Jim Ackley

How did you get your start in theater?

I think I got my interest in theater from my mom, who was an English drama major and teacher. My dad was an athlete who coached basketball, so theater was definitely not something he was involved in himself. At the time we moved to Lynchburg in 1957, there was a children's theater on Rivermont Avenue, and I grew up performing there. It was a terrific program with one show after another, and a really great way to hang out with friends and do something fun. The first show I did was the Wizard of Oz. I didn't even know how to audition, so the director just told my mom that I should just read from a book. So I took the book I was reading, read out loud, and ended up with the role of the Tin Man. 

 

I also did one of the earliest shows at the new Lynchburg Fine Arts Center on Thompson Drive when I was maybe twelve years old. It was Critic's Choice in 1963. The Fine Arts Center had a really great program specifically for older kids and teenagers. E.C. Glass was the only theater program in the area for that age group, but it wasn't what it eventually became. The large auditorium was actually separate from the school because it was the Lynchburg Civic Auditorium and was used mostly for community events. In order for the high school to do a show there, they were only allotted two weeks per show (including rehearsal time). So the Fine Arts Center actually had more opportunities for teenagers than the high school at the time. We had great directors there who were very encouraging and provided many of the stepping stones that I used for my own directing later in life. 

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Did these early experiences lead you into a theatrical career?

No! It was always just a hobby, but it kept finding its way back to me over the years. After high school, I attended Virginia Military Institute and majored in English because it's what I did best. While there, a couple of friends and I had an idea. We realized with all the activities available for students, they didn't really have anything theater-related. We went to our favorite professor and asked him if we could start a theater on campus, and he agreed to be our sponsor. So we started the VMI Theater and I'm proud to say it just celebrated its 50th Anniversary. 

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After VMI, I moved to Winchester to work as a reporter and entertainment editor at a newspaper. While there, the Winchester Parks and Rec Department approached me about starting a summer outdoor theater  in the park. The park had an ampitheater that wasn't being used, so I thought it would be fun and give me something to do while my kids were young that was more relaxing that the newspaper. We had kids auditioning from all over and did shows such as Hello, Dolly! and Romeo & Juliet. It was here that I really started directing more and realized how much I enjoyed being on that side of the stage. 

 

How did you transition from journalism to teaching?

Growing up, my dad always struggled with keeping his family life and work life balanced. I was determined that my family would always take precedence over my job. The newspaper was becoming more demanding and I saw it starting to invade my home life. So my wife and I decided to move to Richmond so I could attend Virginia Commonwealth University and get my teaching degree. I loved this time and met some amazing teachers. I did my student teaching at John Marshall High School in Richmond, which was also an unbelievable experience and resulted in a full-time position upon receiving my teaching license. My very first year teaching happened to be the last year of the current drama teacher, Pearl Jackson, who was retiring. She and I spent that year working together and I took on the drama program after she left. I took a group of kids to a Virginia theater festival to compete, which was John Marshall's first time attending. And you know what? We won! It was such a morale boost and invigorated that program.​

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When did you come back to Lynchburg?

After teaching for four years at John Marshall, I received a call from Dr. John Wright, the principal at E.C. Glass. After graduating, I hadn't really paid much attention to Glass, so I had no idea what had been happening there while I was gone. Dr. Wright told me that the drama program was a mess; they had been through four teachers in nine years. The current teacher was not going to be returning the following year. Dr. Wright reached out and offered me the job over the phone. I thought to myelf, "This isn't how this works - I haven't even applied for anything." I told him I was flattered but very happy at my current job. He said he wanted the Glass drama program to be the best program possible, the superintendent was backing that goal, and money for the program would be no issue. 

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All that sounded great, but it was still a very difficult decision to leave John Marshall. Furthermore my wife was close to finishing her Bachelor's degree, plus we had just built a house in Richmond. But Dr. Wright was persistent based on how well the program at John Marshall was going. Trophies and awards are important to schools, and we had been winning a lot of drama awards and theater students were winning scholarships as well. Even though I was hesitant, I drove to Lynchburg and met with the superintendent and Dr. Wright, who both reiterated everything I was told. Before I left, I signed the contract. It was spontaneous, I hadn't even decided it with my wife, and I was in a panic driving home. Thankfully she was supportive (after some begging), and I started teaching at E.C. Glass in 1980.

