Graduating students will have a chance to shine brightly for their family and friends on Dec. 16 when they accept their diplomas.
Uta Hagen, also a beam of inspiration, will speak at Penn State's fall commencement ceremony at 1 p.m. in the Bryce Jordan Center, where she will receive her fifth honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.
"I have spent most of my life in the theater and know that the learning process in art is never over . . . the possibilities of growth are limitless," wrote the Tony Award winning actress in her book, Respect for Acting.
Terri Park (graduate-theatre arts) is enthusiastic Hagen is coming to speak.
"I changed my flight reservations for Christmas break to San Diego, just so I could hear her speak. It's a big deal that she's coming," Park said. "Graduate students who are going to see her are really excited. She is the 'Grand Dame of Theater.' "
Park realizes Hagen's influence. "She was a big deal in the '50s and '60s. She has helped change the American aesthetic about what acting is. She has shown actors how to use more honest, believable behavior on screen and on stage."
Born in 1919, the German actress worked alongside such legendary actors as Paul Robeson, Steve McQueen and her late husband, Jose Ferrer.
In 1937, after attending Spring Semester at the University of Wisconsin, she moved to New York to pursue acting.
Even in the '70s she believed in her work and provided foresight for New York City's Herbert Berghof Studio.
"I pray that with patience and foresight a first-rate acting company will develop out of the studio, a company guided by first-rate young directors, and hopefully young playwrights," Hagen wrote.
As artistic director and star of the HB studio, Hagen has guided contemporaries such as Geraldine Page and Matthew Broderick, to name a few.
She credits Laurette Taylor as influential to her acting career. "Her work was unbelievably human and alive. It is the model for my work," she said.
Hagen has played in 22 Broadway productions including Othello, A Streetcar Named Desire and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Her creativity has earned her the Donaldson and the Drama Critics' Awards.
In addition, she appeared in TV specials and several films, which gained her national recognition and the off-Broadway Obie Award. In 1981, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and has received the John Houseman and Campostella Awards for distinguished service.
Two books, Respect for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor, document Hagen's extraordinary drive and fierce commitment to the craft of acting.
Park believes that Respect for Acting "is a gold mine." Publisher's Weekly described Respect for Acting as "accumulated wisdom of her years spent in intimate communion with her art. It is at once voicing of her exacting standards for herself and those she teaches."
The book covers acting techniques and is divided into three parts: "The Actor," "Object Exercises" and "The Play and The Role."
Hagen's prominence is undoubtedly the result of a consistent devotion of her time and talents to others, and Jacobs agrees.
"The stature of the individuals who receive honorary degrees reflects on the quality of an institution, and I think we have awarded degrees to a very impressive group of people," Jacobs said in an e-mail.
