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Obituary: Mark E. Lewis, Goal was to present everyone with opportunity to appreciate arts
Monday, February 08, 1999 By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Mark E. Lewis, an acting teacher, theater director and administrator, was as good at staging a play as saving a stage.
A native of Turtle Creek, Mr. Lewis knew the difference between "A Chorus Line" and the bottom line, helping found the Pittsburgh Ballet and the American Conservatory theaters, now based in San Francisco, and overseeing development of Point Park College's department of fine, applied and performing arts from 1968 through 1986.
However, his finest achievement might have been keeping the house lights lit at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and its acting school when, on several occasions, financial problems threatened to dim them forever.
"The fact that the Playhouse still exists, is still around as a working theater, is a tribute to Mark. When it went down for the second or third time, he was able to convince Point Park of its desirability," said Lane Merrill, retired fine arts director at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pa., and a former associate director of the Playhouse.
Mr. Lewis, 79, of Mt. Lebanon, died Saturday evening at the Marian Manor nursing home in Green Tree from complications after a series of strokes.
His accomplishments encompass many areas of Pittsburgh's arts scene, from stopping the wrecking ball at the Playhouse on Craft Avenue in Oakland to his work with hundreds of young actors.
"Mark Lewis was a huge influence and an enormous help to me and my wife and hundreds of others at the Playhouse," said Don Wadsworth, head of the voice and speech training in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama.
"He was generous to young talent and made sure they could get into the school and get training whatever their financial problems were. He trained hundreds of people - actors, designers, future audiences - through his part-time and full-time drama school."
After serving in the U.S. Army's 12th Armored Division and volunteering for the Army Air Corps during World War II, he enrolled in Carnegie Mellon's drama department, graduating in 1951. He received his master's degree in education from Stanford University a year later.
He spent a year at the Potomac Playhouse in Washington, D.C., then returned to Pittsburgh and took a job in promotions at the Pittsburgh Playhouse before moving to a teaching position there. He became the school's director in 1955 and developed a respected dance program.
In 1957, Mr. Lewis, seeking to make use of the Playhouse during the summer off-season for stage productions, started the popular Playhouse film program, which provided the only Pittsburgh area screenings for many acclaimed foreign and off-beat films and continued until 1973, when the Playhouse closed for the first time. The film series was revived when the Playhouse reopened in 1978.
In 1959, he married Mary Elizabeth Kane, an actress from Squirrel Hill, whom he had met while they attended Carnegie Mellon and started dating while she was a student at the Playhouse drama school.
In 1967, Mr. Lewis and Nicholas Petrov, who moved to Pittsburgh from Paris, formed the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater.
With the Playhouse in financial trouble in 1968, Mr. Lewis convinced Point Park College to take over its operation as part of its fine arts program and was hired as program director. Besides overseeing the staging of plays and continuing children's acting classes on Saturdays and after school, he expanded Point Park's fine arts two-year curriculum into a four-year program. Its reputation expanded exponentially.
"My father had the patience to listen and a head for business in a business that is often impatient and not always businesslike," said Mary Anne Lewis, a daughter who lives in Pittsburgh. "He also had a sense of humor and sense of compassion and a great respect for creativity and talent."
She said her father's main goal "was to give everyone in the community the opportunity to learn and appreciate the arts."
In 1976, he brought Jose Ferrer to Pittsburgh for a two-month run of the play "The Interview." In 1978, Mr. Lewis booked the band Talking Heads at the Playhouse for its first performance in the United States.
In the 1980s, he developed the Playhouse's student theater company and professional company. He retired as director of the Point Park performing arts department in 1986 but continued to teach acting as a professor emeritus until 1990.
"He had so much devotion, drive and energy," said Carole Berger, Mr. Lewis' executive administrative assistant at Point Park.
"He loved that Playhouse, loved everything about it, from the kids to the theater majors. He was always there for everybody and always at the college and the theater."
In 1991, he was elected president of South Arts, an umbrella group for South Hills artists and art leagues.
Besides his wife and daughter Mary Anne, a weekend talk show host on KDKA radio, Mr. Lewis is survived by another daughter, Therese Lewis of Alexandria, Va.; a son, Mark Jr.; two brothers, Kenneth of Spencer, W.Va., and Darrell of Pittsburgh; and two grandchildren.
Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m., today and tomorrow at Laughlin Funeral Home, 222 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon. Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Bernard Church, 311 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon.
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