 

Tell us about some of your experiences with Glass Theater.

When I started at Glass, some students were pretty resistant to me; I'm sure some blamed me for the previous teacher leaving. But I wanted to build the program regardless, which is what I had been charged with doing when I was hired. I formulated a vision for doing three shows instead of two, which is what prior teachers had done. I also said we were going to do at least one musical per year, instead of every other year like previously. As part of building that program, I needed to get more students involved. So I spent the first few years attending every athletic event and getting my face and name out there. I was seen not only by students, but also their parents. I would also go out in the hall between classes and greet students, giving high fives, whatever. Frankly, I was marketing myself and the program. This was very important, and continues to be, with growing a theater.

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For example, early on, we decided to do A Christmas Carol. For the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, I cast a student who was very intense and probably couldn't play many roles, but he was excellent as Scrooge. And for the role of Bob Cratchit, I actually decided to go unconventional: I recruited one of the most popular athletes in the school. I figured if he is that good at sports, he probably likes the spotlight and would be willing to take a chance on stage. I just saw him in the hallway and told him I'd love for him to audition for the role, and I told him Bob Cratchit was the lead - I didn't have to say anything else! And with him came more atheletes, and more students who wouldn't have normally performed in theater or even attended a show. That show was so much fun, we had a real blast. But again, it all came down to marketing and really thinking outside the box. 

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In addition, I also decided to start bring Glass to the Virginia Theater Association (VTA) festivals. I chose a one act show called I Never Saw Another Butterfly, which had quite a few roles for a one act. So I started wandering the halls and talking with kids I saw to convince them to audition, kids who hadn't shown any specific interest in theater otherwise. I also had to audition some male students who weren't used to auditioning. Since there weren't many boys in theater at the school, they never auditioned and were just cast in roles. With the show cast, we go to Richmond for VTA and the kids were nervous wrecks, but their nerves made them perform even better. That being said, we drove home after performing and participating in a few workshops. But that evening, just as we arrived back in Lynchburg, I get a call telling us that we needed to be back the next day beause Glass had won second place. Glass Theater was quickly and successfully gaining credibility.

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Did you do any community theater while teaching at Glass?

Not a lot. I was in Oliver! at the Fine Arts Center. I played Bill Sykes, Jim Myers was Fagin. I thought it was important for the students to see me on stage so I could hopefully show them I knew what I was talking about when I directed. But I was so busy with Glass theater that I really didn't have a lot of time for community theater at the time, so my work there was few and far between during those years.​

 

One of Lynchburg's iconic locations is the E.C. Glass auditorium. Can you tell us a bit about working in that setting?

Because the theater was actually built as the Lynchburg civic auditorium, it's purpose was primarily intended for the city's use. When I began teaching, the common practice previously was for the drama program to sign up for the auditorium's use for only one show per year. For my first year, I didn't have the time or knowledge to sign up for the auditorium's use for our spring musical, plus I was too busy to really prioritize it. Well, January roles around and I have to figure out what to do. It was suggested to me that we have our musical in the gym, which I couldn't visualize at first. But we decided to do Carnival, which takes place at the circus. The gym ended up being a perfect setting and it was a great show. We had sword swallowers, fire eaters, one girl held a cobra, and we even had trapeze artists. Even more kids got involved after that because it looked like so much fun. But I knew we couldn't do every show in the gym, so the following year we had to make some changes to our auditorium use.​

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One of the biggest challenges with the large auditorium was having a good tech director. We had a couple guys who could run lights for events and assemblies, but nothing too complicated. I was doing a lot of the set building myself, but this became so difficult because I was also directing five shows a year and supervising student-directed productions. At one point, we finally got another drama teacher because it was too much for me to teach all the courses and do all the shows, but we were still lacking in a real tech director. It took a long time for the administration to see the need for this position, which they eventually created and called the Auditorium Manager. I was so passionate about this position that I wrote the job description and started looking for someone myself.

