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The calliope shrieked; the twelve-piece band blared; the popcorn vendors hawked their wares. On stage, the actors hammed their way through Ten Nights in a Barroom. It was melodrama at its drammiest that was being performed in an Ohio river port last week. And that was just the way the professor wanted it. Professor Harry Wright of Ohio's Kent State University had gone to a lot of trouble to get the right atmosphere.

For months, he had worked on a Ph.D. thesis on "River Showboats and Their History." Burrowing through books, and wandering 20,000 miles up & down the river in search of material, he couldn't find all he needed to know about the subject. The best thing to do, he decided, was to run a showboat himself.

Riverboat Captain Tom Reynolds, who wasn't much interested in gathering material for a thesis, was willing to navigate his 27-year-old showboat Majestic for the professor during the summer. Professor Wright signed on 22 Kent State and Hiram College students as actors and crew. Then he set sail for a twelve-week cruise up & down the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. Each morning in port, the students pick the night's hero, choose the villain, and who shall sell tickets and popcorn. Then they parade down the town's main street, drumming up trade for the evening.

Each student put in $50 to pay expenses, and has already earned it back, with a little profit besides. They also get 16 hours' college credit for two semesters of theater arts. Last week, with the trip more than half over, Professor Wright thought it had been worth all the bother. "We can't teach the high art of the theater here," says he. "But there's plenty of time to teach the students Shaw and Shakespeare in school. This is show business, pure and simple, and from the bottom up." And he thought that he knew how to finish his doctor's thesis now.

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