On With the Show -- Pat Chmel is Retiring after 31 Years
If a Broadway show enjoyed a marvelously successful three-decade run before closing, you could imagine the celebration and fanfare that would surely follow the final curtain.
Alas, the curtain is falling on Patrick Chmel’s career at Rider, and his popular 31-year run was celebrated by a cast of hundreds inside the Bart Luedeke Center Cavalla Room on Friday, April 3. There were spirited performances and standing ovations, not to mention an artistically decorated cake directing, “On with the Show!” The chair of the Department of Fine Arts for the past 26 years, as well as associate dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts, Chmel will retire from the Westminster College of the Arts at the end of the academic year.
Though regarded as the consummate director by his students and colleagues, Chmel would take none of the credit for a production that he said was beyond his imagination. “What a send off!” he declared of his retirement celebration after a weekend of reflection. “In my wildest narcissistic fantasy, what happened there surpassed it by at least two-fold! I’ve had calls from other faculty members who were there, asking if they can retire from Fine Arts, too.”
Students whose days at Rider spanned Chmel’s entire career returned to honor their mentor with performances, while current students and faculty affectionately ribbed him through a series of musical skits. Phyllis Frakt, retired provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, was also on hand to pay tribute to her friend. “It’s been a career of steady applause and constant ovations,” she said. “So, as you head into retirement, Pat, let me say as they do in the theater – break a leg!”
Dr. Jerry Rife, who has been appointed to chair the department following Chmel’s departure, called Chmel “the perfect role model for the faculty he hired.
“He is a confidant, adviser and mentor, and a voice of reason on the most blustery days,” Rife continued.
President Mordechai Rozanski praised Chmel for his “leadership skills and tenacity” as the department chair and quipped that he is “convinced Pat has a halo linked to his name at the Princeton Packet because of the consistently good reviews” that accompany his productions.
Chmel’s influence in the growth of the performing arts at Rider is demonstrable, but he could have just as easily pursued another career altogether – and planned to. As an undergraduate, he enrolled at Bemidji State University in Minnesota on an athletics scholarship. “My goal was to become a gymnastics coach,” he recalled, but added that “I changed my major about four times” before settling on English Literature and Theater.
“While I was there, I tried out for a play on a dare – and remember, I was kind of a jock,” Chmel said. “I was cast, and immediately became attracted to the ‘theater geeks’ and eccentrics. That’s where I’ve stayed.”
After receiving a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, Chmel landed a job on Broadway, working in the management side of the business. Chmel came to Rider in 1978. “That was a valuable experience for me, but not how I wanted to spend my life,” he said. “I already had a passion for theater on this level and that was about working with students and in education.”
Chmel recalls being pulled aside by someone not long after beginning at Rider who tried to discourage his ambitious plans. “He said, ‘I see what you and your colleagues are trying to do, but I think it’ll be helpful to you to know from the start that Rider will never focus on the arts, so you can relax,’” he recalled, clearly enjoying the irony. “If you compare that statement to what is happening on the Lawrenceville campus, the contrast is remarkable.”
In particular, Chmel cited three transformational moments leading from that moment to today. “Bart Luedeke green-lighting the full-tuition acting scholarship became the foundation of the entire program,” he said. “That really shows how invested Rider is in the theater program. We award two scholarships per year, and I initially had some fear that it might keep non-scholarship students away. Instead, the school became a magnet for really good talent whether they were on scholarship or not.”
In addition, Chmel credited John Spitznagel ’63 as someone who “became our benefactor by transforming our old theater into the Yvonne Theater, and the old studio theater into the Spitz Theater,” and said that the development of the Westminster College of the Arts, under the leadership of Dean Robert Annis, is just the latest coup in the evolution of the arts at Rider.
“It works just like it does in athletics,” said Chmel, reaching into his past experiences. “The more successful you are, the better the talent you attract. It builds on itself.”
Chmel is awed by the changes he’s seen beyond his own department as well. “The past five or six years, I have been totally amazed at what Mort and company have accomplished with regard to the look of the University,” he said in reference to Rozanski and his staff. Chmel has helped spread the word, too, to an effective end. “My best friend from southern Colorado’s daughter will be a freshman here in the fall,” he said, noting that she will not be a performing arts student. “I always push Rider to people from out of state – especially if they are actors!”
This fall, Chmel will still be visible on campus, as he intends to teach as an adjunct – “I want to keep doing what I love to do,” he explained – and will also increase his involvement with a number of charity organizations he favors. “My wife, Nancy, informs me that I’ll also be painting the house,” he said, “so I guess it’ll be just like the old saying: retire and be busier than ever.”
