Behind the scenes: Curtain closes on luminous family legacy

Scott Parker’s lot in theater may well have been cast years before his birth on the night the James Adams Floating Palace Theatre set anchor on the Chowan River in eastern North Carolina.

It was as general manager of Manteo’s “The Lost Colony“ that Parker became hooked on the theater.

To passersby, the wooden tub sitting in the water may have looked more like a barn on a barge than a floating palace, but its grand interior more than lived up to its billing. The 30-by-80 foot auditorium glowed with silver and gold decorations cast under the light of an electric chandelier. The auditorium seated 500 people downstairs and another 350 in the wraparound balcony.

Sitting in one of those seats was Parker’s father. It was around 1916 or 1917, Parker can’t say for sure, but his father was still a country mouse from Murfreesboro, not yet out of grade school. And it was in that magical, sparkling place – where the world of the imagination could be made to seem real – that the lifelong passion of John William Parker caught fire.

As family lore has it, when John Parker returned home that night, he gathered blankets and slung them over a branch of a big mulberry tree behind the house. He would later turn his tent under the tree into his own little playhouse theater, recruiting playmates from the neighborhood as actors. It would not be the last show tent that Parker would fill.

The floating palace eventually sank in the harbor of Little Washington, but not before writer Edna Ferber – who spent two weeks working on it as a ticket taker – wrote the novel that eventually became the Broadway musical “Show Boat.”

The star-struck boy grew up to become Carolina’s “Mr. Playmaker.” After earning his bachelor’s degree at Carolina in 1930, John Parker returned in 1934 to join the dramatic art staff as a Rockefeller Fellow. By the time Parker retired in 1975, he had spent 33 years as associate professor and business manager of Carolina Playmakers.

A continuing legacy
Now, John Parker’s son, Scott, is about to end his own 17-year run at the University as director of the Institute for Outdoor Drama.

When he retires at the end of the month, Parker said he will leave something that has always felt more like a calling than a career. That will be hard enough, he said. But even harder is knowing that his departure will mark the end to a family saga at the University that involved not only himself and his father, but his mother, an aunt and an uncle as well.

The threads of the family’s story run deep into University history – back to playwright Paul Green – and are woven throughout the 60-year history of “The Lost Colony,” the play Green wrote in 1937 that created a new form of theatrical entertainment known as outdoor drama.

The impact of all those years hit Parker fully last December when he went to South Building to announce his coming retirement. As he walked down the steps of South Building, he found himself drawn to Playmaker’s Theater. He was just a baby when his parents first took him there, sleeping in his mother’s arms so that neither parent would have to miss the show.

As Parker walked around the theater, he thought of all the shows he had seen there and the family members who had been instrumental in putting together so many of them. Then he counted up all the years his family had worked for the University.

“It was 143 years,” Parker said. “I thought, ‘Lord, I am letting my family down, I’m breaking the line. It stops with me.’”

And with the full weight of that realization, he wept.

‘The Lost Colony’ plays a role
Of course, if not for the inimitable Professor Frederick Koch, or “Proff” Koch, as he came to be known, none of this might have happened.

Koch was the chairman and founder of the dramatic art department, the person who taught playwriting to Green and, before that, mentored Tom Wolfe when Wolfe performed with the Carolina Playmakers as a student here from 1916 to1920.

The most significant thing that Proff Koch did for Scott Parker was to hire a young woman from South Carolina. The young woman learned of the job opening from her sister, a costume designer who worked in Koch’s department along with her husband.

It was some time after Koch made this young woman his secretary that young John Parker would make her his wife. Scott, their only child, was born in 1945.

In 1948, William Carmichael Jr., then the acting president of the University, summoned John Parker to South Building to make him an offer he could not refuse.

“I know this to be true because my father told me this story,” Parker said. “Bill Carmichael said to my father, ‘John, “The Lost Colony” is in financial trouble and needs your business acumen.”’

