Joe Lauderdale retiring as playhouse youth director

Tom Titus

Over the past 17 years, one of the busiest, most energetic figures at

the Laguna Playhouse has been its youth theater director, Joe

Lauderdale. That presence will be gone after the current season.

Lauderdale, who has produced 66 youth-oriented productions for the

playhouse and directed 48 of them, is retiring, having earned a

collection of prestigious awards along the way.

Not only has Lauderdale functioned as producer and director for

nearly two decades, he’s also written adaptations of six works for

the stage -- “Little Women,” “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” “The

Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “Cut,” “Festival of Myths” and “The Summer

of the Swans,” an acclaimed stage version of Betsy Byars’ Newberry

Medal-winning book.

“As an artist, manager, teacher, collaborator and writer, Joe has

proven again and again that he is one of the great overachievers in

our field,” declared Richard Stein, the playhouse’s executive

director.

“Certainly no other figure in the region has attracted the same

attention and respect for the quality of his work in youth theater as

Joe,” Stein added. “He will be greatly missed.”

Lauderdale, who earned degrees from Oklahoma City University and

Arizona State University, spent two years as the theater’s education

director before taking the youth director’s post in 1990. He’s been

credited with building the Laguna Playhouse into what is widely

regarded as the region’s foremost theater for young audiences.

This season, the four-production Youth Theater will have played to

an audience of over 12,000 theatergoers, over 85% of the playhouse’s

capacity. He’s inspired enthusiastic volunteer leadership among the

parents of his students, who raise funds annually to support the

youth drama program.

Lauderdale’s career-defining moment came in 2001 when he was named

“youth theater director of the year” by the American Alliance for

Theater and Education. This accolade honors an individual for

outstanding achievement as a director in a youth theater “who serves

as a model of excellence and innovation” at a theater in which some,

or all, of the performers are young people.

Before he heads off into the sunset, Lauderdale has one more

project before him. He’ll direct the Youth Theater production of

“Sarah, Plain and Tall,” the Joseph Robinette adaptation of Patricia

MacLachlan’s Newberry Medal-winning book about a pioneer family in

Kansas. That show will play May 6 to 15.