Alumni
community and longevity drive architect's work
When Randy Hudson (’74 B.Arch.) walks through State College or the Penn State University Park campus, he has reason to be proud. As managing partner of the State College office of Hayes Large Architects, he has played an integral role in some of the most notable facilities built in the region over the past five years, including Schlow Community Library and Eastview Terrace Housing.
Hayes Large is responsible for an impressive roster of buildings across Pennsylvania and beyond, primarily educational, cultural, civic and healthcare facilities. Hudson, who has been with the firm since 1983, is one of five partners and serves as principal design architect. His career with Hayes Large, which has offices in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, has included Pennsylvania’s Transportation and Department for Environmental Protection (DEP) headquarters buildings, the National Civil War Museum, and numerous library and educational projects.
As partner, Hudson must assume many different roles. However, he says his design responsibilities are among the most important. “Architects take the aspirations of a community or group of people and put their ideas into tangible form,” he explains. “Design is the path to get from here to there.”
Hudson’s love of drawing led him to enroll at Penn State as an art major, but his longstanding interest in building and landscapes drew him back to study architecture. Professors and mentors such as Roy Vollmer, Mike Pyatok, Richard Plunz and Rainiero Corbelletti instilled an appreciation of the history, poetry and social usefulness of architecture.
Hudson began his career as an architectural designer for a small firm in State College. He later practiced in New York City and earned his master’s degree at Columbia University, where he studied with Robert Stern, Romaldo Guirgola and Charles Gwathmey. “Columbia’s culture clash then, between advocates for tradition and modernity, was epic,” Hudson says, “and that has probably influenced my thinking ever since.”
A focus of his thinking today is “green” architecture and sustainable design. In 2005, he received the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accreditation. Green projects include renovations for Eastern York’s Wrightsville Elementary School (2003), which was Pennsylvania’s first LEED-certified renovation, and Virginia’s new Advanced Technology Academy (2006), slated for LEED Platinum status.
Hudson even works out of a green space—Hayes Large’s State College office is one of Pennsylvania’s only LEED offices in a non-LEED building. “Hayes Large can advocate for ‘green’ because we’ve made the investment ourselves,” Hudson says. “What we try to do is design buildings that are durable and that will be loved. If people like their buildings, then years from now they’ll look for ways to save and adapt them, rather than tearing them down. And that’s the most sustainable form of design.”
In his work, Hudson also focuses on connecting buildings to their location. “It’s important to establish views from the structure to its locale to create a sense of place,” he explains. “It creates an additional layer of meaning.” Examples are the views of Nittany and Tussey Mountains from the Eastview Terrace residence halls.
Hudson says he’s extremely proud of Eastview Terrace, which was a focus of his work for three years. Another career highlight was the Flight 800 Memorial. He won a competition to design the memorial for the Montoursville High School students and chaperones who perished in the 1996 flight that crashed off Long Island. Parents and townspeople were very involved in a shared design process. “The dedication ceremony showed the power of landscape and architecture to help people through a terrible time in their lives,” says Hudson.
Another of his favorite projects was Schlow Community Library. The old facility was demolished and the new library was built in the same location, in the center of downtown State College. Features include a welcoming front porch arcade and numerous window-seats inside the facility that provide a view of downtown. At night, passersby can see people reading inside the library. “We wanted the space to connect to the community,” Hudson says.
The son of a Penn State professor, Hudson has lived in State College for much of his life and says connecting his work to this community is important. He and his wife, Cynthia Nixon (’74 M.Ed. Art Ed.), met as students and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary. They live outside State College in a house Hudson designed. One of their two sons is a student in Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College. Hudson has taught in Penn State’s architecture and landscape architecture departments and recently joined the inaugural board of the Architecture Alumni Program Group.
According to Hudson, architecture is ultimately about humans—not bricks and steel. “Working with many different people to make an intangible vision into something real is profoundly moving,” he says.
Hudson also appreciates architecture’s longevity. “Most of the buildings we design will long outlast those of us making them. When I’m designing, I don’t look ten years ahead—I look hundreds of years ahead. I want our buildings to outlast us.” –AMM
theatre alumnus gets bitten by teaching bug
Like many 18-year-olds, Steven Adler (’86 M.F.A. Theatre) started college with big plans. He was going to major in history and go to medical school. But then, as the cliché goes, he got bitten by the acting bug.
