GARDEN CITY, NY — For a half-century, Nick Petron has been the face of Adelphi University’s theater department.
It started for Petron as a 1970 graduate. He officially heads into retirement at the end of August.
Why is the curtain going down now on this beloved professor?
Find out what's happening in Garden Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“You get to a place and you realize that it’s time for a change, in the sense of the business that I’m in,” Petron told Patch. “It needs new and younger voices.”
Petron was a professor for 10 years, while heading the Department of Theater for the past three decades.
Click Here: Son Heung-min Jersey Sale
Find out what's happening in Garden Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
He built a strong connection with the students over the years; those experiences were like a morning cup of coffee for his career.
Dozens, if not hundreds of students, were touched by Petron’s guidance in all aspects of the performance. Petron has had students that made it to the lights on Broadway, but there were also, just as impressive, those people “working constantly in the business.”
“I find that a great success for the department and the university,” he said.
As for the success stories, the biggest name to come out of Adelphi’s theater department has to be 1982 graduate Jonathan Larson, who would write the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning musical “Rent.”
Petron knew Larson was destined for greatness.
“He was brilliant, and even when he was a student we knew he was special,” he said of his protégé. “[Larson] went on to write one of the great musical theater pieces of all time.”
As such a popular teacher and mentor to decades of acting students, Petron said it was the chemistry, not putting himself above them, while still teaching techniques for their future.
“I don’t care how young they were, or old they were; they spoke to me,” Petron said. “To see that excitement in their eyes and to know that I was there, I think probably fueled their understanding that I was behind them to succeed.”
Petron, a native New Yorker, has no specific plans in the short term aside from shutting the alarm clock.
“I will not miss getting up at 6 a.m. to get out to Long Island to teach a 9 o’clock class,” he joked.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.