When Lew Klein started working in broadcasting, television was not yet a household word. After a career that has run the gamut, Klein has donated his papers to Temple Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center. Margery Sly, director of the SCRC, said many of the 10,000 items would be digitized and posted online. Klein and his wife worked closely with Temple archivists for about two years to gather the material.
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During the Arden Theatre Company’s recent run of Clybourne Park, the 2nd Street venue could have been renamed “Temple Theaters South.”
The show, which ran from Jan. 26 to March 25, was directed by Assistant Professor Ed Sobel and starred Associate Professor David Ingram; Josh Tower, THEA ’95, and former theater student Maggie Lakis.
Watch the SCT-ers involved in the production talk about performing in Philadelphia and how the Theater Department prepares its students for the professional world.
Video by Ryan Geffert
Clybourne Park footage courtesy of Jorge Cousineau and Arden Theatre Company
One image from Lew Klein's archive shows him with President Lyndon Johnson (L).
The Klein collection is a vast study of the television industry in the 20th century.
It’s episodes of the landmark television show “American Bandstand” and “This is Your Life.” It’s photographs of entertainers and athletes.
And now, it’s a permanent resource in Temple University Libraries.
Temple celebrated the donation to the Special Collections Research Center and honored Lew and Janet Klein at an April 10 ceremony. Lew Klein, an adjunct professor in Temple’s School of Communications and Theater for 59 years, is chair of the school’s Board of Visitors.
“Primary sources are a true learning tool within a university,” said Provost Richard Englert. “It is the raw material upon which our students and scholars shape their discoveries.”
The material has been in the Klein’s house for years, in cartons in the basement, in drawers and in files marked “etc.” The papers consist of photographs, newspaper articles, pamphlets, letters, scrapbooks, brochures, videos, periodicals and other recorded and printed materials.
“Lew always felt that the papers… of his activities were souvenirs that he wanted to keep,” Janet Klein said.
In total, Lew Klein said that 23 cartons have been donated. “Janet tells me that we have lots more at home, so we’ll be adding to the collection.”
At the ceremony, he spoke briefly about his early days in the television industry, when there were only 3,000 television sets in Philadelphia. One of his first jobs was to produce a commercial for Dutch Boy paint with marionettes, a job that paid $5 a week.
(L-R): Lew and Janet Klein with Carol Lang, interim dean of University Libraries. (photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg/Temple University)
“We’re honored that Lew and Janet have entrusted their legacy to Temple,” said Carol Lang, interim dean of University Libraries. “The materials are a great complement to Temple’s strengths in documenting the cultural, social, economic and physical development of our region.”
Lew Klein has made an indelible mark on the television industry. In the 1950s, as programming director for the six Triangle Group stations, Klein served as executive producer of the landmark program “American Bandstand” at WFIL-TV. In 1970, he co-founded Gateway Communications, which owned four TV stations, and served as Gateway’s president from 1983 to 1993.
Klein is respected by the Temple community and media professionals for his ability to motivate and inspire those around him. Many of the careers of top television professionals across the country have been launched by his wise mentorship.
image courtesy Philadelphia Inquirer
Former SCT Professor John B. Roberts passed away March 8, 2012. He was 94.
A Temple professor from 1946 to 1988, Professor Roberts helped to found WRTI-FM in 1953.
Born in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., he was the son of the late John & Evelyn (Buckley) Roberts. Professor Roberts was a Navy veteran, having worked as a Navy broadcaster during World War II.
He was the founder of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, which inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1996 and named him Person of the Year in 1987.
Throughout his teaching career, Professor Roberts inspired countless students to pursue careers in communications and is one of the reasons SCT has found such success. Hear from a few people who benefited from knowing him:
Jaclyn Adler, RTF ’73. “You gave so much to so many, and as for me, I carry and apply the knowledge you shared each day.”
Paul Gluck, JOUR ’76, BTMM associate professor. “John Roberts set a near perfect example for those of us who were practicing journalists and then entered the academic world. He was an erudite and urbane presence here at Temple SCT, who offered insight and reassurance to students as an educator and served as an aspirational model for media professionals.”
Len Guercio, RTF ’83, SCT film lab coordinator. “I enrolled in his RTF 101 Communications Theory class and fell under his tutorial thrall. John Roberts was the consummate communications professional and professor. His classes were very well-organized, the information he imparted was systematized into logical, digestible components, and his radio and TV war stories—while sometimes seemingly tangential to the matter being discussed—always ultimately underscored the main points of the day’s lesson.”
William Johnson, WRTI station manager. “It’s doubtful he could have ever foreseen the 14-station network that now broadcasts in high-definition, serving hundreds of thousands of listeners each week in the Greater Philadelphia region. What he did see, though, was the need for students to have a practical application for the theory they were learning in the classroom, and the power of radio to reach and serve people in a way no other medium could achieve. Generations and thousands of students later, WRTI continues Roberts’ legacy of service to our community and excellence in broadcasting in what is now the age of digital media.”
