Alumni Speakers and Debaters
The Ability to "Look an Audience in the Eye"
It happens everywhere, between everyone, and in varying degrees of intensity. It can be seen between Republicans and Democrats on the floor of Congress, between playmates on the playground. It can even be seen between cooks among pots of boiling soup and baking cakes. Yes, that active communication medium we call "debate" is ubiquitous, and Whitman has long served as a prime environment for the development of such discussion and communication.
"Basically my debate skills have contributed to everything I've done in my life," says Bonnie Marolf Genevay, '50. "Debate contributes to having a passion for life and following that passion."
Genevay first developed her formal debate skills as a student at Whitman in 1947-48. "The program was small, and Professor Lloyd Newcomer enticed my debate partner and me into participating. I never liked competition until then, but at Whitman it became very interesting." Under the guidance of Professor Newcomer, Genevay and her debate partner, Carmen Gleiser McCaw, '50, won the 1948 Western States Women's Senior Division Championship held at Stanford University. They competed against Pepperdine, Willamette, Stanford, Linfield, W.S.U., and other schools.
Genevay was intimidated, and she still remembers the drops of sweat trickling down her spine in the final debate with a team of Pepperdine women. "But when we learned we won," she says, "my ego swelled temporarily to enormous proportions. I no longer felt like a hick kid from the backwoods. It was one of the most wonderful times in my life." In fact, it was so exciting that Genevay and Gleiser celebrated by taking off their high heels and stockings and wading in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
What was the key to their success? Hours of research based upon current events, history, and theories of the time and solid debate technique, Genevay explains. "We approached it by being as rational as possible, using all the rules of communication we'd learned, breathing deeply, and looking our opponents in the eye!" These "rules" of communication have served Genevay well in all aspects of her life. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Whitman, she lived in many places across the country where "my communication skills helped me get jobs." She raised three children alone and obtained a master's degree in social work, with an emphasis on gerontology, when she was middle-aged.
Genevay says, "I went back to grad school with fear and trembling. I felt so far behind intellectually." But Genevay need not have feared; her life experience and communication skills gave her an advantage with both projects and term papers. "I loved doing term papers, and Coach Newcomer's insistence on everything having a beginning, a middle, and an end helped me organize both speeches and term papers."
Genevay has spent the past 30 years working in the field of aging. She has written many professional articles and a book, Counter-transference and Older Clients (1990), with Dr. Renee Katz. In 1995 she won the American Society on Aging national award for contributions to the field of aging.
Her debate experience continues to be of advantage: "I learned at Whitman to look an audience in the eye and assess their verbal and non-verbal feedback." Whether she's teaching staff of universities, hospitals, hospices, or retirement centers, Genevay says, "Two-way communication is the key to keeping people engaged and thinking."
Not only have communication skills made Genevay more sensitive to those she teaches and trains, but they have also helped her achieve personal balance. "I've always been a passionate person. Once I'd get an idea in my head I'd go overboard in my enthusiasm and have trouble seeing the other side. In debate, however, you have to present both sides regardless of your biases. This has enabled me to be a more balanced person in life, both in thought and in action."
Genevay feels her time at Whitman has contributed to her ability to live in an ever-changing world. "A liberal arts education gives you the foundation and focus for experiencing life and understanding the world. My comfort in other cultures has to do with a broad-based education."
Genevay continues to lecture, train, write, and consult in gerontology part-time. Although she may not be at a podium debating issues at competitions, she says she will continue throughout life to rely upon her public speaking and debate skills. "All the great speech training which debaters received at Whitman, from many different coaches and eras, sticks like adhesive to the very fiber of our beings," Genevay said at the 1996 Whitman Debate Reunion. "I was terrified at first," Genevay reflects today of her decision to join the Whitman debate team, but ended up "being seduced by debate, and feeling very powerful through exercising the excellent communication skills I learned." Fifty years later, the seduction continues.
Patrick Page, '85 - Still Lighting up the Stage
Patrick Page is a lucky guy. After spending the past two and a half years lighting up stages around the country as Lumiere, the big-hearted candelabra in Disney's traveling Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast, heıs finally taking some time off - to put the finishing touches on a play, give private acting lessons, take some more singing training, and maybe bring his one-man Shakespeare show back to Whitman.
"I don't like being bored," says Page, '85, two-time champion at the American Forensic Association's National Individual Events Tournament, award-winning actor, drama teacher, playwright, and recently retired candelabra.
Page ended his stint as Lumiere in September with two weeks on Broadway. The part had been very rewarding. "It was a great comic role, and no matter what else had happened in my day, I got to go out there at 8:45 every night and make 2,000 people very happy."
