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Professor of Theater Michael Abbott is the current chair of the music department and specializes in teaching film studies, acting, and directing. He enjoys taking students to see productions in the area and abroad. He's a professional stage director with a keen interest in developing new scripts and screenplays. Most recently, he starred in the Wabash Theater production of "12 Angry Men" in February 2025. 

Jeremy Hartnett '96, professor of Classics and Charles D. and Elizabeth S. LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, puts the finishing touches on his welcome remarks prior to Salter Hall's opening.

Laura Cohen, sister of Michael Abbott (right), looks on proudly during a conversation prior to the event.

Associate Professor of English Crystal Benedicks, who presented last year's LaFollette Lecture, was all smiles before the event.

Dwight Watson, professor of theater emeritus, enjoyed his return to the Fine Arts Center.

Hartnett opens the festivities with a welcome greeting.

Hartnett gave some background information on the lecture's namesake, Charles D. LaFollette [W1920].

Benedicks, last year's LaFollette lecturer, upholds the tradition by introducing this year's featured speaker.

Benedicks' introduction brought Abbott from his days as a Wabash student to the present.

"I’ve been teaching theater and film for 37 years, 32 of those here at Wabash," Abbott started. "So today, of course, I’m going to talk about neither one. You fairly may wonder why. Because for as long as I can remember, music has been my friend. When I was lonely, it kept me company. When I was confused, it gave shape to feelings I couldn’t name—sung in the voice of someone who’d already been there, who knew. In my darkest times, it comforted me. It’s the one friend that never moved away, never grew tired of me, never let me down. Music is the one thing my father gave me that I’m grateful for..."

"Now, I’ve also loved staging plays, and I’ve loved teaching film," he continued. "Truly. What a blessing that this College let me do those things—with tons of support, and very little interference. But music was my first love. It feeds my soul. Maybe you understand...

"And here’s the wild part: for the last going on five years, right outside those doors, the College has actually paid me money to set up shop in the music department. But music isn’t my real focus today. I’m more interested… in love. And vulnerability. And how you can’t have one without the other. And how music so often shows us that. Or reminds us. Makes us feel it. Literally. Vibrating the tiny bones in our ears. The Humanities mingling with Physics..."

"I’ve been thinking about what it means to live—and to teach—with a mixtape mind," he said. "When we share what we love, we put ourselves at risk. But it’s such a hopeful gesture. Do you remember? When she hears this one song – right after the one I put before it – she will finally understand me...

"It’s vulnerable work, saying: Here, I love this. Here’s what moves me. Judge my heart..."

"A mixtape was never just a pile of songs," Abbott continued. "It was a channel of communication. You made one when words weren’t enough—when you needed music to say who you were, or how you felt about someone. It’s also a way of shaping memory. The act of choosing and ordering songs—rewinding, dubbing, listening back—it turns loose tracks into a story..."

"For the past ten years or so at Wabash, I’ve boiled my teaching down to two things I want my students to learn: how to see, and how to love," he said. "Just those two. How to stop—just stop—and really look, or really listen. How to find words for the love that’s already in them, words chosen with care. It takes a vulnerability they’ve rarely tapped, and a vocabulary they don’t yet have. My job is to make space for one and give them tools for the other..."

"On the surface, The Blues Brothers looked like a joke stretched too far: the sunglasses, the deadpan delivery, the cartoon car chases," he said. "But the key was that they played it straight. Belushi and Aykroyd didn’t wink at the camera; they put on those suits like they were punching a clock for work..."

"The reverence was real, and it came from Dan Aykroyd," Abbott explained. "He grew up in Ottawa with a deep obsession, listening to late-night blues and R&B stations out of Chicago and Detroit. He was the one stockpiling Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf records. Belushi wasn’t a blues fan at first; he was all about The Who and Zeppelin—hard rock. But one night, he wandered into the speakeasy Aykroyd ran in New York, heard the records and the jams, and got hooked. That’s the real beginning: not a comedy bit, but one friend converting another..."

"For me, and for a lot of kids, that’s exactly how it worked," he said. "Comedy got us in the door, but their real achievement was smuggling soul and blues into the ears of a generation that might never have gone looking. The Blues Brothers weren't a parody; they were a conduit. They put the canon of Black American music on a big screen and made suburban kids stop laughing long enough to really listen. To stop. And listen."

"When that bass jumps in, it isn’t background support; it’s another voice," Abbott said in speaking of the Funk Brothers. "In fact, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear it’s double-tracked with two bass lines recorded separately, mixed together. Not even (Paul) McCartney was doing that. It’s melodic and restless, it tightens the song into a hypnotic loop. I can demonstrate it for you.

Students were smart to pay particular attention to this lecture.

"When you place these two artists side-by-side, you begin to see the vast emotional territory of soul music: a full spectrum of expression," Abbott explained. "On one end, James Brown sets fire to the stage; on the other, Marvin Gaye lights a candle in the room. They both burn with their own truth, just at different temperatures..."

Of Aretha Franklin, Abbott said, "She unleashes everything she has. Shouts. Cries. Pleads. Then, just as powerfully, she recedes. The song doesn’t end with a shout, but with a fragile, heartbroken whisper. In three and a half minutes, she takes us from pleading restraint to righteous eruption and all the way back to humble resignation. And in that journey, she reveals the core truth of the song: that to truly love is to make yourself completely vulnerable. She’s pleading for her love to let her in. To give her even some of the vulnerability she’s given him..."

