‘It all goes back to what I learned from Howard and Althea’: Donor John Reese ’62 honors legendary theatre professors with Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall green room
For John Reese ’62, the green room of the old Phi Beta Kappa Hall — and of the recently completed Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall — will always lovingly be known as the “Dragon’s Lair.”
It was there that Reese, as a William & Mary undergraduate, could always count on hearing the unfiltered and unquestionably incisive thoughts of his “wonderful director,” Howard M. Scammon ’34, professor of theatre (1948-1976) and chair of the department at multiple points. After giving Reese a dressing-down over youthful misjudgments that led him to miss a weekend rehearsal, Scammon earned the affectionate moniker of “the Dragon.” And nowhere was the Dragon more likely to be awakened, and to foster his students’ growth, than in the green room.
Now, thanks to Reese’s generous gift to the Phi Beta Kappa Hall Enhancement and Maintenance Fund, the green room will officially be named in honor of Scammon and another instructor who “influenced [his] life dramatically”: Althea Hunt, professor of English and fine arts (1926-1961), a groundbreaking woman who came to the university in 1926 as the first director of W&M Theatre.
In the more than six decades since his graduation from W&M, Reese has built a career in theatre. He earned master’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University (1967) and Temple University (1982), worked for a season at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C., served for over a decade as a high school theatre teacher and director for Fairfax County Public Schools and directed the theatre program at Deerfield Academy, a private secondary school in Massachusetts, for 27 years, from 1984 until his retirement in 2011.
To Reese, the roots of this impressive string of accomplishments are clear: “It all goes back to what I learned from Howard and Althea.”
As Reese recalled, he felt Scammon’s and Hunt’s influence even before he enrolled. Born in Norfolk, he had the privilege of traveling with his high school theatre class to see three W&M Theatre productions, all featuring future star of stage and screen Linda Lavin ’59. The first, in 1956, was As You Like It, performed in the George Preston Blow Gymnasium (now Blow Hall) while the old Phi Beta Kappa Hall was still under construction. This play was Reese’s initial introduction both to Shakespeare and to Scammon, who was filling in as the lead character Jaques. In 1957, Reese attended PBK Hall’s first ever production, Romeo and Juliet. And in 1958, he returned once more for The Matchmaker, which he said “rates now as the most flawless production of anything I’ve ever seen. It was unbelievable.”
When Reese enrolled at W&M that fall, the first member of his family to attend college since his great-grandfather, he immediately gravitated toward the theatre, landing a four-line role in Jean Giraudoux’s satirical play The Madwoman of Chaillot.
He still remembers sitting on the floor of the PBK Hall green room during that production, in the presence of student actors who had inspired him on stage during his high school field trips, and thinking, “I have died and gone to heaven. I was the luckiest freshman in the world, ever.”
The green room quickly became one of the most important places on campus for Reese. In that space, he received his director’s pre-show notes and post-performance feedback for every play in which he acted as a student. More importantly, he formed bonds with Hunt and Scammon that would last for decades.
By the time Reese arrived at the university, Hunt had retired from directing for health reasons but was still teaching. In her acting course, which Reese called “an institution,” Hunt recognized his talent as an actor and pushed him to work harder, both on campus and in intimate classes held over tea and cookies at her nearby home. Even after leaving the faculty, Hunt attended every W&M Theatre production and offered her candid — and always valuable — notes to the cast. “She was a wonderful teacher,” Reese said.
In the theatre itself, Reese worked more closely with Scammon, whom he revered, not only as an instructor and director, but also as a mentor who was always prepared to lend an ear or offer career advice.
The two men’s relationship endured well beyond Reese’s graduation. Scammon served as assistant director and later director for summer productions of Paul Green’s The Common Glory at the Martha Wren Briggs Amphitheatre at Lake Matoaka for 27 seasons, in 11 of which Reese acted, even after he had started teaching in Fairfax County. Reese and his colleagues, including the likes of Goldie Hawn and Glenn Close ’74, D.A. ’89, H.F. ’19, performed seven days a week — The Common Glory for six days and Shakespeare plays on Sundays.
Reese and Scammon grew quite close through their many years of creative collaboration. Scammon kept in regular contact with his former student’s parents and often accompanied them when they paid their son a visit. And when Reese got married in the Wren Building in 1966, Scammon was one of his groomsmen. “He was like one of the family,” Reese said.
Reese credits the W&M Theatre Program with helping him cultivate many of the skills he has used throughout his career. As a student, he had opportunities not only to act, but also to usher, to work backstage in set decoration and to serve as an assistant director. Perhaps most vital of all, though, were the lessons Scammon, Hunt and other faculty members taught him about resilience in the face of professional and artistic challenges. The knowledge and fortitude he gained at W&M equipped him to build school theatre programs from the ground up on two separate occasions, first in Fairfax County and later at Deerfield Academy.
“What I did at William & Mary prepared me beautifully,” Reese said. “I feel so fortunate to have worked with the inspirational faculty.”
Now, he is excited for the state-of-the-art facilities of the new Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall, including the Hunt-Scammon Green Room, to provide W&M students with advantages he could not have imagined in his own undergraduate years.
According to Gerald Bullock M.Ed. ’97, executive director of development for Arts & Sciences, Reese’s donation will help to enhance student and faculty programming experiences by supporting purchases of equipment, instrumentation, scene shop supplies, lighting and more. These contributions to facilities for the arts at W&M will supplement the contributions of the Sumner G. Rand Jr. Foundation, which offers free tickets, conference funding and performance ensemble travel expenses for students. The donation will also broaden the impact of Reese’s past support for the Department of Theatre & Performance through the John H. Reese Theatre Award, granted to outstanding junior and senior theatre majors since 2020.
“More than a third of our students are involved in the performing arts, so it’s not just the majors” who will benefit from the impact of gifts like Reese’s, Bullock explained. “That’s one of the beauties of William & Mary: a liberal arts education experience.” Thanks to donors like Reese, those experiences will continue to expand into the second century of the Theatre Program, which celebrates its hundredth anniversary in 2026.
“The naming of the Hunt-Scammon Green Room is a fitting tribute to Howard Scammon and Althea Hunt, whose mentorship shaped generations of artists, including John Reese,” said Holly Maples, professor of theatre and chair of the Department of Theatre & Performance. “Their dedication to fostering creativity, discipline, and resilience remains an enduring part of our program’s legacy. We’re proud to honor their contributions as we continue to prepare students to excel both on and off the stage.”
Reese looks forward to visiting W&M soon and seeing the newly unveiled Arts Quarter for the first time. While there, he will have the opportunity to meet students, get acquainted with the current faculty, take in a show and, of course, enter the new incarnation of the Dragon’s Lair.
As Reese recalled, his son Christopher once asked him whether he ever tired of returning to his alma mater.
“No!” he replied. “It revives me.”
