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BARBARA L. FREDRICKSENBill Devlin had planned for a life onstage, but after World War II, he turned to writing and later directing.
Bill Devlin's life seemed on a straight path ahead back in the early 1940s. Fresh out of school, living in New York and actively involved in a traveling theater troupe, he was sure his was to be a life on the stage.
Then . . .
"I was drafted," he said with a slight shrug.
Instead of joining Equity, he joined the Army Air Forces - and emerged disabled.
"I couldn't see myself on the stage with crutches or a cane, so I went into writing," he said.
For the next three decades, he wrote short plays for radio, interviewed artists and actors for a series of shows for a CBS affiliate in Vermont, wrote a "couple of dozen" full-length plays for the stage, wrote for television, and held down a series of jobs to fill in the blanks when the writing wasn't paying the bills.
"One time, I had eight jobs in one year," Devlin said with a laugh.
Now, at 88, Devlin is still going strong, directing a play he wrote 20 years ago, Mrs. Giorgio's Day Off, at the Forum at Stage West Community Playhouse. (See story, this page.)
The play is based on an idea suggested by a close relative and fleshed out with the help of professional actor Pat Karpen.
It's the fourth time Devlin has directed one of his own creations at Stage West. Earlier, he did two of his short plays for membership meetings and a longer one, The Marathon Widow, for the public.
He has done much more for Stage West, directing five dramas and one comedy. That comedy, Move Over, Mrs. Markham, won him best director honors at the HAMI awards in 1996.
Devlin hopes to do more directing in the future, and he's hoping one of the shows will be his favorite, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, a show in which he once played the lead role.
"I would like to do it here," he said, only this time, he would direct instead of act. "I have in mind several actors who would be good in it: Vince Vanni, John Masterson, some others."
Devlin saw Lee J. Cobb do Loman on Broadway.
"I was in theater class, and we all went to see him do it," he said.
His teacher was legendary actor/director/instructor Lee Strasberg at the American Theatre Wing in New York.
"I had saved my money and was going to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts," Devlin said.
But then World War II came along, and that went out the door.
Devlin has also played Doc in Come Back, Little Sheba and Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, roles that he relished.
How does Devlin describe his directing style?
"I am pretty calm most of the time," he said. "There were times when I was doing a show and I would rant and rave, but that's not the way to do it."
He paused.
"I quit the other night," he said. Then he brightened, and those eyes twinkled again.
"But I came back."