Jim McCraw, JOUR ’66. “Professor Roberts tried to convince me to switch from print to radio, but I didn’t listen. Shame on me. A great guy who lived a long and wonderful life teaching kids like me.”
Dan Taylor, RTF ’79. “[He was] a top-notch professor. [I] learned a lot from him not only about the business, but how to be a professional.”
Many Temple students, including Sydney Daviston-Atkins (L) and Julia Basak, attended recording sessions in Annenberg Hall to lend their voices to the chorus of "Fukkatsu no Uta." (by Ryan S. Brandenberg/Temple University)
As the world marks the first anniversary of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of northeastern Japan and sparked a crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, BTMM Associate Professor Jack Klotz offers up a message of hope, as well as a way the world can support those still suffering from the disaster.
With the assistance of many volunteers, including Temple alumni, staff and students, as well as music industry professionals in Philadelphia and Toyko, Klotz, the director of the department’s recording industry concentration, has produced “Fukkatsu no Uta” or “The Song of Rising.”
Watch his story here:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Watch a music video of the song with an English translation of the lyrics. The video was created by SCT senior web developer Naoko Masuda and Tyler School of Art student Natsumi Kitano.
To make a gift to the Temple University Japan Relief Fund, which was set up to help those most impacted by the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami, click this button:
All of those who make a gift to this fund will receive an e-mail with directions to download “Fukkatsu no Uta.”
Gordon Gray, a former chair of the Radio/Television/Film Department passed away Oct. 25. He was 87.
Gray joined the School of Communications and Theater faculty in 1967.
“When Gordon came to Temple, he led a department that had built a strong regional reputation under the leadership of Prof. John Roberts,” says former SCT Dean Robert Smith. “Gordon attracted some of the most widely respected senior people in the field.”
The department’s growth under Gray’s watch was immense. According to a quote on the WRTI website, Gray said it grew from 100 undergraduate students to 1,200.
“Our students get a lot of hands-on hardware experience, but knowing how to use the equipment is not all. The camera and the microphone are to RTF students as paint and brushes are to an art student,” Gray was quoted as saying in a Temple University press release.
Lew Klein, an adjunct professor at Temple for 59 years, recalls some of Gray’s accomplishments.
“I believe that Gordon Gray’s success with the development of the RTF Department it attributable to his astute selection of a great faculty and his ‘real world’ approach to the courses offered to the fast-growing student body,” he says. “The years he spent as chair coincided with an explosion of interest in communications and especially broadcasting.”
Under his watch, Klein adds, the RTF saw a heightened sense of congeniality among the faculty and its students. He recalls fondly the faculty-student softball games Gray organized, “of course won by the student teams.”
Klein says his talent and personality will be remembered forever. “Gordon had a golden voice and a heart of gold to go with it.”
It started with a simple observation.
Peter Reynolds, assistant professor of theater, heard how his students discussed sexuality — in all its forms –with one another. They were conversations that he never experienced when he was in college.
“I sensed a difference in their attitude toward queerness,” he says.
The conversations were open and not enveloped by social stigma. It was a phenomenon that Reynolds wanted to explore creatively.
He teamed up with Associate Professor Scott Gratson, STRC, and together, they received a seed grant from Temple’s Office of the Provost to create a play about today’s young LGBT community.
The result is que[e]ry, which was featured April 29 at the Equality Forum, a global LGBT summit held in Philadelphia each year, in Gershman Hall, 401 S. Broad St. It ran on campus from March 13 to 15.
Reynolds, who directed the show, cast an ensemble of 21 students with no script and only a perception of what the resulting show would be, which he says was equally exciting and horrifying. Over the next four months, the ensemble members shared their own stories and interviewed others to create the script from scratch.
“What I found out was that there is just as much hatred, bigotry and violence as when I was in school,” he says.
The show consists of more than a dozen vignettes based on real-life experiences. None of the actors tell their own stories – Reynolds says the rehearsal process revealed that the scenes were more powerful when approached from the outside as an actor. All of the pieces were anonymously submitted by students and performed by other students in the ensemble.
Calvin Atkinson, a junior theater major, says the rehearsal process was unlike any other he experienced.
“The first time I saw [the piece I wrote], it was really strange,” he says. The actor went a different direction than what Atkinson truly had experienced. While at first taken aback, he soon was comforted by the separation of the piece from true life. “It’s not necessarily about my exact feelings being transferred to the stage,” he says. “But it keeps my story alive.”