When his father balked, Carmichael reached in his desk to pull out a paper from which he pretended to read. “‘I see you are up for a promotion next year,’ Carmichael told him. And that’s how my father got to be general manager of “The Lost Colony.”’

Of course, many members of the Parker family had their hands in the production from the start.

When Green was a student at Carolina, the first production he ever saw was a play he wrote that was produced on the grassy hillside of Forest Theatre. When Proff Koch saw it, he got the idea of producing more plays there.  In the process, the theater department developed the  knowledge and skills about outdoor lighting, sound and seating that many of them brought to Manteo in 1937 to produce what was supposed to be the only summer of “The Lost Colony.” Among the group was Parker’s future aunt – who was the play’s first costume designer – and his uncle.

The play on Roanoke Island began inauspiciously as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Parker said. In fact, he said, “it was supposed to be a one-summer shot” to celebrate the 350th birthday of Virginia Dare, the first English-born child in North America.

The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) built the theater while the WPA (Works Progress Administration) brought in managers from the Federal Theatre Project in New York City to hire unemployed actors to fill the stage.

But a funny thing happened, Parker said.  “It was such a magnificent success that everyone thought, ‘Why, hell, let’s do this again.’ So they did.”

They ran the play each year until World War II came along and everything had to be blacked out because of German U-boats lurking off the coast.

When Parker’s dad took over as general manager in 1948, Parker was just 3 years old – too young, one would think, to be able to remember much. Not so, Parker said.

“I was 3 years old when my father used to take me to the theater and I would stand at the top of the house and watch the audience come in.”

During the three years John Parker served as general manager, “The Lost Colony” would become for Scott Parker what the floating palace had been for his father – the place where he was “bitten by the bug.”

The start of a career
Like almost everybody in the theater, Parker got into it because “we are hams and we want to act,” he said.

He got away with cameo appearances in campus productions as a child, but his acting days came to an end after playing the huntsman in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in the basement of University Baptist Church. After that performance, Parker said, his parents gently suggested another calling for him. “Son,” they told him, “you belong backstage.”

From that point on, he worked on scenery, lights and costumes and eventually became a scene designer. Parker intended to attend Carolina to major in theater, but his father insisted that he attend another college without a major theater program. “He was afraid I would spend all my time in the theater and that I would flunk out, which was probably true.”

Parker picked Guilford College in Greensboro, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English before returning home to earn his master’s degree in dramatic art from Carolina.

Then he went off to fulfill his service in the Army when the country was still at war in Vietnam, but Parker’s credentials kept him behind a camera or a microphone instead of a gun. After serving as a disc jockey at Fort Belvoir, Va., and a stint at the Pentagon, Parker got one of the prize assignments of his life: televising Richard Nixon at the White House.

After the Army, he worked on 43 plays over six years as a scene designer at Duke. He was on a fast track, but not one that was leading to tenure, so he headed to the University of Virginia to earn his master of fine art’s degree in directing in just one year.

From there his academic career took an unexpected detour to Walt Disney World when he hired on as a “manager of entertainers.” “It was a job that I loved so much I should have paid them,” Parker said.

From Disney he learned about the hospitality industry, about producing work for families on vacation. Production standards were high, but they required a work schedule no less grueling. “If I had stayed I probably would not have reached my 40th birthday,” he said.

In 1979, at age 34, Parker headed to East Carolina University to teach theater management. He stayed until “The Lost Colony” came knocking in 1986. Then, in 1990, when the position as director for the Institute of Outdoor Drama at Carolina came open, the chair of the board at “The Lost Colony” put in a good word for Parker. The chair was William Friday, president emeritus of the UNC system. Parker got the job.

The next act
The genre that started with “The Lost Colony” in 1937 grew into a movement. When Parker took over the institute, there were some 50 outdoor theater companies. That number has more than doubled under his leadership.

“This is not a job, this is a mission in life,” Parker said. “This is what drives me, so I am a little worried about stepping away from it.”

Maybe that is why, before deciding to leave, he made sure he had another mission in his sights. In 2000, Parker was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, an honorary society based at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The society elected him to serve as its chairman starting in April 2008.

