Theater professor dies in France

By David Enders

Daily Staff Reporters

University Music Prof. Gary Bird was expected to hold auditions for the musical "Assassins" last night, but shocked students were instead greeted by grief counselors.

Bird was confirmed dead yesterday after having been reported missing in France since the beginning of classes last week.

Bird's son Tyler, of West Jordan, Utah, said last night that he received a letter from the U.S. Embassy in France saying his father had been found dead, apparently of natural causes, in his hotel room.

"They are performing an autopsy," Tyler Bird said.

Bird said the letter told him there was no evidence of foul play in his father's death.

Bird, 49, was a veteran performer and director of more than 60 plays and musicals across the country. He was an assistant professor in the musical theater department of the School of Music.

According to Bird's School of Music biography, he headed the degree program in musical theater at East Carolina University from 1991 to 1994. He also taught at Utah State University and Brigham Young University.

Most recently he directed an off-Broadway production of "The Robber Bridegroom" for the Manhattan Theater Ensemble.

"He was writing a book about performance," Tyler Bird said. "That was his life and his love."

Second-year musical theater student Monique French was in Bird's Introduction to Musical Theater class last year and this semester is taking Musical Theater Performance, a class Bird was expected to teach.

"He was a very kind-hearted man and a very good director," she said. "He's going to be deeply, deeply missed."

Bird is survived by his wife, DeAtta, and two daughters, Chelsea and Bethany.

Bird