Five-time Tony Award-winning choreographer Susan Stroman received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from the University in an October ceremony attended by faculty, staff, alumni and friends.

"We celebrate all those who perform and create, and we also congratulate the rest of us who help make up an appreciative audience," UD President David P. Roselle said at a reception and dinner for Stroman, a 1976 UD graduate.

The event followed a visit to Morris Library, a meeting with students in UD's Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) and a hardhat tour of the Center for the Arts construction site at Amstel Avenue and Orchard Road. Roselle told those gathered for the dinner that Stroman had earlier made a major gift to the Center for the Arts and said, "Susan, we are deeply grateful for your assistance."

For Stroman, the event served as a personal homecoming and an example of the University's commitment to the performing and creative arts.

"My time here as a student was a wonderful time, and I love being here now," she said. "The time I spent here today walking around the campus is the highlight of my year."

She expressed her appreciation for the construction of the Center for the Arts in an era of reduced budgets for the arts and the closing of many theatres nationwide.

"In New York City, when you walk past a theatre that is dark, it feels like a death," Stroman said. "So, to actually be at the site of an arts center and see a theatre being born was very emotional. It gave me the chills." The Center for the Arts, she said, will serve and inspire future generations of students to achieve their dreams in the realm of music, dance and theatre.

In presenting the honorary degree, P. Coleman Townsend, a member of the University Board of Trustees, praised Stroman as "one of musical theatre's greatest treasures, one of Delaware's most celebrated citizens and one of the University of Delaware's most distinguished graduates."

Past recipients of the honorary degree include artist Jamie Wyeth, documentary film director Ken Burns, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and former President George H.W. Bush.

Townsend cited some of Stroman's career highlights, including her Broadway debut as choreographer for Crazy for You, in which she worked with her late husband, producer and director Mike Ockrent. Stroman won her first Tony for choreography for that show and a second Tony for the revival of Show Boat. Further stage triumphs included Trevor Nunn's revival of Oklahoma! and the hit revival of The Music Man.

"Then, the blockbuster collaboration with Mel Brooks—The Producers, for which you won a Tony Award for best director and best choreography; Drama Desk Award for outstanding director of a musical and outstanding choreography; Outer Critics' Circle Award for best choreography and best director; and Astaire Award for best choreographer," Townsend said. He also recalled Stroman's induction into the alumni Wall of Fame in 1993 and her return to UD as a Winter Commencement speaker in 1994.

"In your Commencement address to our students, you said, 'There is great truth in imagination,'" Townsend said. "For your many professional achievements and for your gift of imagination, we salute you and present you with the University's highest honor, the honorary degree, doctor of humane letters."

"I am so honored to be here tonight, and I can't thank you enough," Stroman said. "Art nurtures the soul, and that is how you find yourself. That is the way education works."

After the degree presentation, a short clip from the new movie version of The Producers, directed by Stroman and scheduled for release in mid-December, was shown. The evening was capped by performances of monologues by PTTP students.

Earlier in the day, Stroman met with 26 PTTP students for a question-and-answer session. She told them about the first time she met Brooks, who wrote and directed the original 1968 movie The Producers and then produced the 2001 Broadway musical version of it, when he worked with Stroman.

"He launched into 'That Face' a song from the second act of The Producers," she told the students. "Then, he danced past me around the room and ended up on the sofa. When he finished the song, he said, 'Hello, I'm Mel Brooks.'"

Stroman told students she grew up "in a house that was always filled with music" and that she attended dance classes "all of my life." She became involved in community theatre, choreographing and directing, and shortly after she graduated from UD, she applied for a dancing job in New York City.

"They picked one non-Equity card girl, and I was it," she said.

She worked as a singer/dancer after that, she said, "but you can't have a split focus in the theatre. You have to be one thing or the other, so I chose dance."

Her first big break came when she was hired to choreograph the off-Broadway revival of Flora the Red Menace, Stroman said. Her work was seen by producer/director Hal Prince, who hired her to direct the dance sequences for his New York City Opera production of Don Giovanni. She got her first break on Broadway when she was hired to choreograph Crazy for You.

"I've had shows that have run and shows that haven't, and even though some weren't financial successes, they were creative successes. I've taken a piece of each show and carried it with me," she said.

Stroman said her career hasn't been hampered by others telling her what she can't do, even in a medium that's new to her like movies. "Brooks has let me have free rein," she said of The Producers, her first film. "He really believes in me; he's become my impresario."

When asked if she has plans to direct more films, she said that she's been approached to make the 2000 Tony Award-winning dance play Contact: The Musical, which she developed and directed with John Weidman, into a movie.

Another student asked what she looks for when she hires an actor. "I look for people who are fearless, who want to jump into the pool with me. It's wonderful to work with actors who will take chances," she said. "Even though Uma Thurman [in the movie version of The Producers] was not a singer or dancer, she wasn't afraid of being lifted off a desk or sliding across a room."

Stroman told them when she's involved with a play or trying to come up with an idea for one, she does research. "If I'm doing Crazy for You, I do research about the 1930s. For Showboat, I tried to find out what society was like then," she said. Students asked about the differences between working on plays and film.

"You never feel the pressure of costs in theatre, but you do when you're making a movie," she said. "There's more camaraderie in theatre; you are all in it together. But in film, you work with the shooting crew, then they're gone. You work with the editing crew, and they're gone. In theatre, you invest in relationships, in the team; it's so heartfelt. Film is a more technical medium."

In answer to another question, Stroman said she's never doubted her choice of career.

"I can only do this," she said. "I can only be in the theatre. I go to plays all the time. I'm inspired by the actors I see and the stories that I feel."        

    —Jerry Rhodes, AS '04 and Barbara Garrison