Today, the Institute of Outdoor Drama supports more than 100 outdoor theater companies in 40 states, whose outdoor plays are seen by 2.5 million people every year. The economic impact on the U.S. travel and tourism industry is now estimated at $500 million a year.

Those statistics are impressive, but as Parker counts down his last day, one number stands out that he will always remember.

It is 143.

Gila monster hormone helps diabetics control weight

Flowers? Some kind of ceremony? A package of small mammals? It’s tough to know how to thank a Gila monster, but a new drug made from of one of the reptile’s hormones is giving diabetics a lot to be grateful for.

At the School of Medicine, chief of endocrinology John Buse just completed a study of the drug with patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And the results are exciting – after three years on exenatide, most patients had healthy sustained glucose levels and progressive weight loss (averaging around 11 pounds), a feat for many diabetics.

Weight gain and being overweight is a pervasive problem among these patients, Buse said, and insulin injections – currently the most commonly prescribed medication for the diabetes – can cause more weight gain, which can, in turn, worsen the disease.

Exenatide, sold commercially as Byetta, received FDA approval two years ago. Drug makers Eli Lilly and Amylin Pharmaceuticals haven’t even begun marketing it yet, but among in-the-know type 2 diabetics, the drug has become wildly popular, helping patients lose weight who were finding it nearly impossible with their other medications – even with proper diet and exercise.

So why Gila monsters? John Eng, an endocrinologist at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York City, was looking at studies of people who developed pancreatitis after being bitten by venomous animals. Eng wanted to find the connection, so he ordered a slew of animal venoms, including that of the Gila monster, and started looking for ones that affected the pancreas (the organ that controls blood sugar by releasing insulin).

He found that the Gila monster, a large, venomous lizard native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, secretes a hormone in its saliva called exendin-4. This hormone, which aids digestion in the lizard, is similar to a human digestive hormone called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1 analog), which increases insulin production when a person has high blood sugar. GLP-1 also slows the emptying of the stomach, which reduces appetite and makes people feel full, said Buse.

GLP-1 had been on the table as a potential diabetes treatment, Buse says, but its rapid breakdown in the body made it hard to produce as a convenient drug. But exendin-4 has a much longer half-life, and scientists can create large amounts of it synthetically in the lab. And that’s what the new drug is made of – synthetic exendin-4.

Patients who take Byetta have to self-inject twice a day and usually have to stay on the medication even after they reach a healthy weight and lower their blood sugar, Buse said. “If they stop the drug,” he said, “the assumption is that they’ll slide back to where they were before.”

Buse presented his findings three weeks ago at the annual scientific sessions of the American Diabetes Association, of which he will become president in September. The study’s co-authors are Leigh MacConell, Anthony H. Stonehouse, Xuesong Guan, James K. Malone, Ted E. Okerson, David G. Maggs, and Dennis D. Kim. All of the co-authors work for Amylin Pharmaceuticals except Malone, who works for Eli Lilly and Company. Amylin has a global agreement with Eli Lilly and Company to collaborate on the development and commercialization of exenatide. Funding for this study was provided by Amylin and Eli Lilly and Company.

Provided by the Division of Research and Economic Development
Editor: Neil Caudle
Writer: Colie Hoffman

What ITS About: Gartner research available to UNC community

When should you invest in the newest emerging technology? And if you have two competing technologies, which should you choose? Gartner Inc., a premier information technology research and advisory firm, can assist Carolina’s information technology leaders with those key decisions.

Information Technology Services (ITS) subscribes to Gartner core research on behalf of the University, giving students, faculty and staff access to thousands of up-to-date research articles on principal technology topics.

“In addition to making this valuable resource available to the campus, ITS regularly uses Gartner research and consults with its analysts,” said Robyn East, associate vice chancellor for information technology and deputy chief information officer. “Gartner’s education practice is staffed by analysts with deep experience and knowledge of technology in higher education.”

