Light

BY ROBERT LEE HOTZ, TUFTS STUDENT 1969-1973, JOURNALIST, LOS ANGELES TIMES, NEW YORK CITY, NY
I met Tony Cornish at the same time that I discovered arena theater -- as a freshman at Tufts University in the fall of 1969 when the Drama Department had commissioned him to direct a new translation of a Spanish play by Tirso de Molina about the misadventures of Don Juan. Although I was to see him many times in the years that followed -- most recently at dinner at my home in Santa Monica -- Cornish remains in my mind always as he first appeared to me then so many years ago: A small man of high cheek-bones and uncommon grace emerging from backstage shadows into the light, whose forgiving wit never failed to temper his impatience with the common clay of undergraduates from which he had to mold a professional production. It is his lightness of touch that I most recall, an elegant poise that was less a mannerism that an expression of what seemed a perfect inner balance.