On the opposite side, Atkinson says the first time he performed a piece he knew someone in the room had written was intimidating; he hoped he did it justice. “My monologue was a very true experience. It was so specific and had a strong character,” he says.
While some of the stories touch on dark issues, the students made sure to include a lot of humor into the show.
“We didn’t want it to be The Laramie Project,” says Cody Long, a religion major in the ensemble. “This is not a pity party about bullying or about hate crimes. We do make mistakes and have a variety of experiences that aren’t all bad.”
Julia Freeman, a sophomore majoring in theater and Spanish, calls que[e]ry one of the most collaborative efforts in which she has ever played a part. “Every single person involved in the production was more involved with the greater good of the production rather than the greater good of their career,” she says. “This was our baby.”
When parts of the script weren’t working as a fluid aspect of the show, cuts were made and no one left with injured egos.
Gratson says the stage is a powerful tool to deliver the messages behind que[e]ry.
“Theater provides a platform for audiences to see [this] narrative brought to life,” Gratson says. “Also, theater allows for students to emerge as true citizen artists, giving voice to an important and growing movement in the United States. That voice, especially when coupled with the multimediated motifs that we included, really is accentuated through theater.”
It’s not just the audiences that have learned lessons from que[e]ry.
“I learned that I never cease to be amazed at the ability of our students. The students involved in this production came to the piece from throughout the university. They had a chance to not only work with other students from fields that were atypical of their usual studies but got to learn about an important part of human identity,” Gratson says. “The complexity of that identity and the dedication that our students have to better understand it — that was a lesson well-learned. Coupled with their drive toward achieving true inclusion and understanding of the queer community, this really became an amazing experience.”
Watch ensemble member Craig Bazan discuss the show on The 10! Show
Canyonlands, a new film by Associate Professor Roderick Coover, FMA, MMC, will be featured at the University of Arizona symposium, Hidden Cinema of the Southwest and Mexico on Feb. 25, and at the Bisbee Central School Project on Feb. 27. The film examines environmental issues the American West and the legacy of provocative writer Edward Abbey.
The Philadelphia Public Relations Society of America posted a Valentine’s Day blog sharing why some of its members “heart” public relations, including Assistant Professor Gregg Feistman and Meredith Avakian, JPRA ’06.
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Greg Osberg discusses his plans for philly.com.
Journalism students and faculty members in the School of Communications and Theater are constantly trying to peer into the future of their trade to determine how to best prepare for what lies ahead.
They’re in good company. Greg Osberg, the new publisher and CEO of Philadelphia Media Network, which consists of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and philly.com, is doing the same thing.
Osberg was welcomed to Temple University Nov. 2 by the Philadelphia Initiative for Journalistic Innovation (PhIJI), a program sponsored by the Journalism Department.
On his official first day on the job Oct. 11 (he was hired by the ownership group approximately a year prior to that), Osberg was greeted with several staggering figures. In recent years, the company has lost 25 percent of its circulation, 50 percent of its advertising revenue and 90 percent of its profitability.
“I knew on day one that we had some big challenges,” he said.
Osberg has set the bar high for improvement. His goal is to evolve Philadelphia Media Network into “the most successful regional media company in the United States.”
What makes his objective even more challenging is that there is no proven business model to follow – it has to be created from scratch.
Osberg has already made some significant changes. He no longer wants philly.com to be viewed as a separate entity from the print products. The philly.com staff has moved back into the company’s main office and advertising representatives have been charged with selling ads across both platforms. In the newsroom, reporters are being encouraged to think about reporting for both the web and the newspaper. Osberg said he plans on providing reporters the tools to write and submit their stories from the field.
In January, the company will begin an “incubator” program in which they will house a start-up media company (rent-free) whose product can benefit the website.
“I want us to find the next Foursquare and house them at philly.com,” he said.
Greg Osberg speaks one-on-one with a student following his presentation.
Osberg also wants to establish content-sharing relationships with other media companies across the region to increase its suburban coverage and forge strong ties with the region’s business and academic communities.
It is the students’ generation, Osberg said, that has sparked the need to overhaul the media industry. But it’s also this next generation of journalists who will help get the industry back on its feet. In the future, the company’s reporters will focus on long-form investigative journalism and bringing the local angle on national stories to their readers.
“We don’t know the new editorial mission [of the newspapers] yet, but I can guarantee you that it is going to be different than today,” Osberg said.
Osberg started his career at Chilton Publishing Co. and then moved on to a trade publication before assuming leadership positions at Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report and Buzzwire. He advised students to take any position in the industry they’re offered. “Don’t get discouraged with the brand that you start in. Just get your foot in the door.”
He also encouraged the students to continuously broaden their skill sets: “I wouldn’t advise being a specialist in today’s world.” For under Osberg’s plan, reporters with diverse skills will be the ones who find the most success.