In 1967, Anne Bancroft and Arthur Penn were inspired. The famed actress and director had just finished work on The Miracle Worker, a film based on the true story of Helen Keller.

They wanted to create a company that would provide a stage for deaf actors, directors and designers in the theater world—and the federal government was eager to bestow money on such a project.

But it wasn’t until David A. Hays ’52 stepped in that the National Theatre of the Deaf took shape.

Hays brought so much success as the company’s artistic director that in its very first year of existence, the company mounted its first national tour. Its first stop was at Hays’ alma mater: the National Theatre played to a sold-out house at the Loeb Drama Center.

The man who created the National Theatre stayed for three decades, keeping the company together after it was shaken by an embezzlement scandal in 1994. He moved from his original position as artistic director to run the company’s administration and fundraising operations.

The famed stage designer saved the company he had founded and it now boasts of being the first American theatrical group to have worked on all seven continents.

David A. Hays came to the theater world by accident in high school. When he injured his shoulder in a friendly game of football, it ended his opportunity to play on the school basketball team. Instead, he turned to theater productions, where he discovered that his true interests lay in theatrical design.

“Scenery and design incorporated the things I love like drawing, sketching, and making things,” he says.

At Harvard, Hays was a fine arts concentrator and worked for the Harvard Drama Club and the Hasty Pudding Theater. As a sophomore he began what became a three-year apprenticeship at the Brattle Theatre, in the days when it still showed plays and musicals. Under the guidance of the company’s head designer, Hays worked on about 50 productions.

Those projects inspired him to apply for a Fulbright grant to work at the Old Vic, one of London’s oldest theaters and legendary throughout the English-speaking world. He became an apprentice there, too, and worked on productions directed by famed Shakespeareans Lawrence Oliver, John Gielgud and Peter Brook.

Returning from England, Hays continued his studies at the Yale Drama School and received a master’s degree in 1955 from Boston University’s School for the Arts.

At BU he advocated successfully for the creation of a School of Theater Arts. And he actively worked to create a drama program at his alma mater to match the caliber of that at the Yale Drama School.

“It did not make sense to give credit for Shakespeare on paper and not also towards serious work in performing Shakespeare on the theater stage,” he says.

Hays even wrote a letter urging the University to give credit toward theater productions but received few enthusiastic responses.

“It’s very hard to change things at Harvard,” he says.