ATC IN YOUR COMMUNITY

In December, ATC lost a good friend and faithful supporter in Monte Duval. Monte was with our company from the very beginning, helping to create the Arizona Civic Theatre which eventually became ATC. We honor his legacy with the words of some of his close friends and colleagues.

From Marvin Cohen, former ATC Trustee
Monte Duval was a Renaissance Man – a man for all seasons. He worked, very effectively, in the fields of science, medicine and administration; but he knew that life was more than that. He knew that the arts help us to understand what it is to be fully human. Monte, himself, was a musician and a great appreciator and supporter of the theatre.

When Sandy Rosenthal had a dream of building a community theatre that would grow into a professional theatre to serve the state, Monte and his wife, Carol, and my wife, Frances, and I shared that dream and worked to make it a reality. Arizona Civic Theater was the product of Sandy’s dream – as well as the work that Monte and others put into it in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Of course, realizing that dream was not easy. Money was a constant problem. As many people know, Monte was an innovator – he could develop ideas outside the box. In the early 1970s, when the theatre was in financial trouble, Monte learned that a group of gentlemen in upstate New York were required to sell the greyhound race track they owned in Tucson. Monte called me and suggested that Arizona Civic Theater buy the race track and use the income to finance their plays. I thought it was a great idea and we went public. It was the front page headline story in the Arizona Daily Star the next day. Somehow, though, it didn’t work out – it was so far outside the box that it fell right off the table!

My favorite memory of Monte and the theatre was the week that Arizona Civic Theater was threatened with bankruptcy. It had been a rough year and if we couldn’t raise $16,000, we would have to close the theatre and file for bankruptcy. We were performing in the little theatre at the Tucson Community Center. Monte had been President of A.C.T. for two years and I had just succeeded him. He and I agreed that, for one week, we would alternate, at intermission, making a plea to the audience, asking for financial support and, literally, passing the basket through the crowd. Monte took Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; I took Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Of course, it turned into a competition to see who could raise the most money – and Monte won. At the end of the week, we had raised over $17,000 and the theatre stayed in business. It changed its name to Arizona Theatre Company, expanded to Phoenix and is now the State Theatre of Arizona – fulfilling the dream we had shared with Sandy Rosenthal.

Monte and I also shared the Tucson Literary Club experience. We enjoyed the monthly meetings to hear or deliver essays and discuss books we were reading. From the early 1920s, when the club was founded, it had been “Men Only.” In the 1970s and 1980s, Monte was one of the leaders who convinced members to integrate the club. Both genders are now welcome and the quality of the essays and discussions is much improved.

Monte Duval’s life enriched the University of Arizona, enriched the State of Arizona and greatly enriched the lives of those of us fortunate enough to be his friends and share his passions. We treasure our time with him – we will miss him.

From George Rosenberg, former ATC Trustee (and namesake of ATC’s Georgy Award)
As a visionary, Monte DuVal would be sufficiently memorialized if we remembered him only for the School of Medicine and University Medical Center. The fact is, though, that Arizona Theatre Company is in large part his equally lasting legacy.

It was Monte who saw that Arizona Civic Theatre (as we were named
originally) was too good, too important to be just another "little theatre." He led the leap that instituted professional management and professional standards. As much as anybody, Monte DuVal shaped what Arizona Theatre Company has become, the State Theatre of Arizona and a peer among American regional theatres.

It is right and just to assign the label, Renaissance Man, to people of Monte DuVal's creativity. He's all of that, but I like to think he'd also be amused at my having recently called him — admiringly and lovingly — the Full Monte.

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