March 2019 Performing Arts eNews

On April 27, RIT Theatre Arts will invite Imagine RIT audiences to view three working rehearsals of AI-Pollo. In addition to seeing the production-in-process, audiences will see the latest career, and strong RIT connections, of alumni Jon Roberts, Ph.D., ’70.

Roberts has enjoyed successful careers in photo science (now imaging science) and national intelligence, and intellectual property law. Now, he’s enjoying yet another career that combines his passions for science and performing arts as a sound and projection designer. In that role, he has been working with the multidisciplinary group creating the AI-Pollo production since summer 2018.

The Imagine RIT festival production will be "off-book" on a limited set in the Center for MAGIC with props, sound effects, and original music, and will include post-show talkbacks soliciting audience feedback. Students will continue to work on lighting, a full set, full costumes, projections and AR elements with plans to stage the full production in 2020.

College of Art and Design faculty member, Cat Ashworth is working with her students on a behind-the-scenes mini-documentary of the AI-Pollo project that is planned to screen at the festival, as well.

Roberts currently makes the arts his full-time career. He is a founder of Great Falls Theatrics, which provides creative, technical, performance and development expertise to live theater productions. In addition to sound design and projection design, GFTheatrics has space for workshops that can be used for productions in process, and provides directing and acting talent for live shows.

Roberts came to the performing arts through his involvement in vocal ensembles as a teenager. “In high school in Massapequa, NY, I was mostly in the chorus but I did get into All-State choir because I could sing low notes,” he shares. “At RIT, I joined the RIT Glee Club and later became its president.  We were not a powerhouse in the choral world but we all had a great time.”

Roberts graduated from RIT with a BS (cum laude) in photographic science and instrumentation, and began his first job with the U.S. Air Force Intelligence and Reconnaissance Division, and flight test division of the Rome Air Development Center (RADC) in Rome, NY.  There, he designed reconnaissance systems, and flew and operated those systems, that were used on military and civilian aircraft.

Rome was not, however, a hotbed for performing arts. When he was encouraged by fellow alum John Sharrard, ’70 Ph.D., to apply to the CIA, he joined the agency in 1977 that brought him to Washington, DC. He continued his graduate work and earned his Ph.D. in 1979.

In Washington, he joined the Paul Hill Chorale, one of four very large choruses in DC at the time.  As part of that group, he performed at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall more than 70 times and with the National Symphony Orchestra on a number of occasions. He also performed twice on the NPR show, A Prairie Home Companion.

In 2005, Roberts married his wife, Jessie, who majored in theater in college and was very involved in community theatre. She introduced him to community theatre and he spent a few years acting and doing musicals. When his community theater colleagues discovered that he had an engineering degree, he was drafted into working on sound design, “…mostly because no one else wanted to do it,” he says. 

He found he enjoyed it and began working in sound design for many musicals and plays. “I never focused on what theatre tech was,” says Jon. “That was ‘geek’ territory. Of course, now I am a proud member of the territory.” After his retirement from law, Roberts returned to graduate school at the Yale School of Drama sound department, “Because I was tired of not knowing what I was doing in my sound designs,” says Roberts.

Beyond his work on the AI-Pollo production, Roberts and his wife have found other ways to give back to RIT, keeping his life experiences in mind. As a student, performing arts was an enhanced experience but not his primary focus in college. However, he looks back now and sees how important it was to him as a person, and now to his career as in theater technology. He and his wife established the Jon L. and Jessie N. Roberts Endowed Scholarship in Performing Arts at RIT, to support students who are pursuing another career but have a passion for the arts.

With a career that was more focused on photo science and engineering, people often ask Jon if his performance background has helped with those vocations.

“In my case, it is more the opposite,” he says. “Every job and educational endeavor that I have had has contributed to my theatrical efforts. My career, which began with my education at RIT, and later at the masters and Ph.D. levels, made me fearless in attacking and solving technical issues and problems associated with various theatrical productions in which I am involved. Indeed, even my law practice contributed to solving intellectual property law issues that have arisen during presentations of shows. And I would be remiss if I did not mention that fact that acting in theatre has helped my acting in the courtroom.”