Kenneth Frederick Happe

HOLDEN - Kenneth Frederick Happe, 78, of Winthrop Lane, died peacefully on Monday evening, June 24, 2013. He was born in New York City, July 6, 1934, the son of Rose (Walker) and Howard C. Happe, Sr.



He is survived by his brother Gregory R. Happe and his wife Julie of Houston, TX; nieces, Beverly Happe Forman and her husband Chet of Stamford, CT, Anne-Marie Happe of Atlanta, GA, Claudia Happe of Seattle, WA, Ellen Happe Phillips and her husband Terry of Houston, TX, Deirdre Happe Workman and husband Tom of Windsor, CO and Monica Happe, Austin, TX. He is also survived by nine great nephews, one great niece, and one great-great nephew.

He was preceded in death by his brother, Howard C. Happe, Jr.



He attended Xavier High School from 1948-52, then entered Holy Cross College as member of class of 1958. After graduating from Holy Cross in l958, he began Ph.D study at Yale. In 1961 he took position in the Classics Department at Holy Cross for one year, and was put in charge of staging student productions: his first show was Henry IV Part I. The pressure of teaching three separate courses in Classics each semester, and staging plays did not allow him time to finish his dissertation. Efforts to complete Ph.D work that summer at Williamstown, MA, did not succeed so he left Holy Cross in fall 1962, teaching briefly at Fordham Prep, New York, late fall and spring until he finished his degree. Realizing he had too little experience in theater, he joined the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, CT for a year, fall l963, and later worked at Long Wharf Theater (Greenwich, CT), and spent a year at Yale Drama School. In September, l966, he returned with Ph.D and extensive theater training, rejoining the Holy Cross Classics faculty where he taught until retirement in 2002. He taught Latin and Greek languages and drama in the original and translation, one called “Classic Comics” on the comedies of Aristophanes and the Romans Terrence and Plautus. In conjunction with those courses, Ken directed his students in plays. By l969, he had directed or acted in eighteen plays at the College, and in spring, l970, four more from Sophocles to Joe Orton. Then too he taught courses in film, such as those from l921 to 1927, classics, of course.



Concerned about the absence of acting opportunities, in 1974 Ken urged students to become active. Thus was born the Alternate College Theater (ACT) with Ken as faculty advisor and director of their plays, Little Mary Sunshine being the first. If Fenwick Theater drew on the well-trained actors, ACT cleared space for the inexperienced and daring (ACT still continues). Utterly devoted to his students and actors, he gave parties to celebrate closing night after giving notes on the final performance, and later would never miss alumni reunions each spring. There is little that Ken did not do in the field of theater in New England. Over the decades, he acted, directed, produced and adapted classic plays. He wrote extensive theater reviews in area newspapers and was the theater reviewer for the Worcester Magazine and conducted the radio show “Theater Views” with now-director Bart Sher. He attended theater religiously, taking in professional and community productions with equal enthusiasm. As actor he performed in many plays with Worcester’s EntreActors. He played the male lead in Gurney’s Love Letters in New Hampshire in 2004, and his very last show was in a staged reading of The Trojan Women for Worcester’s Greek Society in 2012.



He joined the Worcester Branch of the Dickens Fellowship for a number of years, fascinated by Dickens’ theatrical bent. And until he resigned just this spring, he was energetic member and past president of the Worcester Shakespeare Club.



After retirement from Holy Cross in 2002, Ken turned his energy to renovating his house and developing his yard and garden with copious plantings to make his residence congenial to visitors. He organized readings of series of works by favorite playwrights: Terrence Rattigan, Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, Alan Ayckbourn, performed by a cast of invited friends. Often more attentive to hosting than performing, he listened with attention and pleasure to every word of these productions.



He loved in equal measure playing host to dozens of people, providing food, games, and musical and play-reading entertainment in the small circular stage he constructed in his back yard. He held both a careful circle of intimates and a wide circumference of friends, former students and colleagues, or very likely a person he met on a recent travel. Once while waiting for a train in East Anglia, he prompted the waiting-room crowd into charades till the train arrived.



Ken passionately believed in theater. He took it seriously and expected his players to hold the same value, but theater was also great fun and his sense of comedy dominated. Selfless generosity stood perhaps highest of his virtues, and instant wit was his hallmark, quips often stolen from plays and films, compliments masking merry insults: “Your performance left me speechless.” “You should have been in the audience.” “Will I ever forget…?”



Throughout his academic career, every seventh year Ken spent his sabbatical in travel around Europe, from England to Turkey. For each he kept a detailed journal, available to friends. He spent hours in museums, examining every object, reading every sign, absorbing information that would stagger most mortals. And returning home, he shipped boxes of brochures, pamphlets, books to add to his enormous collection from those museums, churches, castles, plays in foreign tongues. He was, in short, a complete scholar, a completely dedicated and consummate teacher, with invariable enthusiasm and humor.



He took into his home and cared for his father, Howard C. Happe, Sr., and his aunts, Irene A. Happe and Margaret M. Healy until their deaths.



Not incidentally, he loved animals, dogs perhaps most of all, but allegedly everyone in central Massachusetts has the offspring of his first cat, "Mother."



He was adored by his nieces: “He never talked to us as if we were children. He asked us intelligent questions and expected intelligent answers. He encouraged and nourished a love of learning, reading, theatre. He had a wicked and irreverent sense of humor. Thanks to him, we were the first family on our street to receive a copy of ‘Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Band.’"



Relatives and friends are invited to attend calling hours from 7 to 9 pm on Thursday, June 27, and from 2 to 4 pm on Friday, June 28 at the Miles Funeral Home, 1158 Main St., Holden. A Mass of Christian Burial celebrating Ken’s life will be held at 10 am on Saturday, June 29, at St. Mary’s Church, 114 Princeton St., Jefferson. Interment will follow at Worcester County Memorial Park, Paxton. Memorial donations may be made to College of the Holy Cross, 1 College St., Worcester, MA 01610. To share a memory or offer an online condolence please sign the guestbook on this page.