Obituary of Stephen W. Gray-Lewis

Dr. Stephen W. Gray-Lewis Olean, NY--Dr. Stephen W. Gray-Lewis, associate professor of English and theater at St. Bonaventure University and a resident of Olean for over forty years, died of lung cancer on June 16, 2006. He was 75. “Doc,” as he was known to his students, came to St. Bonaventure University in 1965 with degrees in English Literature and Theater from Brown and the University of Wisconsin. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Gray-Lewis had worked as a translator for U.S. army intelligence, and as an editor for !McGraw/Hill. He also spent time as an aspiring actor in New York City. Shortly after joining SBU’s English Department, Dr. Gray-Lewis began directing student theater with a production of A Man for All Seasons staged in the upstairs room of the university clubhouse. He continued to direct shows featuring students, faculty, staff and their families until his retirement from SBU in 2003. In all he staged over 100 productions at St. Bonaventure in the clubhouse, the Reilly Center, Butler Hall, the Quick Center for the Arts, and in the Garret Theater, his beloved home away from home. His many university productions included Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Richard III, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice; musicals by Gershwin, Porter, Bernstein, and Gilbert and Sullivan; classic plays by Ibsen, Shaw, Pirandello, Sophocles, Miller, Feydeau, Williams, and Coward; and challenging contemporary works such as How I Learned to Drive and This Is Our Youth. He was instrumental in preserving theater study and performance at SBU. During his nearly forty years at SBU, Dr. Gray-Lewis taught classes in both English and Visual and Performing Arts, including acting, directing, stagecraft, playwriting, and theater history. His Shakespeare courses, which included dramatic readings from the lectern of some of the Bard’s great soliloquies, were very popular with students. Dr. Gray-Lewis also taught courses in English composition, dramatic literature, and Renaissance literature. He participated in St Bonaventure University’s Oxford program; was a member of the university’s Devereux Society; contributed a chapter to a book on teaching gifted children; and he was one of the editors of Cithara, the English Department’s scholarly journal. He served on the original planning committee for the Quick Center for the Arts, and directed the first play produced on the Rigas Family Theater stage: a theater alumni performance of The Play’s the Thing. In 2000, SBU dedicated the green room of the renovated Garret Theater in his name, and in 2003 Dr. Gray-Lewis was awarded the first honorary membership given by SBU’s chapter of Alpha Psi Omega, the national theater honor society. In addition to his theater work at SBU, Dr. Gray-Lewis directed plays by Shakespeare and others for the Olean Theater Workshop, and appeared on stage in community productions and at the Sterling Renaissance Festival. In the summer of 2005 he directed the popular community production of Romeo and Juliet in Olean’s Oak Hill Park. He was preparing to direct the summer ’06 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the time of his death. At leisure, Dr. Gray-Lewis was an avid reader of mystery novels, biographies, and cookbooks. He was an accomplished cook, and often served gourmet meals to friends, students and visiting alumni and their families. He enjoyed traveling to attend theater in New York, London, and wherever his alumni were performing. He was a supporter of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, WNED-TV and Classical 94.5. Dr. Gray-Lewis’s wit, graciousness, intelligence and his enthusiasm for drama and theater earned him the respect and friendship of SBU faculty and staff. He was responsible for inspiring many toward careers in education and the performing arts, and imparting life-long appreciation for literature and theater to generations of students. A gathering in memory of Dr. Gray-Lewis will be held in the Fall.