Bill Overton

At the homecoming, I was invited to be a guest on your website. It was terrific to see you all again!

I taught Drama at Cooper for 26 years, and my first year there was 1968-69, so your class broke me in as a high-school teacher. After a couple of years at Cooper, the English teachers of Texas wanted to use the word "Drama," so my subject was changed to "Theatre Arts."

I taught a full load of classes and directed a full season of plays and musicals. I directed, choreographed, and designed the senior musical every year ("The Boy Friend" in 1969), but after I retired, that changed, and the musical at Cooper is no longer a senior class project. Students at all levels do the show now.

During your senior year, we produced "A Peanuts Assembly," "The White House," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and the musical.

Since I retired, I have stayed extremely busy. I taught briefly at Hardin Simmons, and I worked for the Educational Service Center with gifted and talented students. I was on the staff of the Fort Griffin Fandangle in Albany for 20 years, and directed that show. I worked as an actor, including several summers with Shakespeare in the Park in Fort Worth. I have been in a number of shows at ACT, including "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change," and "Two by Two," playing Noah. Plays have included "God's Man in Texas." I have also done two one-man shows. And I have written plays and musicals that have been produced all over the US and in Australia. One of my musicals won the call to competition as best musical at the Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables, Florida, and that show has had three professional productions. (If you know of a theatre looking for a script to produce, by all means let me know!)

I have traveled quite a lot. At first I taught on a couple of trips to Europe, but then I started going on my own. I have been to England 26 times, and that's become something of a second home. I have also worked there as an actor and director, and I have taught theatre classes, both in London and Stratford-on-Avon.

This year I moved to Paint Creek, near Haskell, where I grew up, and I live in my parents' old home. This spring, I was hired to play Henry in "The Fantasticks" in Natchez, Mississippi, for the Natchez Music Festival.