Providing research by market, topic or industry, Gartner offers valuable research services, including:
  Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes, which explain the relative positions of all vendors in a market;
  Hype Cycles, which explain the relative maturity of technologies in a given domain;
  Vendor ratings; and
  The Gartner Fellows, who are analysts at the leading edge.

Susan Kellogg, associate dean of information technology for the Kenan-Flagler Business School, said that Gartner provides invaluable information on industry best practices.

“Without the service, many decisions would be guess work,” she said. “Guesses can be costly in our business.”

For example, if you want to know where “personally owned devices with campus network access” fall on the maturity curve of emerging technologies, refer to https://www.unc.edu/gartner. You’ll essentially have access to more than 1,200 research analysts and tens of thousands of pages of original research.  

Classroom Hotline focuses on upgrades and replacements
While much of the campus takes a break during the summer months, the Classroom Hotline group stays busy upgrading and replacing University equipment.

Twelve classrooms will undergo extensive upgrades and will be furnished with new podiums, touch control panels and new multimedia equipment including LCD projectors, DVD players, VCRs, ThinClient networked computers and speaker systems.

In addition to upgrading classrooms, Classroom Hotline will also undertake extensive equipment life-cycling.

“Life-cycling means that we are replacing equipment because its lifespan has come to an end,” said Gina Platz, manager of the ITS Classroom Hotline. “We have different thresholds for different equipment. For instance, a lab computer is typically replaced every three years while an LCD projector in a multimedia classroom is life-cycled every five years.”

An inventory is kept on each piece of equipment, with a note of the date of installation, Platz said. “We can just run a report to know what is due to be life-cycled when,” she said.

This summer, 41 classrooms across campus will receive VCR upgrades and 32 classrooms will receive DVD upgrades.

Computers in computer labs will also receive fairly extensive life-cycling. Approximately 250 of the University’s 375 lab computers will be replaced with ThinkCentre M55e Desktops.

CBT offers Microsoft Office
Advanced Microsoft Office courses are now available through the computer-based training service. Offerings include Access 2007: Levels 3 and 4; Word 2007: Level 3; and PowerPoint: Level 3.

Visit cbt.unc.edu to subscribe to the free service. To see the list of all available courses without first subscribing, select “List of Information Technology Courses” and “List of Business Fundamental Courses” from the right-hand side of the screen.

Six hospital specialties ranked high

Six medical specialties offered at UNC Hospitals rank among the top 50 programs of their kind nationwide, according to U.S. News & World Report magazine.

Only 173 hospitals nationwide out of 5,462 that were evaluated scored highly enough to be ranked in one or more specialties.

To be eligible for ranking in 12 of the 16 specialties ranked by U.S. News, hospitals had to meet any of three standards: membership in the Council of Teaching Hospitals, affiliation with a medical school or availability of at least six out of 13 advanced services. This year, more than three quarters of all hospitals failed to meet this requirement.

Rankings for the UNC Hospitals programs are: cancer, 40th; ear, nose and throat, 38th; gynecology, 24th; kidney disease, 28th; respiratory disorders, 25th; and urology, 43rd.

The magazine unveiled the rankings July 13 for its 18th annual “America’s Best Hospitals” issue, which appeared on newsstands July 16. UNC Hospitals has been included in the rankings for the last 15 years in a row.

Flying high

Renae Stafford, clinical assistant professor of surgery, tests her abilities on the pamper pole, part of the high challenge course sponsored by Carolina Adventures. Stafford was one of 22 participants from the Department of Surgery who took part June 22 in the half-day course, designed to foster collaboration, trust and team building. The high challenge course is comprised of different elements that are 30 feet off the ground. Members of the surgery group used the tree course and the high pamper pole to test themselves, both physically and mentally. In the past year, Carolina Adventures has conducted about 95 programs, roughly one-third of which were on the high challenge course and two-thirds on the low challenge course. Group sizes ranged from 15 to 50 participants, and more than 2,000 people have taken part in a challenge course within the past year.