On Stage in Minnesota
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| "Everybody's out of their minds tonight!" thinks Joshua (Mr. John Bellairs) as the excitement mounts in the play. Concerned here with the present unraveling of events are (from left to right): Mr. Robert Oram, Mr. John Bellairs, Ms. Marcia Mullins, Ms. Gayle Viehman, and Ms. Kathleen MacKrill (College of St. Teresa Aldine, 1964). |
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| Mr. Robert Oram, (left) as Malvolio, is seen here asking Sir Toby Belch played by Mr. John Bellairs to leave Olivia's house as Maria played by Ms. Susan Wedl, and Sea Captain, Mr. Richard Weiland, look on (College of St. Teresa Aldine, 1965). |
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| A scene from Sophocles's Electra: Paedagogus, portrayed by John Bellairs, informs Electra that the time for her revenge upon Clytemnestra is ripe. She is alone in the house (College of St. Teresa Aldine, 1965). |
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| This scene from Heartbreak House seems to indicate all is peaceful and serene but... Heartbreak House was given by the College of Saint Teresa in 1965 (College of St. Teresa Aldine, 1965). |
The College of St. Teresa had a strong Speech and Drama Department, putting on numerous performances in Saint Cecelia Hall that ranged from the Greek classics to contemporary musicals. Knee adds that in the late 1960's the college was the first in the country to get rights to produce My Fair Lady. However, due to the fact this was a women's college, men had to be found to fill the male roles. It was not always possible to recruit students from the Catholic men's college (St. Mary's, now a coed college), the public Winona State College (now Winona State University), or townspeople, so male faculty members were often recruited or volunteered to take part. This includes Bellairs, who acted in a handful of productions while an instructor.
Fellow instructor John Murphy says Bellairs liked getting the chance to act since he was a ham on stage and enjoyed the attention. Bellairs' first role was that of Joshua in Jean Anouilh's "Ring Round the Moon," performed during the fall semester of 1963. The following spring he portrayed Sir Toby Belch in "Twelfth Night," and later that November the drama department produced the play "Electra," with Bellairs playing the role of Paedagogus. It is this play that Murphy vividly remembers of all of Bellairs's performances: "he practiced the play by doing wide gestures and using the entire stage, as you do in Greek dramas, to talk about the action that happened off stage."
Bellairs took part in two more plays in 1965 before leaving the college. First was a role in Shaw's "Heartbreak House," a review of which appeared in the Winona Daily News commenting on his role as Alfred "Boss" Mangan, the captain of industry.
His last performance was in Jean Giraudoux's "The Mad Woman of Chaillot." Liittle is known of his role or when it took place but we assume it was spring as well.
We wonder how influential these chances to perform were, as Bellairs later said that in Massachusetts he acted in some community theatre.
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