N.Y. Barry Grove

Some people get the keys to the city, a few others get tickertape parades. Barry Grove '73 happened to get a whole day named after him, courtesy of New York Mayor David Dinkins. It was June 4, 1990, and it honored Grove's 15-year stewardship as managing director of the Manhattan Theatre Club, arguably New York's most renowned off Broadway production company and an organization whose influence ranges considerably beyond Manhattan. Ordinarily he shares the MTC spotlight with Lynne Meadow, its artistic director, but June 4 was his day to take a solo bow.

First there was a reception at which the Manhattan Theatre Club board announced the endowment of an annual Dartmouth "Barry Grove Award for Excellence in Drama." Then there was a presentation by "LA Law" stars Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker of A.R. Gumey's Love Letters. Finally there was an aftertheater champagne reception at Carrier. Some day. Some night!

Grove happens to be involved in a few other things beside MTC. He's chairman of the Professional Theatre Companies' panel for the National Endowment for the Arts. He's a board member of the League of OffBroadway Theatres and Producers and of the Theatre Communications Group, an adjunct professor at Columbia's Graduate School of the Arts, and president of the Dartmouth Club of New York. After Dartmouth Grove trained at Connecticut's Long Wharf Theater and at England's Stratford-on-Avon, and taught at the University of Rhode Island. Now Manhattan's his home along with wife Maggie, who's director of development for New York's Ballet Hispanico. Of course, it's not easy to imagine when he has the time to get home.