"And to tell these stories, she had what was perhaps the greatest instrument in the history of popular music," he said. "A voice of staggering range and technical command. Nearly four octaves, from a deep, resonant chest voice to a supple, floating falsetto. She could bend time itself, stretching a single syllable into a moment of profound thought, or leaning so far behind the beat that the entire rhythm section seemed to orbit her..."

During his lecture, Abbott also displayed the importance of listening.

"In her voice, you can hear the whisper of Billie Holiday, the phrasing of Ella Fitzgerald, and the testimony of Mahalia Jackson," he said. "No other singer carried so much history in their voice, and yet always sounded so transcendently, unmistakably herself..."

Abbott's wife, Jennifer, a professor of rhetoric, takes in Michael's presentation.

Abbott asked of his students' approach to music, "What if what I hear as distance, they hear as closeness? And tracking that shift is precisely what we’re here for in the Humanities—not just to ask what we are hearing, but to ask what our hearing says about us. It’s our job to notice those shifts, to ask what they reveal about us, and to wrestle with what we choose to call authentic. Or beautiful. Or human. Music gives us a perfect laboratory for that work. The waveform becomes a mirror..."

"Ultimately, this is why I teach," he said. "Learning to listen this way isn’t just about catching the software at work; it’s about learning to notice each other. To hear what someone else hears, even when it isn’t what I hear. Or what I like. It takes generosity. It takes a kind of softness. And in that space—where we risk listening past our own assumptions—music becomes a way of practicing our humanity..."

"Remember what I said about The Blues Brothers?" he asked, transitioning to his time in New York City in graduate school at Columbia. "How that blew my mind? This did it again. But it felt different. The Blues Brothers was an awakening to a history that had always been there. I just had to find it. (Stephen) Sondheim was making that history in real time. From Sweeney Todd through Sunday in the Park and Into the Woods, he was pushing the American theater forward in a way no one else was. And I was so there for it..."

To emphasize his point, Abbott commissioned a live performance of Sondheim's "Move On" from "Sunday in the Park With George."

Elizabeth Hutson (left) and Juan Hernandez (center), choral director, were featured vocalists, accompanied by Zoe Abbott (Michael's daughter) and Chery Everett (right), adjunct instructor of piano and organ.

The performance was a fitting coda to Abbott's lecture.

Abbott continued, "From the moment I heard it ('Move On')—tears streaming down my face—it became my anchor. And it has remained so to this day. In my lowest moments it has reminded me that music, more than any art form, can be a balm to the soul. Dot steps out of the 19th century and speaks to George across the gulf of time. And what does she tell him? She tells him to stop. Just…stop. And look. And when he does, he begins to move forward.

"It's our work, isn’t it? Bringing our students to that moment. When art reaches past its own moment to steady us in ours, to offer meaning, comfort, and guidance when we’ve lost our way..."

"It has been the privilege of my life to teach and to be taught here, and I am grateful for this chance to speak," he conculded. "What I’ve tried to share is that music does more than accompany us. It gives us a way to practice our humanity—to sharpen our seeing, to widen our hearing. And if our work endures it is because we learn to notice one another with care, and to love more deeply for it.

"So as my mixtape winds to its end, I hope you will make your own—finite, imperfect, with friction and hiss, stitched together with intention. May you risk sharing what moves you. Because that is how we see each other. That is how we love."

Abbott greets Dane Market '26 (right) following the lecture.

Betsy Swift, a Wabash Theater regular, made a return to the Fine Arts Center for Abbott's lecture. She is pictured at the post lecture reception.

Timur Akhunov, associate professor of mathematics, engages in conversation at the reception.

Eric Olofson, professor of psychology, listens to a colleague.

Jennifer (left) and Zoe Abbott pose for a photo following the lecture.

Jim Cherry (left), associate professor of theater, chats with the Watsons.

Annie Strader, associate professor of art, greets a colleague.

Many students enjoyed the LaFollette Lecture and the conversation that followed, like Bennett Strain '26 pictured here.

John Schnerre '26 (right) makes a point as Hugh Vandivier '91, associate director of advancement initiatives-annual giving and advancement communications, listens.

Theodora Kopestonsky, assistant professor of Classics, was among a tableful of good conversation. 

Sara Mehltretter, professor of rhetoric, converses with a student. 

Matthew Carlson, associate professor of philosophy, enjoys the relaxed atmosphere.

Heidi Winters Vogel (left), associate professor of theater, talks with Chenel Darby, founder of Choice 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网llness Company.

Rich Brooks '26 (right), engages with Brian Tucker, professor of German.

Anejandro Cruz '27, talks with Todd McDorman, Dean of the College.

George Shagley '26 listens intently.

Karen Quandt, associate professor of French, engages in pleasant conversation.

Augusto Kern Ghidini '26 (center) responds to Quandt (right), as Derek Mong (left), associate professor of English, looks on. 

Derek Nelson'99 (left), professor of religion, enjoys a laugh with Greg Estell '85.

Hartnett welcomes invitees to the humanities dinner that closed the evening's activities.

Adonis House '26 (left) enjoys a light moment with Brooks before dinner is served.

Hunter Otto '26 chats with a tablemate during dinner.