BOWLING GREEN — Allen N. Kepke, a Bowling Green State University professor emeritus and retired theater department chairman who acted and directed and, midcareer, earned a law degree, died March 29 in Alzheimer’s care at Brookdale Bowling Green. He was 83.
His wife, Joyce Kepke, said he had been in declining health since breaking his leg about a month earlier.
Mr. Kepke retired at the end of 1994 after 31 years at BGSU. He became theater department chairman in 1986. He was associate dean of the college of arts and sciences from 1970-83.
And he taught all the while — directing, acting, theater, and theater organization and management.
“It was the creative process of bringing a story to the stage to evoke laughter, tears, to create this experience for people — that’s what he did, and he was very good at it,” said Mrs. Kepke, a former president of Bowling Green City Council.
In all, her husband was involved in 84 productions in his lifetime, beginning with a high school role in Harvey. Together, the Kepkes enjoyed dissecting what worked and what didn’t work about a play.
“We would always do the after-performance reviews with each other,” she said. “Any production, every production, and it was great fun.”
One of the first plays he directed at BGSU was Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in 1963. Ironically, one of his last acting roles at the university, in 1997, was as Willy Loman, the playwright’s iconic everyman protagonist.
Mr. Kepke was managing director from 1964-70 of the Huron Playhouse, in Huron, Ohio, then an arm of BGSU and the theater department’s summer home. He was director of theater productions at BGSU from 1967-70.
On campus and at Huron Playhouse, Mr. Kepke directed more than 35 productions.
He acted in BGSU and Toledo Repertoire Theatre productions. He counted among his favorite roles the part of Argan in the Rep’s staging of The Imaginary Invalid and, at BGSU, Antonio Salieri in Amadeus and Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
He wrote in a 1993 resume that his research interests included an emphasis on the actor and director relationship.
He was a member of the faculty senate from 1967-73 and from 1984-87 and chairman in the 1970-71 academic year. As the senate marked its 25th anniversary, Mr. Kepke was senior ranking former chairman who was still an active faculty member and was chosen to give the August, 1988, commencement address. His twin daughters Karen and Kathryn and son-in-law Michael Rudd were among the graduate students.
He was a former chairman of the university’s committee on academic affairs.
Mr. Kepke went to the University of Toledo law school while a full-time BGSU faculty member. He received his law degree in 1983 and practiced part time. He was associated with a local law firm for a time after he retired.
Mrs. Kepke said he found that he enjoyed studying the law more than practicing it.
“He was interested in the laws that pertained to academic institutions,” she said, when asked about his late-in-life decision to pursue a law degree.
He was a former president of the Wood County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board.
He was born Jan. 14, 1935, in Cleveland to Helen and Harold Kepke and was a graduate of Fairview High School.
He got a bachelor’s degree in 1957 from what was then Otterbein College; a master’s degree in 1959 from Ohio State University, and a doctorate in 1964 from Michigan State University.
Surviving are his wife, the former Joyce Miller, whom he married June 15, 1958; son, Mark Kepke; daughters Kathryn Rudd and Karen Pendleton, and seven grandchildren.
Memorial services are pending. Arrangements are by Dunn Funeral Home, Bowling Green.
The family suggests tributes to First Presbyterian Church, Bowling Green, or the BGSU theater department.
Blade staff writer Jennifer Feehan contributed to this report.
Contact Mark Zaborney at mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.
First Published April 8, 2018, 4:00 a.m.
