Teachers: Baker v. Baylor

In his 28 years at Baylor University. Drama Professor Paul Baker turned the Texas Baptist school into a renowned center of experimental theater. The Waco wizard's 1953 Othello split the tortured Moor into three separate characters; later he got Actor Burgess Meredith to be anchor prince in a three-faceted Hamlet. To train graduate students, in 1959 he opened a stunning repertory theater in Dallas, the only theater designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. In baffled admiration, the late Charles Laughton once called Baker "crude, irritating, arrogant, nuts and a genius."

But Baptist-founded Baylor is going...