Beyer, Bud

Erwin Frank (Bud) Beyer, Jr. was born on January 29, 1940. He cultivated a love for mime at a young age, going to New York to study with Etienne DeCroux, a protg of Marcel Marceau, in 1959. Beyer taught at Loyola University of Chicago before joining the faculty of Northwestern University in 1972, where he remained until his retirement in 2006. An incredibly popular professor, Beyer also founded the Loyola Mime Company and the Northwestern Mime Company.

Beyer graduated from Northwestern University's School of Speech in August, 1965, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Theatre. While a student, Beyer served as a teacher in acting, directing and mime at Northwestern's National High School Institute. After taking his degree, he held positions as the coordinator of the drama department of Operation Area Arts in Green Bay, Wisconsin and head of the theater school at St. Alban's Repertory Theatre in Washington, D.C. Beyer also served a residency at Colby Junior College in New London, New Hampshire.

Loyola University of Chicago hired Beyer as an artist in residence in 1970. In his two years at Loyola he taught an advanced acting course and conceived and taught a two-year program in movement and voice. Beyer also formed the Loyola Mime Company, a performance group which toured around the Midwest (Box 3, Folders 5-10). Also during this period Beyer studied acting with the celebrated Alvina Krause, a former Northwestern professor, in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. He also maintained his Northwestern connections by serving as a guest artist and director of the Summer Theatre Festival.

Loyola canceled its artist-in-residency program after the 1971-1972 academic year and did not retain Beyer. This prompted some unrest from students and faculty in the theatre department. The magazine of the school's student newspaper, the Loyola Phoenix, even devoted a good portion of one of its issues to an examination of the department when Beyer left the school (Box 3, Folder 5).

Beyer returned to Northwestern as an acting professor in 1972 and quickly established the Northwestern Mime Company. During its first nine years, the company gave performances around the Midwest and traveled to Poland as Friendship Ambassadors in the summer of 1978 (Box 4, Folder 3). The company disbanded in the early 1980s, but Beyer continued to give mime performances at Northwestern and to tutor individual students. The company re-formed in 1998 and picked up where it left off, giving performances across Midwest and making a trip to Avignon, France in the summer of 2002 (Box 3, Folder 11).

Beyer was an active member of the Northwestern Theatre Department faculty, teaching courses and directing shows. He served as department chairman from 1989 to 2002. In 1981, Beyer directed the Northwestern production of Swansong for a Unicorn, a play written by student Sarah Nemeth. The play won Best Production and Best New Play awards at a regional competition and was one of six college productions selected to perform at the 13 th American College Theater Festival held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. (Box 23, Folders 7-9). The play, about an Alabama woman being forced out of her home by the construction of a dam, received favorable reviews from a number of critics in Washington. Beyer directed nearly 30 productions in his tenure at Northwestern, including Our Town (Box 21, Folders 5-11), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Box 24, Folders 7-11) and Les Liaisons Dangerouses (Box 19, Folders 17-21; Box 20, Folder 1).

In recognition of his teaching skills Beyer won a place on the Northwestern University Associated Student Government's Faculty Honor Roll in 1982. He earned the Faculty First Circle Award in 1991 for his involvement in alumni programming for Northwestern.

Beyer found time to pursue ventures outside the university. He taught summer acting classes for professionals in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. He also acted in national advertising campaigns for corporations and organizations and appeared in the TV movie The Duke with Robert Conrad. Beyer converted his interest in wind band conducting into a series of lectures and demonstrations on gesture and movement for conductors at various conducting symposia. Over a span of about 20 years, he made presentations at places including the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington and gave clinics for the Texas and West Virginia music educators' associations (Box 14, Folders 6-7; Box 15, Folder 1).

Beyer retired from the Northwestern faculty in 2006.

From the guide to the Bud Beyer (1940-) Papers, 1956-2006, 1970-2000, (Northwestern University Archives)