Lumiere's other gifts to Page were equally generous. "He'll probably buy me a house, . . . and the role gave me a lot of freedom because it paid well enough that I don't have to find a new one immediately." In addition, says Page, Lumiere allowed him to hone his craft. "Mastery of any art has to do with the repetition and ultimate mastery of very simple and basic techniques. Lumiere gave me something to practice to perfection, eight performances a week for two and a half years."
Page earned a reputation for perfection long before Lumiere entered his life. His Whitman career was marked by success, combining a heavy schedule of participation in forensics and theater. He led the speech and debate program to championships in individual events and played a host of characters culminating in King Lear at Harper Joy Theatre.
"I've done forensics for 25 years and I don't believe I've seen anyone as good as Pat at what he did," says Bob Withycombe, professor of speech. Page was successful because he not only had natural ability - a wonderful voice and presence - he also practiced diligently, says Withycombe. "To do both speech and theater is exhausting, but he did it. I don't know anyone who worked as hard as he did and never got tired of it."
Although Whitman broadened Page's perspective and polished his edges, says Withycombe, he arrived at Whitman with the raw materials to be successful. "We provided a place for him to mature and grow, and he did. He read more, thought more broadly. And the liberal arts was a key factor; he learned to research and write better and was exposed to a new level of intellectual ability. But his skills were his own."
Attending Whitman was a "gut choice," says Page, who came to Whitman after attending the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts, where the sole purpose was to train professional actors. Many of his fellow students there went on to exclusive acting schools, and although Page auditioned for and was accepted at several such schools, "I needed to be
a broader person than just an actor." He began looking at liberal arts colleges. Whitman was the right choice, he says. "I just loved it. I'm very nostalgic. If I could freeze-frame my life, that's where I would do it."
In addition to the fond memories, Page appreciates Whitman for the learning experience. "Education should teach you how to think. Once I can think, I can learn anything. I liked that a lot about Whitman, where the process was learning how to analyze. That's what I do now as an actor and director and teacher I break things down and figure out whatıs going on." Participating in the speech program was a "very big part of what I did at Whitman. It was a golden time."
In the 13 "surprising" years since graduation, Page and his work in theater have been repeatedly recognized. Before his role as Lumiere garnered him rave reviews around the country, Page had earned a solid reputation as a Shakespearean actor in six years as leading actor with the Utah Shakespeare Festival and three seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In major theaters including the Kennedy Center, the New York Shakespeare Festival, SeattleRep, ACT, and the Portland Center Stage, he has played lead roles in both classical and contemporary plays, including the title roles in Hamlet, Richard III, Richard II, Henry V, and MacBeth. His one-man shows, Passionıs Slaves and Nothing Like the Sun, have been performed around the country, and he is the recipient of the prestigious Princess Grace Award in Theatre. In April 1997 he was honored with the Utah Governor's Artist Award, the stateıs highest honor for the creative arts.
Of the many roles Page has played and enjoyed in his career, he says his favorites can be narrowed down to Hamlet, Lumiere ("Just because I played him for so long. . . . it's like an extended love affair"), MacBeth, Richard III, and Ben Jonson. In fact the play that Page has written, Swan Song, is a two-actor play about the friendship between Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. He wrote the Jonson part for himself. "The play has a lot of humor," says Page, "but it deals with serious subject matter. Itıs a redemption story with humor and feeling."
Page also enjoys teaching. In addition to the private lessons he is currently giving in New York, he has taught at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and in various MFA programs. "I love it," he says. "When I was on the road with Beauty and the Beast, a lot of the actors got antsy - probably because they were playing cutlery - and asked me to put together a class for more intense work." Teaching has a beneficial effect on his acting, he says. "I find my technique gets clearer and clearer when I teach because I'm forced to do what I say."
Meanwhile, Page continues to seek someone new "to teach me more about life," he says. "Everybody needs to run into somebody who can see whatıs there. Professor Howells was a real mentor at Whitman, and so were Jack Freimann, Bob Withycombe, George Ball, Nancy Simon. . . . Jack Freimann cast me as King Lear at 24 years old, and I did my thesis on what it was like to play King Lear. I've gotten really lucky. But I also think you need to get as good as you can be and then put yourself in the place where you'll find the luck. You have to take your gifts very seriously. I don't believe in just standing back and waiting for the opportunity."
Page sees his future in more Broadway plays, films, teaching, and directing. Since he is not likely to stand back and wait for opportunities to find him, he no doubt will be lighting up stages for a long time to come.
