For Galloway, All the World's a Stage
At the Public Theater in Lewiston, there isn’t much Levi Galloway doesn’t do. As the 300-seat theater’s assistant technical director, Galloway—who graduated from UMF with a major in English and a minor in theatre arts—plays an entire cast of characters, including set builder, lighting wizard, property master, electrician and costume assistant. He even takes to the Public Theater stage now and again to act in the very same sets he builds and lights.
In many ways, Galloway’s life hasn’t changed since he graduated from UMF, where was, as he says, “rampant throughout the theater department.” After transferring from a year at Montana’s University of Great Falls, he was a set carpenter and later shop foreman, as well as president of Theatre UMF. While a student at UMF, he also acted in nearly every main-stage production, including Sandy River Players performances of Cracked Shells and Songbird (both original plays by Jayne Decker, a 1981 graduate of UMF and director of the community theater group that stages plays in UMF’s Alumni Theater).
When Galloway found himself writing and directing his original play Whiskey Dancer (while acting in and designing sets for two different UMF productions) his career path became obvious. “It was easier for me to gain a broad range of theater experience at UMF rather than at a larger school, where drama students usually aren’t given significant stage opportunities until they’re seniors,” he says. “At UMF, I could become involved with every part of the theater program as soon as I arrived.”
After the Public Theater concludes its eight-plays-in-eight-months schedule, Galloway works as a master carpenter with the Peterborough (N.H.) Players, building and maintaining sets for the nine plays staged during the company’s summer season. With dreams of opening his own theater, Galloway relishes any experience he can get with all aspects of theater operation.
“I was once told that the best way to make sure you always have work in theater is to find out how to do everything,” he says. “That way, no matter what company you apply to, you’ll fit in with their scheme.”
-- By Marc Glass, managing editor of the UMF alumni magazine
