Virginia Smith is director of The Philadelphia Story.

The Intersection of Life and Art

Smith Renewed by Lessons Learned at Wit's End

By Kelly Bartling, Public Relations

When Virginia Smith takes her director's bows this week after curtain at The Philadelphia Story, her shorn blonde head hints at another story.

The new UNL theater professor is emerging from baldness, not from chemotherapy, but from a wrenching portrayal of a cancer victim that has been the most touching role of her career.

Smith sports her stubble with pride, still grieving in a way for her "friend" Vivian, whom she portrayed on stage in the Dayton, Ohio, production of Wit, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

"From the moment I read Wit I knew I would go to great lengths to be able to do it," said Smith. "I just set it up as a goal, and I sent pictures and resumes around to theaters doing it. I studied it; I worked on it."

When she interviewed last summer for a job as professor of acting and directing at UNL, she disclosed she was on call-back for the role of Vivian, and that she would like to take it. She got the role and the job, started pre-production for UNL's The Philadelphia Story, and left to begin Wit's November-December run.

"I've never had a role that affected people as profoundlythis is just a very personal story touching performer to audience," said Smith. "The amazing thing about that story is you go on a journey that looks at Vivian's life. And in her death, her heart opens. She becomes a whole human being." Smith still talks about Vivian as a close friend, awed by the experience.

"I think my perspective on death is the same that I had before," she said. "I have a lot of compassion for people who are afraid of death. Because the person I played was so afraid. She didn't have any kind of spiritual life and she didn't have any friends. She was alone. People get such incredibly different things from the play depending on where they are with their mortality and with that of other people."

The veteran stage, television and film actor and director faced another challenge apart from playing an emotional death from cancer: The sacrifice of her blonde curls.

"Women my age just don't shave their heads," she said. "I think everyone thought I was having chemotherapy and I was just myself I walk confidently and laugh a lot, and I felt sometimes that I got funny looks because of this woman with the bald head who was being so happy. People were I think confused by it. I felt in some ways that I was a fraud because I wasn't going through the same journey (battling cancer). Especially older women would just look devastated when they looked at me.

"I was pretty anxious about shaving it, and the people at the theater encouraged me to do it early, so I would have a chance to get used to it. And then I didn't worry about it anymore. You say 'I have to do this' that it's my work. It's OK. It comes with the territory."

Her growing-back hairstyle looks intentional and sophisticated.

"I think I'm going to keep it shorter now," she said. But not that short.

Turning her sights from Wit to The Philadelphia Story was a distinct change, but she sees similarities of the stories.

"I stayed in touch by e-mail and I was reading and thinking about Philadelphia Story the whole time I was gone, so actually the two were more concurrent. Both are a coming-of-age story. Lots of people might have a different take on it, but I see Wit's journey as Vivian's heart opening. The journey for Philadelphia Story is Tracy Lord, becoming more than 'just the rules.' She has such high standards and she has succeeded wildly in everything she has tried, and she just doesn't understand how other people can fail. So the process for her is becoming a whole human being by growing an empathetic heart, so we're back to the same thing."

Philadelphia Story, Smith's debut at UNL, is a love story and a comedy. Set in 1939, it has great costumes and storyline. It runs through Feb. 24 at Howell Theatre.

Smith arrived at UNL via Minnesota, Roosevelt University in Chicago and Indiana University-South Bend. She has had numerous roles directing and acting, including a part in the movie Home Alone. She enjoys writing plays and says there are still many parts and projects she looks forward to.

"I'm here because I really liked the program. I have a strong commitment to the Midwest. I always knew I wanted to act. Then I had a charismatic teacher in high school; a guy who was just on fire. And the fire hasn't gone out at all. It hasn't dimmed. I hope I've been doing the same for other people."

She enjoys directing and acting equally, she said.

"As an actor, you are the piece of a whole story. As a director, you have to envision the story and you have to encompass the whole story with all the imaginations because it is so collaborative. You have to be able to envision all of that, and be able to swiftly change that vision. And I really like it. It's not just about the intellect. It's very, very much about the heart."

Beaurivage interprets for a variety of courses and other events, including last fall's State of the University Address by interim chancellor Harvey Perlman.

Revealing the Words in Her Hands

Interpreter Helps Connect Deaf, Hearing Communities

By Kim Davis, Public Relations

Watching Frances Beaurivage translate a presentation in sign language is mesmerizing. One can't help but think, "How does she do it?" Once it's revealed she is a child of two deaf parents, it becomes obvious.

Beaurivage, UNL's interpreting coordinator, began developing her dual language skills when she was just a baby.

"Sign Language is my first language," said Beaurivage, who converses verbally with just as much enthusiasm and eloquence as she has when she's signing.

The oldest of four siblings, Beaurivage grew into the role of family facilitator at an early age.

"I was probably the most proficient (at sign language) growing up. My brother tended to depend on me, he would typically come and get me for help," she said.

Living in Southern California, Beaurivage's father worked as a Linotype operator for the local newspaper, while her mother stayed home with the children. Beaurivage says she had a typical family with a great sense of humor.

"We would do cruel things like when (mom) was vacuuming, we'd go unplug the vacuum and see how long it took her to realize it," Beaurivage recalls. "That was how humor happened in my house. That was really funny. All of us kids would just roar. My dad would too."

Beaurivage's experiences growing up with two deaf parents drew her to a career working within the deaf community.

