News

After 32 years of service to the UIC School of Theatre and Music, Theatre Operations Coordinator and UIC Theatre alum Neal McCollam will retire this spring. His retirement concludes a career that has shaped generations of students and supported the growth of theatre at UIC across decades of institutional change.

McCollam’s connection to the university spans nearly his entire adult life. He first arrived at UIC in 1975 after graduating from Evergreen Park High School, enrolling as a theatre and communications major. Like many UIC students today, he balanced school with work responsibilities—attending full-time for several years before completing the remainder of his degree part-time while working full-time. He graduated in 1982 with a BA in Theatre and Communications.

As an undergraduate, McCollam immersed himself in campus theatre life both onstage and in student leadership. He performed roles including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Malcolm in Macbeth, and Alfieri in A View From the Bridge, while also serving as president of the Chicago Circle Players student organization.

“It was a great undergrad program,” he recalls. “Like most of our students, I was a working person by the time I was finishing college and trying to make both ends meet.”

After graduating in 1982, McCollam spent the next decade pursuing theatre professionally throughout Chicago. He studied the Meisner Technique with Lois Hall at St. Nicholas Theatre and performed with companies including Chicago Theater Company and Pegasus Players. Through Urban Gateways, he toured educational productions to schools across the city and suburbs—an experience that first introduced him to the connection between theatre and education.

At the same time, McCollam worked extensively in restaurants, eventually moving into management positions at institutions including the East Bank Club and Spiaggia with the Levy Organization. Though successful in that field, he says theatre never fully left him.

“Something wasn’t really working,” he says. “I never quite got theatre out of my system.”

In the late 1980s, while preparing applications for graduate school, McCollam reconnected with longtime mentor and UIC theatre professor William Raffeld. Rather than simply writing a recommendation letter, Raffeld encouraged him to return to UIC to pursue graduate study in directing—a decision that would ultimately shape the next chapter of McCollam’s life and career.

While completing his MA in Theatre, McCollam participated in two international exchange programs that he describes as “life-changing.” One was with Moscow Theatre Southwest, where he performed in an adaptation of Aristophanes’ The Birds directed by Raffeld. The production toured through Moscow, Kyiv, and eastern Russia before culminating in an international theatre festival in Ulan-Ude. Another exchange program brought artists from the National Theatre of Great Britain to UIC for a semester-long intensive focused on Shakespeare, movement, and voice. Following graduation, McCollam remained in London for an additional summer of study with the company.

Grad school introduced McCollam to a new aspect of theatre-making when he accepted a teaching assistant position in the UIC theatre box office.

“Up until that point, I had done nothing but acting and directing,” he says. “But I came to really understand how important the box office is and what a vital part it is to the teamwork of theatre.”

The role combined his theatre background with the communication and management skills he had developed in restaurant work, eventually leading to his hiring as UIC’s box office manager in 1994.

Over the next three decades, McCollam’s role evolved alongside the growth of the School of Theatre and Music itself. He witnessed the transformation of theatre at UIC from a smaller department within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences into today’s School of Theatre and Music within the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts.

“What has never changed,” he says, “is the students.”

“I’ve always believed we have the greatest students on earth here at UIC. They come here ready to work, and they earn everything they achieve.”

As the theatre program expanded, McCollam’s responsibilities grew beyond box office and front-of-house management to include recruitment and admissions. With the launch of the BFA Acting program in the early 2000s came formal audition and recruitment processes. McCollam became one of the central figures guiding prospective students into the program.

In recent years, he has worked closely with Music Programs Manager for Recruitment Admissions, Ben Kenis, to support students through every stage of transition into the school—from auditions and admissions to orientation and enrollment. One of the moments he treasures most each year is the School of Theatre and Music’s new student welcome gathering.

“It feels like they’ve found a home,” he says.

That sense of care and consistency is something many students associate directly with McCollam himself. One student described him as “an ever-present constant” within the program, recalling that seeing Neal during their first days at UIC made college “feel less scary.”

Students often know McCollam as the person who organizes mentor-mentee events, supports productions behind the scenes, answers questions, and shows up to nearly every performance, capstone, and student event.

“Neal does everything,” the student wrote. “But most importantly, Neal shows up to everything.”

For McCollam, one recent moment encapsulated the growth and spirit of the theatre program.

During the closing night of Macbeth this spring, audiences packed the lobby following a standing ovation for the cast. Students, faculty, families, and community members crowded together waiting to congratulate performers as they emerged from backstage.

“It was palpable,” McCollam says. “Everyone knew they were part of something very special.”

For him, the moment represented something larger than a successful production. After decades of advocating for theatre and music within a university primarily known for medicine, engineering, and research, he saw a growing recognition of the artistic community that students and faculty had built together.

As he reflects on more than three decades at UIC, McCollam points not to a single production or accomplishment, but to the lasting relationships built through theatre: students finding confidence, discovering community, and growing into artists and collaborators.

Thank you, Neal McCollam, for your dedication, generosity, and lasting contributions to the School of Theatre and Music. Your impact is unparalleled, and we wish you the very best in retirement.