At age 83, George Stephens ’42 can’t imagine living past 90, but if he does, he knows he’ll be performing. Always has.

“While I may not have had the most talent,” admits the strapping bass baritone with an actor’s twinkle, “nobody can deny that I haven’t demonstrated pretty good range.”

From Jesus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof to Buffalo Bill in Annie Get Your Gun, Stephens’ career credits read like an encyclopedia of the arts: He’s been Doc Gibbs in Our Town, Kent in Twelfth Night and Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner among scores of other roles.

So when Richard Estes, TCU professor of opera, called about a role in the department’s April production of Mozart versus Salieri, Stephens had a new role: The Impresario.

The opera was Stephens’ return to the TCU stage in more than 60 years. He attended the university off and on in the 1940s, interrupting his studies to serve in Europe during World War II, then continuing briefly before enrolling in the American Theatre Wing in New York. But while a Horned Frog, he partnered with Melvin Dacus ’44 to form the TCU Quartet, which broke attendance records all over Texas with the College Capers of 1942. Only Mae West’s shows drew more that year.

Stephens boasts that his mother, Vier ’12, attended the school when it was in Waco and was once engaged to Milton Daniel before a Colorado cowboy put a banana peel down her shirt and stole her heart. “Two years later, I was born,” he says with raised eyebrows and a smirk.

His enthusiasm and engaging personality were a hit with students in the production, Estes said. “George has such great dramatic instincts. He had everyone in stitches. It was a fringe benefit to me for the students to see someone of my generation demonstrate such passion for the art form. It’s inspiring.”

The experience was an opportunity to connect with TCU again, Stephens said. “I was honored to be asked to be in the production, and I am enjoying every minute of it. I hope they’ll have me back.”

Sounds like an encore is in order.