"YOU REMEMBER WHATS IT'S LIKE TO FEEL LIKE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING WHEN YOU'RE IN COLLEGE?"

The question is from Stephen Jackson-Clark ('80), a high school drama teacher in Tualatin, Ore. He's talking about his decision, back in 1979 when he felt like he knew everything, to not try out for a friend's play. "I only wanted to do plays that changed the world," he explains. "I liked the play -- but I thought, 'this is entertaining.'" In other words, not world-changing.

The play was about damsels in distress, knights in shining armor and a dragon. And it was not your typical dragon, but a dragon with an identity crisis, as Jackson-Clark puts it, who becomes a vegetarian because he's tired of wreaking havoc and devouring young virgins.

Jackson-Clark's friend, Phoef Sutton ('81), was a fellow JMU student who eventually went on to write sophisticated scripts for Cheers, Newhart and the film The Fan. Sutton serves as executive producer of NBC's comedy Coupling, based on the British hit series.

The Pendragon Institute, performed at the experimental theater in 1979, eventually won Sutton acclaim at the American College Theatre Festival. He went on to win the Norman Lear Young Playwrights competition and interned in Hollywood.

Jackson-Clark, instead of acting in Sutton's The Pendragon Institute, took on the role of master carpenter and selected the pre-show music -- an anachronistic mix of music by rock bands including The Who.

"I can frankly say Phoef was more talented than I," says Jackson-Clark, "though we were both fairly ambitious and wanted to jump in feet first." The two acted opposite each other in Dial M for Murder and in a production of Henry IV Part 1 (Sutton played Prince Hal, Jackson-Clark played Dogspur). While at JMU, Jackson-Clark participated in a USO tour to Europe, performing in The Fantasticks and a variety show.

After graduating, Jackson-Clark knew he didn't want to go into professional acting. "My two choices were New York and L.A., and those were not places I particularly wanted to live." A friend had spent some time in Oregon, so he and some friends packed up a truck and headed northwest "to make a go of it." Jackson-Clark stayed, met his wife, a graphic designer and Portland native (no children, but three cats), and now teaches at Tualatin High School.

Jackson-Clark's duties as a high school drama teacher are diverse. Besides theater and film classes, "I've taught everything from shop to English to social studies." Every year he and his students produce three main stage productions, and for the spring of 2003 he was tossing around ideas when he thought of The Pendragon Institute, more than 20 years after its JMU debut.

He'd kept in contact with Sutton sporadically over the years and approached him about wanting to produce the play at his high school. Although Sutton was willing, he no longer had a copy of the script. They had to call on JMU theater professor Roger Hall to supply the copy that he'd kept.

"The students and I had a blast," says Jackson-Clark, although he wasn't sure what their reaction would be at the beginning. "I was wary at first, as they were, because it was an unknown quantity. We did the first read-through, and as we did the laughs started to come."

Slapstick comedy and references to Monty Python resounded with his kids even 23 years later. Although the play's characters are straight out of children's fairy tales, Jackson-Clark says, "some of the kids thought it was a little racy because he was talking about virgins."

"I'm a fan of involvement," the high school teacher says, so he expanded the cast from the original nine to 32 (with Sutton's approval). The play ran six performances over two weekends, and somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 people attended: "We billed it as a West Coast premiere."

"This was one of our more popular plays, once word about sex and swords got out," Jackson-Clark recalls.

More than that, though, he says, "The story is about growing up and finding your quest." He tries to find plays that "engage the students and provoke thought." Next year's season will include Macbeth and The Philadelphia Story.

"I suppose if you put on a play and no one cared, it would be the worst thing of all," the dramatic coach ponders. But that would be nearly impossible when the director and playwright are JMU grads -- and the protagonist is a vegetarian dragon.

-- Cara Ellen Modisett ('96)