William Crocken leaves legacy at Penn State

William Crocken, first director of Penn State’s Center for the Performing Arts and founder of the Integrative Arts program, died on January 14, 2022. With a career spanning performance, production, technical direction, arts education, and arts administration, he leaves behind a legacy of bringing people together—through the arts, through his humor, and through his enthusiasm for life. Crocken joined the Penn State Theatre faculty in 1971, after a seven-year stint teaching at UCLA and serving as a musical director and technical director for productions at the university. Prior to entering academia in the early 1960s, he had worked in technical positions for the San Francisco Opera and in television and film. He drew on that experience when, in 1976, he served as managing producer for Penn State’s world premiere of “Be Glad Then America,” a bicentennial opera involving almost 500 people, including a 206-voice choir and 110 musicians from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In 1985, Crocken was named director of the newly formed Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State, which combined the Artists Series, Auditorium Management, and the Ticket Center. As director, one of his goals was to dispel the notion that attending performing arts events is an elitist activity, and he strove to bring more high school students to see shows at the center. According to Crocken’s wife, Barbara, one of his proudest achievements was the creation of the Integrative Arts program at Penn State in 1990, the first undergraduate multidisciplinary arts program in higher education. He retired from the University as professor emeritus in 1992. In retirement Crocken served as an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech, and enjoyed traveling, especially “tinkering around” on a boat, car, or motorhome. In addition to Barbara, Crocken is survived by his children, Michael Crocken and Laura Crocken Stevens, and five grandchildren, Sarah, Joseph, Ariel, Eleanor, and Anna. Friends and colleagues are encouraged to share remembrances on the website created by Michael and Laura.