Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 31, 1994                   TAG: 9408020005
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DIRECTOR'S JOB IS A LABOR OF LOVE

Yet he loved old movies with Jerry Lewis or Peter Sellers or Danny Kaye, any time they played multiple parts in the same film. "I was like, `Man, that would be fun.'"

So, Walker took forensics in school to improve his public speaking. At the same time, his sophomore literature teacher at Salem High School showed the movie "Camelot" in class. His obsession with musicals began.

He started private voice lessons.

He landed a part in a school play, playing a Bible-thumping preacher who rapes a woman in the church. Walker was on his way, so to speak.

He studied theater and performing arts at Roanoke College. After his freshman year, he auditioned for his first play at Showtimers, "The Yeomen of the Guard," in 1985. He was one of the Yeomen.

The following two summers, he performed at the Virginia Shakespeare Festival in Williamsburg. He also spent a summer studying at the Shakespeare Conservatory in New York.

After college, Walker worked for Tweeds in telemarketing before getting a job as marketing and production manager at Opera Roanoke, where he works today. In 1988, he returned to Showtimers and played in about dozen productions over the next three years.

He wanted to be a director. His reason stemmed partly from that Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland, let's-put-on-a-show thing, partly because he saw others direct and he thought he could do just as good a job. Maybe better.

He started with a play, directing "Brighton Beach Memoirs" in 1991. Previously, Walker had only directed a musical review in college. It was a safe start. It was Neil Simon, and it wasn't a musical. He called it "director proof."

Then he co-directed the musical "Li'l Abner" and followed that as full director on two more musicals, "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" and "Follies," before taking on "The Sound of Music."

As director, he is responsible basically for everything that an audience sees on stage, from the scenery to the lighting to the singing and so on. "They sit back and they're the ones with the ultimate perspective on the whole work," he explained.

For his time, Walker, 28, doesn't get paid. Showtimers is an all-volunteer, amateur community theater. He said he has logged more than 120 hours of his own time over the last two months in preparation for "The Sound of Music," which opened this weekend.

He does it mostly because he loves the theater, but also for the experience. Someday, he said he may return to school to pursue a master's degree in theater. He may try to work in the theater professionally.

Or he might go to seminary school.

He isn't sure.

Either way, he has thoroughly overcome his shyness.