Jerry B. Whiddon had not held a formal role with Bethesda’s Round House Theatre for 20 years. But just a few days ago, one of his longest-serving colleagues felt his presence onstage.

Danisha Crosby, Round House’s director of education, was watching the theater’s ongoing production, “The Inheritance” — a critically acclaimed two-part play that chronicles a group of young, gay men in New York City amid the AIDS crisis — when she was struck by a thought: “Wow, this is a production Jerry would be so proud of.”

Crosby and a chorus of Whiddon’s former colleagues from stages across Montgomery County and the D.C. region have recounted his influence within the theater community. Whiddon died on Oct. 17 of complications with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 77.

“Jerry was a force of nature,” Crosby said. “One of the things I’ve realized as I’ve been talking to friends and as I’ve been looking at posts on social media, how many of us — me included — really look at Jerry as someone who helped to sort of shape the path of our life.”

Whiddon began working with Street 70 in 1977, which would eventually evolve into Round House. He left a year later but returned to Montgomery County in 1985 as the theater’s artistic director and performed and directed 23 productions at the venue before departing in 2005.

A life onstage and behind the curtain

Whiddon was born Nov. 30, 1947, in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Towson University. He oversaw the transformation of Round House from a Rockville city program housed under the Montgomery County Department of Recreation into theatrical stages in Silver Spring and Bethesda.

In 1978, Whiddon moved to New York to dedicate his career to acting. He left in 1985 to take over Round House. He married Jean Brown in 1983 and they had two daughters, Amelia and Hannah. During Whiddon’s tenure, Round House received and won multiple Helen Hayes Awards, which recognize the best in D.C. regional theater.

“I wasn’t sure how interested in the job I really was,” Whiddon told The Washington Post in 1998. “Then we got pregnant. I looked around at 48th Street and thought, ‘No, not with a kid.’ It was a nice confluence of events.”

Crosby, who started at Round House as an intern in 1992 and has continued working there since, said that Whiddon’s commitment to his family was evident through his artistic work and the example he set for his colleagues. She recalls accompanying Whiddon to business meetings during the time of Round House’s expansion and making a stop to pick up his daughters from school.

“He believed so strongly that other people would step up and be great that you felt absolutely compelled to do that,” Crosby said. “It’s also what the best parents do. You go: Well, of course, you’re gonna figure this out, you’re going to be great, you’re going to be fine. He had a way of doing that with everyone.”

Children’s theater

That dedication to family led Whiddon to step away from his full-time role at Round House in 2005 — he left to help his wife build her marketing firm. But that departure allowed him to perform at stages across the D.C. area including Adventure Theatre, a children’s theater company based in Glen Echo Park.

That’s where Whiddon collaborated with Michael J. Bobbitt, Adventure Theatre’s artistic director from 2007 to 2019. Bobbitt said what he most admired about Whiddon’s work with the company was how he never thought about dumbing anything down for kids and that young viewers deserved the same high quality as adults. Bobbitt first worked with Whiddon to choreograph Round House’s production of “Wintertime,” which involved Whiddon donning a red negligee and baring plenty of skin while dancing.

“He absolutely loved what he was doing, and the people that he surrounded himself just would jump off the edge of a cliff to deliver for him — whether that was an actor, designer or anyone involved in the production,” Bobbitt, the executive director of Mass Cultural Council in Massachusetts, said.

“It taught me so much about putting art together and how to engage everyone in the process. There were times where it was a firm hand but most of the time it was loving. There was a passion about him that you just wanted to make him artistically happy.”

An outpouring of support has come from the D.C.-area theater community across social media since Whiddon’s death, but Bobbitt said these posts and comments only scratch at his influence.

“Anyone that’s working in D.C. theater should know that they are there because of the greats like Jerry Whiddon,” Bobbitt said.