights. He was mentally sharp until the very end

He was working on two books Midnight Motives and Moving Days that are currently under contract to a Literacy agency. He is survived by his sister Irma Sanders of Birmingham Alabama, his niece, Marilyn Prier, nephew Robert Guy and several grand nieces and nephews, the newest one his namesake, Jackson. There will be no service as Jack felt his 90th birthday celebration couldn’t be topped . In lieu of flowers he requested donations for his beloved NewWorks Theatre 1251 West Muirlands Dr, La Jolla, CA 92037
 

 

 

By Jack Williams
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 19, 2005
Jack G. Barefield had been a playwright, network executive, publicist, advertising executive and college professor before he came to San Diego to retire.
"The retirement lasted about five minutes," said Doris Salois, a friend and colleague.
With a compelling desire to share his passion for theater and reach young audiences, Dr. Barefield went back to work. He formed a writers workshop in Coronado. He introduced theater to inner city schools. And he showcased his own productions and new spins on old theatrical themes as part of NewWorks and Vantage Theatre, a company he launched in 1984.
"Jack was first and foremost a playwright," Salois said.
Dr. Barefield died of complications from pneumonia March 12 at his office in southeastern San Diego. He was 91.
"He was involved right to the end," said Salois, one of his co-artistic directors. Mixing memories of his Southern youth with a lively imagination, he had been working on manuscripts for two novels, "Midnight Moves" and "Moving Days" until he died.
To students at Roosevelt Middle School, he was a grandfatherly link to an era of classical theater. With the help of private funding, he presented nine full-length plays free to students.
His efforts included after-school workshops in theater and apprenticeships in his professional Vantage Theatre, and led to the founding of drama departments at Roosevelt High School and Hoover High School.
Under Dr. Barefield's supervision, students at Roosevelt learned stage and lighting design, box office management, theater management and publicity and promotion. They also staged plays based on Agatha Christie mystery novels.
"Jack said, 'These kids are here to enter another world, to have fun, to take on another persona,' " Salois said. "He said, 'We don't need to constantly document what's going on in their lives. That would be the in thing, the PC thing, and we're not going to do it.' "
Dr. Barefield took the same philosophy to Hoover, where he produced two seasons of plays and presented well-received seminars on language arts that emphasized proper pronunciation – one of his hallmarks.
When a Vietnamese student at Hoover came to him for advice on his valedictory speech, Dr. Barefield took him under his wing and assumed the role of a coach.
Dr. Barefield's Classroom Classics program, dramatizing stories of literary icons and historical figures, reached schools throughout San Diego. The district's Gifted And Talented Education program adopted it, and it gained the approval of several parent-teacher associations.
It was gratifying for Dr. Barefield, who perceived a lack of exposure to the arts in a video game and television generation. "He would go to the theater and see patrons who were mostly 50 and above," Salois said. "He believed he could make a difference. He said, 'If we put it out there, they will come.' "
Dr. Barefield seemed to enjoy taking creative risks, as evidenced by his controversial adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" in a musical format.
Despite the initial resistance of Salois and other members of his staff, Dr. Barefield introduced the musical at Roosevelt in 1997 and revived it in 2002 at the Westgate Hotel as a dinner/theater package.
Although reviews were mixed, it proved to be among the most successful shows Dr. Barefield presented with a professional Vantage Theatre cast, Salois said.
A prolific playwright, Dr. Barefield sometimes wrote under the pseudonym of Timothy Gerald Ashe. One of his works, "On Trial for Murder," played to a sold-out New Year's audience at the Inn Suites Hotel on El Cajon Boulevard in the late 1990s.
"I'm not out for any glory," Barefield told The Tribune in 1991. "My name doesn't have to be out there. I've had enough in my life."
Dr. Barefield, a North Park resident in recent years, grew up in Birmingham, Ala.
He wrote, directed and acted in high school plays, then worked his way through Birmingham Southern College as a reporter for The Birmingham News.
With his sights set on Broadway, he moved to New York and earned a master of fine arts degree at New York University. He later earned a doctorate at Florida State University.
Dr. Barefield wrote radio and TV scripts for national networks and administered NBC's Syndicated Programs Division. He also worked in publicity for Murray Martin Public Relations in New York and as an account executive for McCann-Erickson, a New York advertising agency.
Tiring of the advertising world, he returned to his first love, theater. At various times, he directed drama departments at Troy State, Morehead State and Pan American universities.
He retired from Pan American and moved to the San Diego area in 1982.
His published plays included "Catstick," "Bottom's Dream," "American Women," an Americanized version of "Enemy of the People" and the whimsical "An Agent from the IRS."
"Catstick," which was renamed "The Loyal Opposition" when MGM acquired the rights to it, was a play about a Southern political candidate and his wife.
In addition to his theatrical work in San Diego, Dr. Barefield became a volunteer producer for KPBS-FM and appeared on "Say It Right," a scholarly feature that reflected his dedication to eradicate sloppy speech and careless grammar.
He was an avid collector of dictionaries and created a manual on standard English pronunciation for the New American Library in New York.
Survivors include his sister, Irma Sanders of Birmingham, Ala.
No services are scheduled. Donations are suggested to NewWorks Theatre, 303 47th St., San Diego, CA 92102.