Susan Gregg

Actors and directors, playwrights and designers, theater artists representing just about every discipline and every troupe in town packed the Loretto-Hilton Center on Monday for a memorial service for Susan Gregg, associate artistic director of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis for 21 years. Susan, 65, died of heart disease in July.

The Rep put together a beautiful service in Susan’s honor, one that included reminiscences from many colleagues. By turns, they recalled her superb mind, her directorial talent, her commitment to children, her love for the game of bridge and her delicious cornbread. Highlights included performances of a couple of shows from WiseWrite, a program Susan started to help children express themselves through playwrighting. When actor Whit Reichert, as a kind pediatrician, wiped the “spout” of an ailing little teapot played by John Rensenhouse, another actor who worked with Susan many times, the moment became an emblem of the caring that many of Susan’s colleagues found in her.

Dr. Stephen Lefrak of Washington University praised Susan’s influence on medical students, whom she encouraged to examine the personal and emotional aspects of their profession through theater classes. (Susan, fascinated by medical issues, directed many plays that touched on those themes, including “Wit,” “The Clean House” and last season’s wildly popular production of “The Miracle Worker.” This season, she was set to direct the new medical thriller “Secret Order” in the Rep’s Studio Series.) Actors Darrie Lawrence and Peggy Billo performed selections from plays that Susan directed. 

Playwright Carter W. Lewis, a longtime friend, nearly brought down the house when he took to the podium hefting a thick sheaf of papers. “This,” Lewis said, “is what happens when your dramaturg dies.”

The service concluded with a performance of ”Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” by vocalist Deborah Sharn and pianist Henry Palkes. After Susan died, Rep artistic director Steve Woolf discovered that she had included it over and over on her own mixes, especially those she had marked as music for bridge. “Tootsie, goodbye,” Sharn sang at the end. It was as tender as the hand of a gentle doctor treating an anxious patient, human or teapot.