 

As Lynchburg citizens know, this is a huge space with a lot of elements to it. Not just anyone can tech direct; it takes someone knowledgeable, dedicated, and creative to make it work. I wrote to every college tech program in Virginia to find someone. I heard from Wake Forest and they told me they had a recent graduate who wasn't a theater major but was an elementary education major and was teaching fifth grade. However, he participated in theater tech while at Wake Forest and came recommended. He came up, I thought he'd be great, and he signed the contract. He was fantastic and set a high bar for future tech directors.​​

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After many years at Glass, you retired in 2013. What happened next?

One of the first shows I did after retiring was Avenue Q at Randolph College. It was a really fun show with a talented case, and it was something I couldn't have done at Glass. But theater grinded to a halt soon after. In December 2014, I had a pretty massive stroke. I remember nothing from the actual event, but I've been told that they were preparing for me not to survive it. By the grace of God, I did survive and made a nearly full recovery, though it took a bit of work and therapy. I still have minor balance issues and my memory isn't as great as it once was. But once I recovered enough, I waded back into theater at the community level.

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I directed A Raisin in the Sun in 2017 at the Academy of Fine Arts. Through that show, I got to work with some of excellent Lynchburg talents including Lynda Gentry and Jennifer Petticolas. After that, I was asked to direct a show at Renaissance Theatre when it was still at the blackbox location on Commerce Street. I was so used to Glass theater that I would sit in that setting as an audience member trying to visualize how I could direct a show there. They wanted to do something a bit more challenging and pushing the envelope, so we did The Laramie Project, which is about the Laramie, Wyoming community's response to the murder of Matthew Shepard. It happened to be the twentieth anniversary of his death, so the timing was very good and it ended up being a great show. 

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I really didn't know many people in the theater community outside of Glass for years. I knew Mark Foreman, and I really enjoyed our conversations and any chance I could work with him. We finally did when I directed Follies at the Academy in 2019. He was so easy to work with and I learned a lot about the various theaters and people involved through him. I continued making connections with others and directed Kiss Me Kate at Renaissance in 2022. I would love to continue directing around the Lynchburg area if the opportunities arise. 

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Let's do a few rapid fire questions. Favorite show directed?

A Chorus Line. I loved the content and how the audience gets to see behind the curtain. 

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Most challenging show directed?

That's a really difficult question. The Wiz stands out because we did that show soon after the movie came out, so there were a lot of comparisons and people complaining if we did anything different from the movie. But I'm thankful in how I haven't had many bad direting experiences or challenges that I wouldn't want to repeat. There are many shows I didn't really care for, but the experiences were still okay.

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Any embarrassing stage stories?

Oh I have a fun one involving Tom Harris, who took over Glass Theater when I retired. We were doing Rainmaker and Tom was acting in it. He and another student had a scene where Tom had to slap this student. We rehearsed it over and over and got it down pat. Come the performance, Tom went ahead and actually slapped the student. He got him so hard that the student started bleeding from his nose. That student walked off the set quickly, except he didn't just walk offstage; he walked through a window. Tom had to do a three minute monologue to kill time while we tried to get the actor recovered to go back onstage. Instead, we sent another cast member out to finish the scene. It's definitely a memory I hope I never forget.

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Dream show to direct?

I've directed over 160 shows, so there aren't many I haven't done. Come From Away would be a great experience and I would love to direct it somewhere when it's available. 

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What is special about community theater?

Bringing people together in the theater itself is community. It's also something you can grow with. It's like rec softball: people can play it as the grow older and why shouldn't they? It's something they love and enjoy doing. Community theater also isn't exclusionary, or at least isn't supposed to be. It becomes an issue when it becomes equity only and thus becomes exclusive, but community theater that is open for anyone and everyone to participate is so special and there's such a great need for it. There is and always will be a need for it, and Lynchburg is a wonderful city for this theater scene.