-Stevens Building’s Room 110 was open just a sliver, and students were inside. I knocked. No answer, just silence.

I knocked harder. A tall, ominous male student answered and put a lone finger to his lips to indicate silence, but words weren’t there. Only conviction. Class was in session.

Kathryn Gately, head of the master’s of fine arts in acting program, commands respect like a drill sergeant.

“No s— is getting past her,” junior acting major Lisa Comer said.

Students stand when she enters a class. Tardiness is not tolerated — students even one second late cannot enter the classroom. They do not yawn because yawning is grounds for immediate dismissal.

Students are on time and disciplined. If they need to yawn, they learn to suck it down and swallow, senior acting major Andy Schoen said.

“She can read you like a book without even having to open the cover,” junior acting major Justin Mentell said.

Gately’s knowledge and foresight into theater allow her to probe deep into her students’ abilities.

Her students have included NIU alumnus Jason Matthew Smith (“ESPN Playmakers”) and three-time Emmy winner James Gandolfini (“The Sopranos”), among others.

After receiving her master’s of fine arts in acting from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers in New Jersey, Gately co-founded the Gately/Poole Studio in New York City. Soon, critical acclamation brought Gandolfini to seek her tutelage.

For all the fame and acclamation the actors have earned over the years, there’s a distinct personal familiarity and pride about every former student.

-“The class was challenging and Jimmy sat in the corner. He would sit on the third row of stands, as far away as possible,” Gately said of Gandolfini. “He was always intense.”

Watching Gately teach is that intense, like watching a master sculptor knead a statue out of wet clay.

Students read off a page and Gately will correct the dialect, tone or delivery.

“Too unbelievable,” she’ll say. Or, “Hit that note with more … jocularity,” correcting a student’s comedic pronunciation.

“She’s a master of what she does and can see the problem immediately,” Comer said.

Her classes move quickly, yet retain cohesion. They jump from film to dialogue to dancing to sensing environment and to natural improvisation.

“What is [the tango] doing to you inside?” Gately asks her class, while two students danced. Her class sang the tango a capella, or without musical accompaniment.

“It’s like making love in dance,” Mentell said.

And so went Kathryn Gately’s teaching. Subtle. Astute. Passionate.

Students praise Gately, yet for all the praise, conversation boils down to one word: passion. Passion drives Gately to accept perfection and nothing less.

“If you are going to do something, do it to the best of your ability. Happiness comes from excellence,” Gately said.

Passion is why students stand at attention whenever she enters a classroom.

“Her passion is like Mount Everest. I would do anything for her,” Mentell said.

And Gately would do the same for students, family and anyone close to her. Her eyes say so.

-Gately was born in Boston and raised by a strong Democratic Irish-American political family.

“Politics is theater,” Gately said, referring to her father’s influence on her career.

Family is also theater in the Gately family. Two of her aunts acted and took her to the theater three or four days a week, two months out of the year. Later in life, she discovered that one of her aunts was an established vaudeville, or light comedy, actress.

Continuing her family’s theatrical traditions, she studied under acting legend Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, taking his teaching philosophy, or the “Meisner Technique,” as her own.

The Meisner Technique, a booklet from the Neighborhood Playhouse of School and Theatre, is not just a simple set of guidelines but rather “a step-by-step investigation for the young adult actor-in-training.”

It molds a young actor from a script-reading drone to a more complete human being, an instrument with range rather than one song in the key of average, according to the booklet.

And range is exactly why her students are so strong and the theater department is one of the strongest theater departments in the United States, Gately said.

NIU’s recent partnership with the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre seems to solidify her claim.

NIU and Harvard University are the only two schools in the nation to work with the Moscow Art Theatre, known for such theatrical giants as Anton Chekhov and Konstantin Stanislavsky. NIU is set to work on an original production of the famous Greek comedy “The Birds” in June.

“It’s about two people who leave the big city because they are tired of its rules and its wars. They want to be birds,” said Alex Gelman, director of NIU’s School of Theater and Dance.

-Robert Schneider, an associate professor at the School of Theatre and Dance, adapted the Greek comedy to fit the production. After the Moscow run, NIU will bring the performance to the Players Theatre, Gelman said.

“We got Moscow because of our talented students, chair and faculty,” Gately said.

Gately is used to traveling to other countries. She directed an international student production program in Ireland in 2000. Like with most of her accolades, she deferred the success to someone close, in this case to her grandfather.

Her grandfather asked her as a young woman to give back to Ireland. She helped by giving back an original production.

That says something about the theater department’s sergeant at arms, a passionate woman who forbids yawning, damns tardiness, expects perfection and teaches the stars how brightly to shine.

What says even more is the way she says farewell.

“I’m hoping I’m being gracious as I’m saying goodbye to you.”