David Melvin Molthen, M.A. '63

2024 Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement: College of Arts & Sciences

David Melvin Molthen, M.A. '63 focused his career on the advancement of student learning, artistic achievement for Carroll, and the theatre education profession. After graduating from Carroll in 1963, majoring in English, speech, and drama and minoring in secondary education, Molthen taught English, speech and drama and was the chair of the language arts department at Waterford Union High School for six years, where he directed 12 full-length productions. During this time, he was also a freelance resident actor and director at Belfry Summer Stock Theatre in Williams Bay, WI, and a resident actor at 4th Wall Summer Theatre in Fontana, WI.

In 1970, Molthen became a professor of theatre arts at Carroll and was later appointed chair of the department for a total of 20 years in a tenure of 34 years. Molthen led Carroll’s Department of Theatre Arts to continue its innovative historical reputation, focusing on programs centered on theatre arts rather than drama. After eight years of planning and his direction of 1776, the Otteson Theatre was inaugurated in 1980 as a unique home for the Carroll Players, the student theatre organization. Strengths of the program included an innovative blend of quality faculty teaching, high artistic performance, course additions in scene, lighting, costume design, theatre management, American theatre history and literature, and more. Adjunct faculty consisted of professional production artists from Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, and worldwide.

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Carroll theatre student experience was internationalized with faculty and artist exchanges, performances, and campus visits to eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, England, and Central America, along with a special affiliation with Up with People. Molthen’s 1996 and 1999 Carroll performance tours to Central America were the United States first and based upon his development of a network of professional, university, secondary school, and community theatres allied to the embassy and governmental agencies. In 2000, he was allowed with State Department approval to attend the eight-day Cuban theatre festival staged in Camaguey.

Molthen directed 35 mainstage theatre productions at Carroll, including Wisconsin's first all African-American mainstage productions Purlie in 1978 and The Wiz in 1986. He also formed the Teatro Juvenil CETA Project for La Casa de Esperanza and directed theatre at Communidad Unida Centro.

In 1974, his chairing of a panel of 19 Wisconsin high school, college, and university theatre teachers led to the first placement of high school teacher certification standards in the nation by the Wisconsin Department of Public Education, eclipsing Texas placement by one month. Around Carroll’s campus, Molthen chaired numerous Carroll academic committees and served two terms as faculty president.

From 1980-1991, as the Waukesha Freeman drama critic, he authored over 350 reviews. For over a decade, he served as a professional adjudicator for the Wisconsin/Illinois American College Theatre Festival, president and board member of the Wisconsin Theatre Association and the Wisconsin University/College Theatre Association, and chairman and member of the Waukesha Landmarks Commission. He also formed the 19-member Waukesha Arts Alliance, now a county-wide agency furthering the fine arts.

After retiring, in 2004, he was granted professor emeritus of theatre arts status. He has received many awards and designations, such as the Carroll University Benjamin Richardson Educational Innovations and Research Award, The John Bailey Wisconsin Outstanding Theatre Educator Award, and the

Waukesha County Technical College Citizen of the Year. Molthen continues to dedicate time to his alma mater. He participated on his 50th Reunion Committee, attends and supports events, and published A Chronology of the Carroll Players Performances 1896-1996 and A Directory of Carroll Players 1896-1996. His archival research of Carroll professor May Nickell Rankin proved her department was the nation’s first co-curricular theatre program and was presented at the 2019 Midwestern Theatre and American Theatre in Higher Education Conferences.