Professor Ann Woodworth
Chair, Search Committee
Department of Theatre
Northwestern University
1949 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208

Dear Professor Woodworth,

I am writing to recommend Mark McCarthy, M.F.A., for a position as Adjunct Professor of Theatre at your University. I will say at the offset I recommend him most highly for the teaching of acting.

I have known Mark for several years. He first came to our University during our 1996-97 season as an Equity Guest Artist. I should explain that I am the sole theater faculty at Shawnee State University, which now has a theater minor. I invited Mark so our students would have an opportunity to work with a professional actor, as my own background is in theater production and design. I hired Mark by auditioning six actors at the Chicago Equity office. All of the actors gave strong auditions, but Mark's was exceptional. He astonished me with his range, focus, creativity, and... well, his concentration on excellence. There was only one choice: Mark.

Mark was hired to play the role of Robert Mathews in our production of God's Country, Steven Dietz's documentary play about a hate group. Since his death in an F.B.I. shootout Mathews has been, in fact, a martyr of the militia movement. I was as fascinated by Mark's process to discover an inner truth for the hate-mongering, racist Mathews as I was by his seriousness with acting. He never stopped working. Stymied by the problem of portraying a character with whom he felt little kinship, Mark racked his brain to play Mathews believably. His ultimate solution was very interesting and highly ironic: he reviewed films of Martin Luther King, then transposed King's truth-seeking righteousness and zeal onto Mathews. It worked extremely well. Mark kept developing his character throughout the run of three shows; his performance was mesmerizing.

But Mark's extraordinary work didn't stop there. He coached our completely inexperienced actors--some of whom had never acted before--to credible performances in four short weeks. He brought the students along, encouraging them, using a variety of theoretical and inventive techniques to bring out their best. Every day he generously gave of his time, working for hours one on one. He gave a stage combat workshop, because the play has a reeactment of a Brinks truck robbery. One of my students, a Gulf War veteran, taught Mark how to rappel from the theater catwalk to the stage floor. Mark relished the opportunity to do learn something new. The students admired him for his enthusiasm for learning; they were thrilled by his teaching.

Over the years we have kept in sporadic touch. Just last weekend I again hired Mark to come down to Shawnee State to conduct a two-day series of workshops for my current students. The first was a physical comedy workshop. Mark is a brilliant comic actor who plays Shakespeare's clowns with great precision and skill. His smallest bit is hilarious! He gave the students a good series of exercises to teach specificity as the basis for comic technique. They enjoyed the workshop, taking away rich bits and building blocks for their own comic creativity. Then Mark taught four successive workshops on stage combat, working with rapiers. Eight hours later my students presented an entire scene choreographed by Mark. Two renegades attacked two guards, parried and wounded them, then "assaulted" the "castle," dueling a "princess" and her attendant. The scene was complex, skillfully structured and well executed. Once again, the students were thrilled and worked with great concentration for Mark. Mark works intensively and quickly, stressing safety and accuracy. He called them on their sloppiness and never let them stray from the task at hand. While he insists on effort, his style is calm, encouraging, yet matter-of-fact.

This is long, but I don't know how else to give you an impression of Mark's extraordinary range, brilliance and seriousness about the craft of acting. His resume is impressive. Mark McCarthy is an astonishingly accomplished actor who is also a wonderful acting teacher.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.

Vivian Robson, M.F.A.
Associate Professor of Theater
Division of Fine, Digital and Performing Arts
Shawnee State University
Portsmouth, OH 45662
vrobson@shawnee.edu