Collegiate Times

“I saw a show when I was really young that had slide projection and I thought ‘Well, that’s cool. I’ll do that.’ So I’ve always done it,” McGrath said. “It started really small with slide projections, but as

I’ve grown and the technology has grown, our style has grown. It’s just what I do.”

McGrath joined Tech’s faculty during the 2007 school year after responding to a job advertisement posted by the theatre department.

“We were looking for a skilled director who had experience in the theater world and someone who could bring a wealth of world experience to our department,” said Patricia Raun, theatre department head.

McGrath’s extensive theater credits were attractive to Tech’s theatre program due to its geographic isolation from the heart of the theater world, Raun said.

“He brought a no-nonsense approach because he had not been in an academic environment before,” Raun said. “He cuts to the chase quite effectively.”

McGrath now splits his time between New York City and Blacksburg, and the director’s energy and curiosity has become a hit with the students in the theatre program.

“Bob brings a sense of reality to things,” said Bryanna Demerly, a sophomore theatre arts major who has worked with McGrath twice. “He is right up there in your face and if he doesn’t like it he will change it until he gets what he wants.”

McGrath’s straight-shooting director style is appealing, Demerly said, because it enables actors to understand the direction he would like to take the show in.

It is also an approach that has translated to his teaching method.

“As a teacher, he is a lot of fun,” Demerly said. “He’s realistic about this stuff, and he tells it like it is.”

Though McGrath is a busy man, juggling his work between New York and Virginia, it is something that he takes in stride. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s just, I burn the candle at both ends, really,” he said with a smile.

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