At first, it doesn't seem like anything special is happening. It looks like any other Friday morning theatre class. A group of students has assembled around a pair of ballet bars on a dark, chilly stage. A man, with salt-and-pepper hair, pads around the students in cinnamon-colored socks and sweatpants with slogans painted on them. This, it turns out, is Professor William Raffeld, 67, who until a few moments ago seemed to be battling a bronchial infection. The moment he begins to lead his students, his symptoms fade, his frame straightens, his voice gains youth and vigor. Gradually, it becomes clear that this is a special moment. Young actors are being inspired. A scene is being added to a continuum that has played out over the past four decades--one in which Raffeld has played a leading role.

"This was taught to me by my own teachers," Raffeld tells the class. "It enables you to free your vertebrae, which opens up your vocal chords. It's a whole body thing. Acting is not all cerebral. It is getting everything involved." He calls out commands such as "Plie!" and "Releve!" in French. For the next half-hour, it looks more like a ballet class than Performing the Classics I, a class that focuses on scenes and soliloquies from Shakespeare and the classic Greek playwrights. "Breathe...focus your energy as you push the space apart. This is all focus and concentration."

Students at UIC are always in motion, of course. Most of them board a train or bus to traverse the city and reach the campus. Once there, they move from class to class, from building to building. Here, in the middle of a busy Friday, they will focus; they will find a quiet place in which creativity can flourish. For a change, they will learn to move without going anywhere.

"Ballet is hard!" one of the students exclaims.

"Stay focused!" Raffeld responds.

After about 20 minutes of warm-up, the students break into groups. Today, they are practicing scenes from Shakespeare's "Othello" and "Macbeth." Raffeld provides advice and direction, but he does not explicitly tell the young actors what to do. Instead, he asks them to come up with an action or gesture, or presents options and suggests that they choose one that applies to them. "You've got to decide what you want to do," Raffeld says gently.

Again and again, Raffeld refers to the "beat" of a scene or a sequence of scenes. A beat, he later explains, is a unit of action that consists of four sections: what a character wants; why the character wants it; the actions the character takes to get it; and the obstacles that get in the way.

There is a sense of tradition to all of this: the reliance on the students' own initiatives, the expectation that they will do the work they need, whether in class or after school. In fact, evidence of a different sort of collaboration is found in the hallway near the theatre offices.

Neal McCollam, '82 LAS, MA '01 AA, events administrator for the department of performing arts, speaks excitedly to Gizele Tero, a student who appeared in a benefit show the night before. (Such benefits are held regularly amid the classes and other productions at UIC. The theatre program continues to thrive, despite a constant need for funds.) "The chancellor called to tell me to tell you how wonderful you were with your booty dance," says McCollam. "She loved our stuff the best." They clasp one another in a long embrace.

"Oh my God, this is so wonderful," says Tero.

McCollam recalls a similar moment that occurred more than a quarter century before, when he was a theatre student at UIC: "I was running down the hallway after a show and meeting some friends. I'll never forget the moment. It seemed to me that there was such a great sense of elation, of relief, and a sense of belonging. And I remember thinking, 'This is it. I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure that this is what I do for the rest of my life.'"

The current cast of students is not likely to fully appreciate it, but there is an audience of friendly ghosts. Forty years' worth of hugs, of warm-ups, of chilly afternoons spent on nearly empty stages, have preceded them. After they have gone, their spirits will applaud as more scenes are blocked, more sets are draped, and more costumes are stitched and hemmed.

Theatre, as the generations of young UIC students have learned and will learn, is a continuum. It arises in individual moments of collaboration and spontaneity. It needs no great resources, and flourishes best when egos don't stifle creativity. Great theatre gains energy when its participants are called upon to put forth the effort, and thrives on adversity. This, in the case of the UIC theatre program, turns out to be a very good thing.

The story begins, as it continues, with William Raffeld. He first came to the university's Navy Pier campus as a student in 1954. With three semesters under his belt, he left to study theatre more intensively. While he was at the Navy Pier campus, he acted in three plays put on by the student theatre group, the Illini Theatre Guild (later called Pier Illini Theatre and finally Pier Playhouse). Though plays had been staged by students at Navy Pier since 1947, there was no organized degree program.

"At the time, there was nowhere to obtain a degree in theatre in this area except Northwestern," explains Raffeld. "So I went to the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts. In 1963, I was at Northwestern pursuing a doctoral program in drama. I got a telegram from my drama teacher saying, 'Would you like to invent a program [at Navy Pier] and teach a course? We need someone part-time.' So I started part-time in 1963. I taught one class and directed a play per semester while studying at Northwestern. That went on for the first year. In the fall of '64, still at the Pier and knowing we were going to move in the winter of 1965, I helped establish the department of speech and theatre. R. Victor Harnack was head of the department and charged with hiring faculty. And with my help, we put together the courses."

With a budget of only $600 per semester, Raffeld had to perform magic as he created a theatre space from scratch. The location: a third-floor lounge used by the Dean of Students at the far end of the Pier. He constructed a portable stage. His young actors had to make do with the tiniest of dressing rooms. The first production was "Clarambard" by Marcel Ayme. Other early productions included "The Madwoman of Chaillot" and an adaptation of Thomas Wolfe's novel, Look Homeward, Angel.

"We were told to get our costumes on," recalls Venetia Stifler, '84 LAS. "I went into the dressing room and it was tiny. I closed the door, locked it, and started undressing. Soon, people were pounding on the door. I thought, 'Is this room for everybody?' And it sure was. So when I came out and was all embarrassed, Bill gave a little speech telling us to leave our Victorian morals behind us."

Early theatre students had to cope with severely limited resources. Time may be gilding memories, but they look back fondly on those days. The lack of resources now seems like a great asset.

"I recognized a difference immediately at the other prestigious places I attended after I had studied at UIC," says McCollam. "I would see that there was a 'showcase' element to everyone's participation. The very first agenda was, 'How special am I?' But at UIC, it was, 'How can we work together to make this something really special?'"