t's an incredible infusion of energy to our program every time it happens," said Jim Thurston, the adjunct assistant professor of performing arts who directs scene and lighting design. "They shake the place up and they give us a lot of constructive feedback." They also allow a small department to cover a wide range of performing arts skills in the course of a student's four-year stay at Colby. Last fall, for example, the faculty agreed that students in the future would benefit most from a voice coach--someone who could help with projection, breathing and even, perhaps, dialects. "We can't afford to hire new faculty, but with this position we can hit those needs over a period of time," Thurston said. The position works well, says Associate Professor Joylynn Wing, chair of performing arts, because it brings working theater professionals from New York, Los Angeles and London to Waterville. "Between the Colby in London program and a steady stream of visiting artists, we're sending our students into the world and we're bringing the world to our students." "We think a liberal arts training is the best you can get for a career in theater," she said. "Theater is communication. That's the urge; that's the creative instinct." But effective communication requires the broad understanding of both the material being performed and its context, Wing says. Knowing Shakespeare's literature, not just his lines, informs the craft, as does knowledge of international issues and philosophy and the aesthetic appreciation one might get in the art department. "M.F.A. programs are looking for a range of experience," she said. Colby's program also gives students lots of opportunities to perform, according to Wing. "At a conservatory you might work in four or five plays in four years. It's very competitive. At Colby you can do 20 plays, you can write, you can direct." Faculty benefit as well, she says. "I have colleagues who talk about lecturing to 500 students, and they're kind of sour on it. Here, we get to know the kids and then follow them for years after they graduate. To get to know the kids is the greatest," Wing said. For the fall of 1995, the department decided to recruit a director for the Pirandello play. Thurston explained that the performing arts faculty selects plays that represent a particular genre within the department's plan of a broad four-year program. There were more than 100 applicants for the eight-week position, and four finalists were invited to campus for interviews. As part of the evaluation they were asked to teach improvisation classes. This brought students into the selection process and exposed them to four outstanding talents from the world of professional theater. The four finalists included a South African woman who had worked with playwright Athol Fugard, a director from Los Angeles who was directing soap operas and situation comedies for network television and an African-American playwright from New York City. Even the selection process was educational for performing arts students, Wing says, as they worked and dined with these experienced professionals and heard about their experiences, good and bad, in the theater. Iovita ultimately was chosen, in part because of her experience as a top director in Romanian national theater and as the founder of an independent company, the Chamber Theater Ensemble in Bucharest. She also was distinguished by her success since coming to Boston, where she won the "best play of the year" award at the 1993 Emerson Playwrights Festival and directed The Merchant of Venice at The Publick Theater, and because she came with a deep interest in and understanding of Pirandello and his puzzling layers of make-believe and reality, of masks and naturalism. But it was her passion, vitality and intensity that secured her the position and subsequently made an indelible mark on the students and faculty members who worked with her.