As an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Adler also studied directing and stage management, ultimately earning a bachelor’s degree in theatre in 1974. After dabbling both on stage and behind the scenes, he decided he wanted to focus his efforts on directing and enrolled in Penn State’s master’s program. Before heading to central Pennsylvania, he taught briefly at SUNY–Buffalo—an experience that would gain significance later in his career.
Adler, a Brooklyn native, left Penn State for New York City in 1977. For ten years he worked steadily as a director and stage manager—his only non-theatre job was a brief stint as a wine salesman, when he first arrived in the city. On Broadway he stage managed Dance a Little Closer, the Tony Award-winning Big River and Camelot with Richard Harris. He also worked off-Broadway, in regional theatres and on national tours.
But something was missing. “I literally had an epiphany while walking past the Winter Garden Theatre [former home of Cats]. I realized I wanted to teach,” Adler explains.
In Buffalo, Adler had co-taught introductory acting and theatre classes with renowned theatre critic Eric Bentley. Bentley, and later Bob Leonard at Penn State, infused him with a passion for teaching that he wanted to recapture. “When I was discontent even while stage managing Big River on Broadway, I knew I had to make a change,” Adler notes. 
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After a heart-to-heart with his mentor and SUNY–Buffalo professor Saul Elkin, Adler decided to start sending out résumés to universities around the country. When he called a former colleague, Richard Riddell, for advice on how to straddle the academic and professional worlds, he got a little more than he bargained for. Riddell, who was chairing the Department of Theatre at the University of California, San Diego, at the time, asked him if he was interested in coming out to California to build UCSD’s graduate program in stage management. Adler took Riddell up on his offer, and today, thanks in part to Adler’s efforts, UCSD’s graduate theatre program is ranked third in the country. >
After 17 years of teaching at UCSD, Adler moved into administration in 2004 when he was appointed provost of UCSD’s Earl Warren College, one of six undergraduate colleges at the university. The colleges, which are intended to provide a more intimate academic environment within a major research university, include students from all majors and maintain their own sets of general education requirements.
Although serving as provost leaves him little time to direct or stage manage, Adler says working with undergraduates is fulfilling because he helps them discover their passion—much like his professors did at SUNY–Buffalo and Penn State. “It’s gratifying to be able to nurture young talent and spirit,” he notes.
In addition to Saul Elkin, Adler says he had many mentors in Happy Valley. “I think I learned more about directing by taking acting classes from Archie Smith and Manuel Duque,” he notes. “And I’m indebted to Kelly Yeaton for teaching me about arena staging. I learned a lot from Chuck Firmin, and Bob Leonard taught me about the rigors of professional work.”
Now ensconced in the rigors of academe, Adler admits he misses the excitement of New York City. However, he says UCSD’s top-notch faculty and facilities make being on the West Coast worth it. The university has six theatres of its own and shares facilities with La Jolla Playhouse, one of the top regional theatres in the country. While Adler was teaching, he served as production stage manager for many shows at that venue.
Adler says his professional and academic careers go hand-in-hand. “I became a better professional because of my teaching … but my professional work in New York gave me something to teach.” He frequently calls on the skills he gained as a stage manager. “It taught me how to be gently coercive when working with diverse groups,” he notes.
Since Adler has been at UCSD, he has taken four trips to Japan, twice to help run an actors’ training program and twice to study Japanese theatre (his research trips were funded by grants). His research focuses on the economic forces that shape the way theatre is conceived, and he hopes to write a book about the intersection between commercial and non-profit theatre. He has already completed two books: Rough Magic: Making Theatre at the Royal Shakespeare Company and On Broadway: Art and Commerce on the Great White Way, both published by Southern Illinois University Press. On Broadway received rave reviews from American Theatre magazine, which praised Adler for his candid account of how Broadway musicals and plays are produced.
After working in, teaching and writing about professional theatre for 30 years, Adler is more than qualified to give advice to aspiring theatre professionals. He admits luck plays a role in landing a job, as long as you have a base of talent and skills. And don’t forget your contacts. “Burn no bridges and exploit your contacts for all they’re worth,” he says. “Your contacts expect you to use them.” –AMM
