Long-time NMSU stage manager, director retires

“Godspell” is the first play Mike Wise ever directed. It was 1973, and Wise was a college student pursuing a bachelor of arts degree in theatre at the University of California Santa Barbara. Ironically, “Godspell” will be the last show Wise stage manages for the New Mexico State University Theatre Arts Department. The show ends its run in May and Wise retires July 1 after more than 30 years at NMSU and with a legacy not only as an outstanding stage manager and theatre teacher, but also as one of the best and most beloved directors in the history of local theatre.

“With Mike, it was always a joyous experience. Through his example and love of the work, it drove me to his level and (hopefully) to become a better actor,” said Eric Young. Young starred in several shows Wise directed in Las Cruces, and also acted with him.

“As a director, I trust Mike implicitly,” said actor David Edwards. “He is also a fine actor and El King Supremo as a stage manager and trainer of students in that important field.”

Wise was born in San Jose, California, in 1952 and grew up in the Bay Area. After graduating from UCSB, Wise got his first full-time theater job as production manager for a theater company in Idaho.

When that job ended after a few months, Wise jumped in his 1964 Ford Fairlane and began “city shopping.” He visited Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver and San Diego. They were all too cold, too rainy or too big. He wound up in Seattle, where he stage managed for a number of theater companies and did a little acting.

After a decade in the Emerald City, Wise wanted “someplace a little smaller” and sunnier. He decided on Las Cruces and its 300-plus days a year of sunshine, taking a job as production stage manager in the NMSU Theatre Department in 1991.

The department “was slightly understaffed,” he remembers, and he was offered a part-time teaching job. He taught theatre 101 classes and trained student stage managers, became the department photographer and did some directing and acting.

Wise is a longtime baseball fan and was an umpire for softball and for high school and AA semi-pro baseball, which he found had a lot in common with theatre. As Wise told his stage manager students: “It’s 60 percent what you learn in class/the rules of the game and 40 percent “(stuff) that just happens (on) that particular show, with that particular director, that particular cast, that particular day.”

Wise left NMSU for Portland, Oregon, in 1997 for a non-theater job that lasted two years.

“I discovered that I really missed doing this,” Wise said, so he returned to NMSU theatre in 1999, where he has remained for the past 24 years.

Among his favorite theatre memories are NMSU’s production of “Buried Child,” written by Sam Shepard. Jim Billings, “the best artistic director we ever had,” Wise said, built the huge set for the production, including a 24-foot staircase.

That show “had the chops,” Wise said, which is his highest compliment to a theater production.

He directed “Equivocation” for NMSU in 2018, for which Billings again did the set and Deb Brunson did the costumes. The show had an outstanding cast of NMSU students and community members. It also had “a fabulous script” by Bill Cain, Wise said, which he found a little daunting.

“A script should scare you a little,” he said.

Wise also has fond memories of NMSU’s productions of “Holy Ghosts” and Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” and the smaller production of “Venus and Fur,” which Wise directed for lo-fi productions of Las Cruces in 2013. It starred Eric Young and Nicole (Bartlett) Conklin.

“Matilda, the Musical,” which Wise directed earlier this year at Las Cruces Community Theatre, is another favorite.

“Eighty percent of directing is making up for your mistakes in casting,” Wise said. “Pick the right play, the right people, the right space, show up on time – “that’s theater,” he said. “It’s here. It’s gone. It’s like an instant family – intricate, intense, communal for a short period of time.”

The 2004 production “Of Mice and Men” was particularly memorable because of the dog Wise rescued from the local animal shelter to be part of the cast in the play based on John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella.

“Macy” was a one-year-old mongrel who had clearly been abused by a previous owner, Wise said. On stage opening night, she slipped her rope collar and wandered into the audience. Actor Eric Young looked at his fellow cast members and ad-libbed the line, “Let’s go get her,” Wise remembers. They did, and continued on with the show. Macy continued to be Wise’s companion for the next 15 years, until she died of old age in 2019.

Wise plans to remain in Las Cruces and to continue being active in local theater.