Teacher, Builder, Cheerleader
Michael Cadden retired in July after 40 years of teaching at Princeton, originally in the Department of English and later as the director of the Program in Theater (and University Lecturer). From 2011 to 2019, he served as chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts, launched in 2007 to forge programs in creative writing, dance, theater/music theater, visual arts and the interdisciplinary Princeton Atelier into a single academic unit — the locus of “Princeton in the Service of the Imagination.” Cadden was also among those who initiated the development of the 350-seat Berlind Theatre (2003) shared by the McCarter Theatre and the Lewis Center. During his tenure as chair, plans were completed for the Lewis Arts complex, which opened in 2017, providing new teaching, exhibition and performance venues for theater, dance, music and the visual arts. Cadden’s courses covered a range of topics from ancient Greek drama and Shakespeare in performance to modern and contemporary theater; he received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1993. Since 1981, he has also taught summer programs for high school teachers at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English. For over three decades he served as the Princeton reader for the George Jean Nathan Award, the nation’s most prestigious prize for theatrical criticism. In 1988, Cadden offered Princeton’s first course in what was then referred to as “gay and lesbian studies”: “Sexuality and Textuality: Speaking the Unspeakable.” He was for many years a trustee of the Fund for Reunion/Princeton GALA.