For more than 25 years, Arthur Ballet filled lecture halls at the University of Minnesota with his peerless dissertations on the history of theater. Ballet -- an academic, dramaturg and director -- died Monday in San Francisco, where he had lived for many years. Parkinson's disease claimed him a week before his 88th birthday.
From 1959 to 1985, Ballet was famously popular with his Introduction to Theater class -- required for majors and sought out as an elective by other students. His charismatic ability as a storyteller "made history come alive," said Bain Boehlke, now the artistic director of Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. His influence spread outside the classroom, too, because he required students to attend local theater productions, creating audiences and in some cases longtime patrons.
"It's hard to express how important Arthur Ballet was to the university and tens of thousands of its students, to the Guthrie and to the American theater," wrote Donald Schoenbaum, former managing director of the Guthrie, in an e-mail.
Ballet, who grew up in Hibbing and earned a doctorate at Minnesota, possessed a brilliant intellect and withering wit.
"He did not suffer fools gladly," said Richard Weinstein, whose mother was Ballet's first cousin.
Regardless -- or perhaps because of that quality, many former students and associates remembered him as inspirational.
"He was a fabulous teacher, so full of energy, and hilarious," said Karen Falkowske, who taught at University High School in Dinkytown when Ballet was there in the 1950s. "He would tell the kids to make a dent in the world, make a difference."
In addition to his classes, he served as a dramaturg at the Guthrie Theater, at ACT in San Francisco and for several summers at the National Playwrights Conference, held at the O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Conn. He was a Fulbright professor, teaching in Denmark, and reviewed theater and film for KSTP-TV for a few years.
