While I was teaching and directing at UNCC back in the 80's, I was fortunate to work briefly with a number of excellent students: Catherine Smith, Caridad Svich, Gina Stewart, Nancy Nixon, and many others. Among those others was a talented, precocious, but somewhat shy freshman named Alan. Alan Poindexter was just beginning his work in college theatre at that point -- and he came to take a huge part in my production of Cloud 9. I did not stay at UNCC very long after that production due to the politics of the department -- more gender related than artistic I would now say.
But this is about Alan. His sense of invention and hard work showed in that production -- and made him stand out as a potential professional theatrician just because of that. This summer (2013) Alan passed away in Charlotte, NC after giving up his position as Artistic Director of the Children's Theatre of Charlotte earlier in the year. Alan made many breakthrough's in the Charlotte theatre scene: in artistic freedom in Angels in America, in numerous upgraded children's theatre productions; and always contributed to respecting and honoring other Charlotteans working in their crafts.
Gina Stewart is right--Charlotte doesn't do a great job of respecting the extraordinary theatre work of Charlotte performers. Even Charlotteans at a distance understand that Alan was one of those extraordinary theatre people who earned that respect -- on a local, regional, and even national level.
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