McCormick puts spice into South theater
by Vanessa Herron, Reporter

    She sits in a small office, surrounded by theater paraphernalia.

    Books are piled high, strewn about or neatly filed on shelves or in chairs.

    None of the clutter seems to bother Patricia McCormick, or Patty, as the faculty and students in the South Campus theater department call her.

    Between phone calls, students' poking their heads in her door for guidance and this interview, McCormick was directing a musical, Once Upon This Island, a product of the fall semester's Music Theatre Workshop.

    A first generation rock and roller, McCormick was born in McAllen, on the border of the Rio Grande Valley.

    As the only child of a registered nurse and a utility auditor, she spent a great deal of time alone. How did she pass the hours?

    "Imagination," McCormick recalls. "I would act out movies, stories and especially radio programs," she said.

    The call of the theater found McCormick at an early age.

    "I was a sunbeam in my third grade class' rendition of Snow White.

    Another student sticks his head in the door.

    "May we rehearse in the foyer of the foyer?" he asks.

    McCormick nods, and the student saunters down the hallway.

    To the observer, it seems McCormick acts as a surrogate mother for these young thespians, who need direction, encouragement and constructive criticism.

    Somehow, she can discern just what her students need at any given moment.

    Encouraged by her theater professor to go into the educational field, McCormick began her teaching career when she graduated from Trinity State University.

    "Initially, I got certified to teach so that I could pay off my student loans, but then I found that I loved it," she said.

    Judging from the long list of accolades that she has been awarded during her career, McCormick found her calling indeed.

    To date, she has received the Chancellor's Award for Exemplary Teaching and the Live Theatre League of Tarrant County's Lifetime Achievement in Theatre award, among many others.

    McCormick has worked as a TCC theater professor for 30 years, but she has also directed or acted in several local community theaters, including Fort Worth Theatre, Stage West and Casa Manana.

    While tirelessly serving her love for the theater, McCormick also managed to fall in love and raise a family.

    "We met at summer stock," McCormick recalls of meeting Leonard McCormick.

    "He was an accompanist and coached my singing tirelessly. We became good friends," she said of her husband, who taught in the South Campus music department.

    They married the next year.

    Being a young couple, immersed in education and the arts, they rarely saw each other in the first year or so.

    "We would communicate with each other by tape recorder." she revealed. "I would be asleep or gone when he got home or vice-versa."

    Somehow, they managed to find time to be together.

    Over the years, Leonard would obtain his doctorate in music, Patty would receive a master's degree in education, and they would rear two sons.

    Her husband, though still a musician, now serves as dean of instruction on the SE Campus.

    Son Sean, 35, is a rock musician, Web technician for a publishing company and a newly trained emergency medical technician.

    Younger son Christopher, 33, a multi-linguist and vice president of an Internet company, teaches English as a second language.

    If not a theater teacher, McCormick would still seek a creative outlet.

    "I'd be a visual artist, writer, or a ballet dancer," she said. When contemplating where she saw herself in 10 years, McCormick looked up in mid-air for a moment, then smiled.

    "I picture myself enjoying family, writing plays, volunteering, playing with my cats and traveling," she said.

    With all that she contributes to the South Campus theater department, maybe she will even be in a larger office.