Reelin' in the Big One
Campus "Radicals" Current and Markoff - Still Friends, Still Colaborating
A typical liberal arts college recruiting brochure might entice prospective students with promises of a broad and rigorous education, excellent faculty, numerous extra-curricular activities, tasty food service, and of course - the chance to make friendships that last a lifetime. While making friends is no new fish in the big liberal arts sea, Whitties seem to have a special knack for reelin' in the big ones. And as alumni David Current, '71, and John Markoff, '71, testify, the big one is comprised not only of lasting friendship, but of an ability to collaborate, to work together.
"Whitman - in a way I can't quite put my finger on - seems to nurture bonds and friendships that aren't typical of what you see at other schools," explained Current. Markoff and Current became friends their junior year when, as the "more radical elements on the student council, we started to do some stuff together." The "stuff" they did together during their college years included an editorial for the Pioneer (when Markoff was editor) regarding the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
"Whitman was pretty conservative," said Markoff. "It was far out of the mainstream from what was happening in the rest of the country." Determined to increase awareness, "David and I both became politically active" and joined about a dozen other "trouble makers" on campus.
In 1968, the nation was becoming increasingly divided over the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. While national issues were indeed a topic of campus debate, Whitman was not exactly the center of student activism.
"We considered ourselves a force for change," Current commented. In addition to organizing and participating in various protests, he and Markoff decided to protest the bombing of Cambodia with the editorial. "I wrote part of it, then John incorporated the parts into a whole piece, then we both went through it again."
Markoff and Current's collaborative efforts did not end with the editorial, nor did they end when Current decided to drop out of school in 1969 to pursue other interests. In addition to working on a project together for the Seattle Public Library in the early 1980s, last summer Current shot photographs as Markoff, a technical writer for the New York Times, interviewed a world-renowned Italian computer chip maker. Current and Markoff were vacationing in Milan, Italy, with their wives - Anne Rutledge and Leslie Terzian-Markoff - when Markoff commented there was a story he'd been wanting to do for a couple of years in Milan. "I said if he needed photographs, I could do them," said Current.
Such a project is nothing new to Markoff. After graduating from Whitman with a sociology degree in 1971 and receiving his master's in 1976 from the University of Oregon, he began his writing career as a freelancer. He worked for such publications as Infoworld Weekly, Byte, and the San Francisco Examiner before signing on at the New York Times in 1988.
"I didn't know it at the time, but Whitman was good preparation," Markoff said. "It gave me a lot of freedom, it allowed me to pursue my interests."
In addition to working for the Times, Markoff lectures at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books including The High Cost of High Tech, Cyberpunk, and Take Down: The Pursuit and Capture of America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw. Take Down, the documentation of a Japanese physicist's successful attempt to track down an Internet fugitive, was made into a movie by Miramax due out this spring. But what Markoff may be the most renowned for, Current said, "is being able to take a technically difficult issue and explain it easily to non-technical people."
Current is not lacking in the prestige department either. As co-owner of CurrentRutledge, a media production company in Seattle, he has produced numerous award-winning shows. After he dropped out of Whitman, Current embarked upon a mentorship with a Walla Walla area photographer and continued to participate in the Whitman community.
An avid war protester, he filed for conscientious objector status in 1971 and moved to Seattle to serve his time as a VISTA volunteer. "Among other jobs, I worked as a photographer for some community projects. At the end of my term, I decided to start a company making slide shows. My first client was the Children's Home Society of Washington, which ran the Blue Mountain Boys Ranch in Walla Walla. While doing some on-site work for that project, I approached Whitman about doing a slide-tape program for recruiting new students." Six years after dropping out, "I'd become Whitman's propagandist," Current explained. "I think it was interesting that the College had the foresight to do a recruitment slide show back when no one else was even considering such a thing."
After graduating with a bachelor of arts in communications from Evergreen State College in 1977, Current founded the company he now owns with his wife, Rutledge. Current and Rutledge work for nonprofit agencies and institutions developing websites, videos, and other electronic media. Their clients include the Ford Foundation, The Suquamish Museum, Georgetown University, and Reed College, and they spend much of their time traveling to conduct interviews and shoot film footage, from Washington, D.C., to Italy to Mozambique.
Despite their busy lives, Markoff and Current make an effort to stay in touch. And after working together on the Pioneer editorial, the Seattle Public Library Project, the Whitman 1971 class reunion, and the recent article in the New York Times, they look forward to future collaborative projects.
It has been many years since Markoff and Current attended Whitman together, but like many
other alumni, they took the Whitman bite, and reeled in the big one - 30 years of friendship.
