UMaine’s Original On-stage Bear Pair
by Troy R. Bennett
Ron Lisnet and Julie Arnold Lisnet’s now 43-year love affair with each other, and the University of Maine, did not begin with a thunderbolt from heaven back in 1982, when they met inside the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre. In fact, it started with a snide comment.
“I was sitting there with a friend, being a snotty senior,” Julie said, remembering the day she first laid eyes on her future husband, “and Ron walks in, and I said, ‘Who is that geek?’”
They were both there auditioning for a play. Ron was also in the middle of a fraternity beard-growing contest. It wasn’t going well.
“Yeah, I was not winning,” Ron ’83 now recalls.
“There was a little patch here and a little patch there,” Julie ’82, ’85G, said.
But Julie’s original assessment changed after Ron shaved and applied his stage makeup for the show, in which he played a fishnet shirt-wearing brothel owner.
“I thought he had beautiful eyes,” Julie said, “I thought, he’s actually a very handsome guy.”
A few months and dates later, they were inseparable. The two married July 14, 1984.
“I think we’re the only Bear Pair to have met inside the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre,” Julie said. Bear Pairs are what UMaine calls alumni couples, many of whom met as students on campus.
And Ron and Julie are more than just a Bear Pair. Ron started working at the university 33 years ago, in 1993. Julie began teaching in the School for Performing Arts in 2002. Their daughter, Natalie Lisnet ’21, also works at UMaine, at the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.
“Between us and our daughter, we have four [UMaine] degrees and a teaching certificate,” Julie said. “I don’t think we could get much more involved.”
The whole family reunited inside the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre in January when Natalie directed both her parents in a production of Pride and Prejudice produced by the Ten Bucks Theatre Company, which Julie co-founded 25 years ago.
Originally constructed in 1908, the Pavilion Theatre used to be a livestock judging arena. Julie said she remembers it housing sheep when she first lived on campus. At the end of the 1970s, it was converted into a theatre.
“When the theatre department acquired it, I spent some time ripping out sheep mangers and shoveling lots of sheep poop,” Julie said. Now, both she and Ron are getting involved in the fundraising effort for another refurbishment.
Growing up in Milbridge, Maine, Julie always knew she wanted to study theatre. She applied to both the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine and chose the one closest to home. After earning her bachelor’s degree in Orono in 1982, she continued on and earned a Master of Arts in theatre in 1985. She now teaches in the same department.
“I teach fundamentals of acting,” Julie said. “Occasionally, I teach a survey of dramatic literature, which means we read a lot of plays and talk about them. This year, for the first time, I’m also teaching in the Honors College. I’ve basically taken my acting class and turned it into a class focused on acting for Shakespeare.”
Over the years, in addition to working at UMaine, Julie has put her acting and directing talents to work at the Penobscot Theatre, Maine Theatre, Theatre of the Enchanted Forest, The Assembled Players, Marsh Island Stage, Maine Shakespeare Festival, Northern Lights Theatre, The Grand in Ellsworth, and True North Theatre.
In the fall of 2023 Julie directed Crimes of the Heart for Penobscot Theatre’s 50th season opener. In 2025, she directed Matinicus: A Lighthouse Play for the same company. The play told the story of real-life Mainer Abigail Burgess’ heroic exploits keeping her father’s lighthouse burning on a desolate rock, miles out to sea.
In 1995, Julie appeared in a two-part network television miniseries based on a Stephen King short story called “The Langoliers.” She played the part of Aunt Vicki, who gets erased by a mysterious force.
“Only her fillings and her glasses were found on the airplane when everybody that fell asleep disappeared, I think” Julie said, struggling to remember the details. “My mother was very excited about it. I had 17 speaking lines, though that was cut down to just two in the final edit. My mother was very upset.”
Ron was also in the film, sort of. “They had me put on this airline captain’s hat and drive around in the background,” he said. “We get a residual check for it every once in a while, for DVD rentals in Thailand, or something.”
After growing up in Connecticut, Ron arrived at UMaine to study forestry. He only auditioned for the play where he met Julie because a professor invited him. After graduating in 1983, Ron went to work for Bangor’s ABC television affiliate WVII, where he eventually became sports director. After nine years, Ron brought his media production skills to the university. He’s now manager of visual media, overseeing all aspects of visual media for UMaine, including photography and video production, as well as the university’s photo and video database and archives.
Ron has also been the play-by-play voice of UMaine men’s basketball broadcasts for more than 30 years. He hosts the university’s “The Maine Question” podcasts, which he created in 2019, as well. The podcast explores how UMaine students and researchers make sense of, and learn about, the world around them. Recent topics include, “Can Zebrafish improve human health?” and “What is the future for manufacturing in Maine?”
In 2025, the podcast won the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s Circle of Excellence bronze level award with judges saying, “With its punchy, distinctive title, this zero-budget podcast has impressive engagement metrics and demonstrates how thoughtful, location-based audio storytelling can translate complex academic work into accessible content that connects with local and national audiences alike.”
In addition to all their work at UMaine, Ron and Julie have always found time to perform in plays together.
“We’ve probably played husband and wife 15 or 20 times,” Ron said. “I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve been in shows together.”
Though they can’t remember the exact number, each agrees it’s in the dozens. For the past quarter century, the pair has appeared in an outdoor Shakespeare show put on by the Ten Bucks Theatre Company at Indian Trail Park in Brewer every summer. In 2010 Ten Bucks added Fort Knox in Prospect as a second regular Shakespeare venue.
“Just about every anniversary we’ve had has usually been standing out in the field, getting bitten by bugs, rehearsing a show,” Ron said.
One of their favorite shows they’ve performed together was the bickering couple in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” They said it was fun because they’d never speak that way to each other in real life.
“I got to say, ‘You make me puke,’” Julie said.
“That was a good one,” Ron said.
Now, more than 40 years have passed since the couple first met at the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre. Julie no longer thinks Ron is a geek and his now-gray beard has come in nicely — and they have no plans to leave the theatre life behind.
“It’s enervating,” she said. “Theatre is energizing. It goes through a cycle. You get to the week before opening — we call it hell week — and you don’t think you’re going to get through it. Then you get to the play, and it’s just magic. It’s like getting high without drugs.”
Ron sometimes thinks about it in sports terms.
“The similarities are quite striking. There’s a team chemistry kind of thing in both endeavors,” he said. “There’s nothing quite as cool as when you’re telling a good story, and it’s being told well, and either the place bursts into laughter or you can hear a pin drop. It’s a very inviting, alluring, intoxicating kind of feeling.”
Julie said she can’t even imagine her life without Ron or theatre, both at UMaine and off campus.
“I’ve never made a ton of money but it’s made me outrageously happy,” she said.