"It's a very closeknit community," she said, "and to be a part of that makes me feel like I'm a part of a closeknit family."

In 1995, Beaurivage came to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to coordinate interpreting services for students with disabilities. She interprets nine to 10 courses a semester, a variety of speeches and presentations, as well as plays and theatrical performances.

It's almost as hard to understand what it takes to be a good interpreter as it is for Beaurivage herself to explain the skill.

"You're listening to English, at the same time I am analyzing it for semantics," she said. "As I am analyzing it, I am also thinking of the appropriate signs I need to use to construct the message into ASL (American Sign Language), but I also have to consider the consumer and see if there are cultural things that I need to consider. Like, deaf people don't know phrases about radio. If you talk about NPR, that would be unknown to them, so culturally I have to expand the information so that they can understand it, because they don't have the same experience that we do."

Learning how to interpret sign language well required Beaurivage to take special courses in the ethical and professional aspects of signing, on top of having a strong language base and vocabulary.

"I learned the language from communicating with my parents. I had to take coursework to learn to interpret," Beaurivage said. "As a kid, I would just listen to what the person what saying and when they got done talking, I would give my mother the meat. But a professional must have a lot of perception about implicit and explicit information in messages tooIf I'm hearing something that is implied, then I need to make it translate."

That takes concentration, quick thinking and lots of energy. Beaurivage said interpreting two recent theatrical performances of The Diary of Anne Frank took its toll.

"I worked four hours on Saturday and although we had a half hour lunch break and I was working with a team member. I was mentally exhausted."

Sometimes long hours and a very short supply of qualified interpreters nationwide mean extended vacations and sick days are rare. But Beaurivage says this career means more to her than just helping the hearing impaired. It's family.

"I think we provide an excellent service, I really do," she said. "I see these students come in and they have the opportunity to get an education if they are supported with communication. To leave here and function and be satisfied as adults like all of us want, then I think it's important for me to do this."

Looking back over her career, Beaurivage says she has dedicated her life to communication, in one form or another. After high school, she joined the Air Force and was stationed in Colorado Springs, Colo., as a translator.

After three enlisted years, Beaurivage moved to Denver where she met her husband. After they were married, the newlyweds made their way to Nebraska where her career in sign language interpreting began.

Before joining UNL, she was a translator for the Lincoln Public Schools and the Nebraska Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

"I enjoy my work greatly," Beaurivage said. "I will always work with the deaf community."

The Future of Wheat: P. Stephen Baenziger works to ensure the future of cereal breeding today.

NU Plant Breeder:Public Wheat Breeding Programs Vital to Feeding the World

By IANR News Service

Six billion people will rely on the four major cereal crops for most of their food in the 21st century. As productive land disappears to other uses, improved cereal crop varieties developed by plant breeders offer the greatest hope of feeding the world, a University of Nebraska researcher told a national scientific meeting Feb. 16.

P. Stephen Baenziger, wheat breeder in NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, was one of a panel of four prominent plant geneticists and plant breeders speaking on "Feeding 6 Billion People" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. Baenziger is the incoming 2001 chair of the Agriculture, Food and Renewable Resources section of the AAAS.

In his talk, "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread: the Future of Wheat," Baenziger emphasized the continuing significance of wheat as a food crop and the critical importance of public cereal grain breeding programs in increasing the world's food supply.

Wheat is a major global food crop. It's the source of the daily bread for people worldwide, and noodles made from wheat are the staple food in many Asian countries.

Wheat is largely grown on marginal land, which is one of its virtues, Baenziger said. But when wheat is planted on good cropland using optimum water and fertilizer, it responds with highly productive yields. Breeding programs can maximize this production potential on both marginal and productive lands.

"Wheat is the last major public sector crop where the breeding and development of new varieties is done by public sector scientists, where the public owns the germplasm and where public varieties are still important," Baenziger said.

Of the 900 cereal grain breeders in the United States, 141 work in wheat and 59 percent of them work in the public sector - at public universities and federal agencies.

In contrast, 600 plant breeders work in corn, 93 percent for commercial companies, he said.

Commercial research makes a large contribution, Baenziger said, but public research can accomplish great things, as shown by the 40-year record of top wheat varieties produced by the University of Nebraska/U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service wheat breeding team based at Lincoln.

Winter wheat varieties developed by this public-sector team are planted on about three-fourths of Nebraska's wheat acres and have boosted the state's annual yields by 19 percent since the 1960s. Today, Nebraska wheat growers can feed nearly 5 million more Americans each year than they were able to on the same acreage in the 1960s. Based on yield alone, University of Nebraska/USDA varieties are worth an additional $31 million to $37 million annually to Nebraska producers.

"This outstanding record gives an idea of what a moderate-sized public research program can do," Baenziger said.

The future of cereal breeding depends heavily on genomics and allied technologies, which will offer powerful new tools and resources to plant breeders, he said.

"If we are serious about making the best use of genomics information, the public funding to develop applications must go to public research because this is where we have a successful record of technology transfer and of providing the necessary products to increase the productivity of the American farmer," Baenziger said.

Scientists representing the other three major cereal crops joined Baenziger on the panel. They were: Ron Phillips, corn geneticist at the University of Minnesota and member of the National Academy of Sciences; Gurdev Khush, rice breeder at the International Rice Research Institute and winner of the World Food Prize; and Randy Shoemaker, soybean geneticist with USDA/ARS at Iowa State University.