Arthur Richard Nichols Obituary (1940 - 2025)

Born Oct 01, 1940, Arthur Richard Nichols attended Ionia High School in Ionia, MI. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Arthur Richard Nichols.

Graduation Year	Class of 1958
Date of Birth	Oct 01, 1940
Date of Passing	Jul 14, 2025
About	Richard Nichols, Penn State professor emeritus of theatre, dies at 84 Richard Nichols, professor emeritus of theatre at The Pennsylvania State University and a pioneering educator in the performing arts, died July 14 surrounded by family in Binghamton, New York. He was 84. Nichols was the husband of Sharleen (Estep) Nichols. The couple had been married for 62 years and were residents of Punta Gorda, Florida. A national leader in theatre education, Nichols dedicated more than four decades to training actors and advancing the field of performance. He was known for his expertise in movement and nonverbal expression, and for his mentorship of generations of students. Born on October 1, 1940 in Ionia, Michigan, to James Kennedy and Evelyn Alice Nichols, Nichols served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve from 1960 to 1966. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University in 1963, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from Ohio University in 1965. He completed a doctorate in theatre at the University of Washington in 1971. Nichols began his academic career as an assistant professor of theatre at The Ohio State University. He later served as director of theatre at Eastern New Mexico University and as associate professor of theatre at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In 1982, he became head of movement training at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. He went on to lead the Department of Performing Arts at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York, and later was head of the Department of Performing Arts at Clemson University in South Carolina. In 1989, Nichols joined Penn State as head of graduate actor training, a role he held for many years. His leadership extended nationally through service as chair of the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival (1986–88) and the Association for Asian Performance (1994–95). A Fulbright Scholar, Nichols taught American theater at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing in 1996. From 2002 to 2003, he was a senior Fulbright research scholar in South Korea, teaching at Korea University, Sungkyunkwan University and the Korean National University of the Arts. He published extensively on Korean theatre and co-translated Four Contemporary Korean Plays by Lee Yun-Taek. He was also the author of Modern Korean Drama (2009). His contributions were recognized by Marquis Who’s Who for his work as a theatre educator. Nichols is survived by his wife; two children and their spouses, Robert and Leah (Edwards) Nichols, and Maureen (Nichols) Moose and her husband, Richard; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Events	No services were held.