Gully Stanford from Dalkey was supposed to become a professor of classics in
Trinity College like his distinguished father, the late W.B. Stanford. But greasepaint was in his veins and his love of theatre brought him to Denver,
Colorado, where he is now a prominent figure in the biggest performing arts complex in the world.
Now a US citizen, Gully (nickname for William) is also deeply involved in the
Democratic politics of Colorado and has been elected to the state's board of education. But then his father was also a Senator representing Trinity for many years, so politics is in the blood too.
Gully was auditor of the Trinity "Hist" Society in 1967-68 as student revolutions were sweeping Europe and the US. His revolutionary act was to invite the the Archbishop of Dublin, the formidable John Charles McQuaid, to come to
Trinity to defend against an Ulster Protestant his ban on Catholics attending the university. It would have been a marvellous encounter and Gully nearly pulled it off as John Charles thought the invitation was coming from Stanford senior, Professor of Greek, and replied cautiously. Alas, Gully had to declare his cheeky undergraduate colours and received a cold follow-up response from
Drumcondra that John Charles had "nothing to contribute" to such a debate.
Classical studies
The social life in Trinity was hectic in those days and Gully's female acquaintances included undergraduates who were to make their mark later as
President of Ireland and the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
His classical studies MA seemed to place him in the footsteps of his father, but to his parents' surprise he opted for a career in the theatre.
He recalls that his disappointed parents carefully concealed from him that his granduncle on his mother's side, Eudolphus (Dossie) Wright, was the first stage manager of the Abbey Theatre. This pedigree now figures proudly on his CV.
Gully's own stage managing career brought him to Oxford, Paris, Edinburgh,
Toronto, New York ("one disastrous Broadway production") and the Arena theatre in Washington DC.
Exciting expansion
Then he broadened his scope and spent three years in Atlanta as a production manager and administrative director at the Alliance Theatre. In 1981 he moved to
Denver, where the Centre for the Performing Arts was engaged in an exciting expansion programme which has made it one of the biggest in the world.
Earlier in the century there had been 13 theatres along Curtis Street to entertain the burgeoning "cow town", but by the 1970s this was an area of urban neglect. Then, amid acres of parking lots a dazzling arts centre arose under the chairmanship of Donald Sewell, a former second World War secret agent (one of his jobs was to keep General Patton out of trouble), greatly helped by the generosity of the Bonfils family, who owned the Denver Post. Today there are
9,000 seats available in eight theatres, which makes the complex second in capacity only to the Lincoln Centre in New York. And in the variety of venues and programming, Denver is ahead with drama, opera, ballet, video and cabaret all under one roof.
The voice research centre is greatly helping actors and singers, including
Petula Clark (incidentally, it has made a breakthrough in using voice patterns to detect the first signs of Parkinson's disease). Covering four blocks, the centre has panoramic views of the Rocky Mountains and is within walking distance of most downtown venues. Gully Stanford at first worked as managing director of the resident professional theatre company and saw the attendance double to
12,500 subscribers over three years. He toured with the production team of
Quilters, who visited Scotland and Ireland, performing in the 1983 Dublin
Theatre Festival.
Active Democrat
Today he is a vice-president of the Denver centre and the director of public affairs, co-ordinating education outreach, marketing and telecommunications.
This entrails much lobbying at federal, state and local levels for funds to maintain the centre's high standards. As a US citizen he fights as an active
Democratic Party official against the Republican onslaught on federal funding for the arts, especially cuts in funds for the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA).
In a recent article in the centre's magazine, Applause, Gully Stanford records that for the first time in its 18-year-old history the centre has been denied federal funding. The cuts imposed on the NEA by the Republican-
controlled Congress "have gone too deep and threaten the cultural heartbeat of the nation", he writes. Gully is married to Dorothy Denny of New York and they have two children, Emily (10) and John (8). He keeps up contacts with Ireland where his sister Melissa Webb is chairperson of the Rotunda Hospital board and a brother, Philip, lives in Grangecon, Co Wicklow.