Christian Hamilton

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Christian Hamilton, 86, of Cornelius, N.C., died Monday, Feb. 17, 2014 at the Levine-Dickson Hospice House in Huntersville, N.C.

He is survived by his beloved wife Rachel Jeffreys Hamilton; also by his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, Megan, Will and Benjamin Rhodehamel of Brownsburg.

Wow! What a man! He loved language, theater, animals, birds, the dancing of trees in the wind, Beethoven, Poulenc, Rodgers and Hart, Orson Welles and Judge Judy. His favorite writers, whom he quoted frequently in everyday conversation, were Shakespeare, Jean Anouilh, Donald Barthelme and Vladimir Nabokov.

He did not suffer fools gladly, nor was he silent about injustices and wrongs in the world, or people without high ideals and standards, or the complications and heartlessness of the High Tech Age.

He cried at beautiful poems and songs. He always read the badges of store clerks and thanked them by name.

Chris was a playwright and lyricist, theater director, English and theater teacher and actor. Born to Calita Prichard Hamilton and Edward Christian Hamilton in Greencastle, he attended DePauw University there, then Indiana University in Bloomington. His teaching included Rutgers University, Indiana University, DePauw University, University of Buffalo and Newberry College.

He wrote plays and musicals for New York and Los Angeles stages for many years, as well as crafting radio dramas for National Public Radio's NPR Playhouse. His plays were also performed -- often under his direction -- in Washington, D.C., Detroit, Asheville, Savannah, Columbia and Clemson, S.C. and elsewhere.

Most recently The Warehouse in Cornelius, N.C. presented "The Reluctant Lovers," "In the Graveyard of Naughty Children" and "Garden Party: The Adventures of Adam and Eve."

Now the rest of us will have to take over his raging, his creating fun and beauty and his standing tall.

And the better part of wisdom/ In a world so quarter-witted/ Is to live life uncommitted/ And to laugh, to laugh. -- "The World Is Mad" by Christian Hamilton.

But under the brash crescendo/Of get-and-spendable things/Something sings... -- "Something Singing" by Christian Hamilton.