George B Miller was a friend of mine.

More importantly, he was a friend of Lehigh Valley theater.

His participation in the region’s theater scene goes back at least to the former Guthsville Playhouse and continued until his discussing possible productions not long before his April 13 death at age 77 at the beloved Anam Cara Farm, South Whitehall Township, where he lived since 2015 with his wife, Kate Scuffle.

One article can’t to do justice to the depth and breadth of Miller’s involvement in area theater as actor, director and producer. He participated in one way, shape or form, with stage productions at Touchstone Theatre, Pennsylvania Playhouse, Northampton Community College and and Crowded Kitchen Players, among others.

Most notably, though, was his founding in 2005, with Scuffle, of Selkie Theatre, which produced plays not only on stages in the Lehigh Valley but in Ireland. Miller and Scuffle moved to Galway, Ireland, in 2006 to pursue their theatrical journey.

They returned to produce Selkie’s “Electric Cow: A Festival of New Green Plays” in 2011 at Illicks’ Mill, Monocacy Park, Bethlehem.

In recent years, Miller and Scuffle, were frequent cohosts of “Lehigh Valley Arts Salon” on WDIY 88.1 until about one year ago, with Scuffle continuing on her own to host the Monday night arts interview and discussion radio show.

Perhaps most significantly was Miller’s shepherding of Theatre Outlet, where he was artistic director (1988 to 2003) and Scuffle was managing director, and which saw a number of incarnations in several Allentown locations, but especially in a former bank building along North Ninth Street, between Hamilton and Linden streets.

I attended and reviewed and wrote about many stage plays that Miller directed over the decades in my capacity as a theater reviewer and arts, entertainment and features reporter. Among the most memorable productions of any area plays were those directed by Miller, and often costumed by Scuffe.

Miller had an enormous attention to the details of stagecraft. For one play at Theatre Outlet, he even installed running water, which he delightedly demonstrated for me after the opening-night performance. With that lovely gleam in his eye, and in that deeply expressive voice, he said, “See, it really works,” as he delightedly twisted the tap, which indeed produced a stream of water. He looked at me with the glee of a little boy to see my reaction, and when I nodded my head in astonished approval, there followed that wonderful laugh of his.

Whether it was the canon of Irish playwrights which he and Scuffle assiduously produced at The Outlet; the world debut of “Crackskull Row” by Honor Molly at The Outlet and brought to the Inishbofin Arts Festival in 2000, or making The Outlet available for video and music presentations, Miller was up for it.

After a performance of a zanily avant-garde work that he directed in the prop and costume shop of the former Pennsylvania Stage Company, Allentown, in which Tim Roche memorably intoned, “The trains of the north are headed to the south,” had concluded, Miller mingled as he often did with theater-goers. Hands in pockets, he shrugged his broad shoulders, edged closer to me and said, sotto voce, of the piece, “I don’t know what it means, either.” And then he chuckled. Oh, he had a great chuckle.

Balancing Irish theater, the avant-garde and well-known works was a hallmark of Miller’s theater career. His direction of “To Kill A Mockingbird” at The Pennsylvania Playhouse in 2014 was straight-forward, traditional and a bit old-fashioned. Miller’s set design was again masterful, as were the costumes by Scuffle.

Miller’s direction of Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” in 2016 at Pennsylvania Playhouse was equal to and in some ways surpassed a 2014 production of the comedy at Bucks County Playhouse, in which Durang appeared as Vanya.

As a director, Miller, a dramaturge at heart, respected the source material, as he did with his direction of the world premiere of Charlie Barnett’s “Twelveness” for Crowded Kitchen Players in 2017 at the Charles A. Brown IceHouse, Bethlehem.

Miller always tried to bring something extra to his productions, to make them an event. He invited Mary Badham (Jean Louise “Scout” Finch in the 1962 “To Kill a Mockingbird” movie starring Gregory Peck) to attend the Playhouse production of “Mockingbird.”

There were many more memorable Miller productions. In fact, almost everything Miller did had the mantle of gravitas, but always with a sly touch of humor and a reservoir of fun, whether portraying Lehigh Portland Cement Company founder Gen. Henry Trexler or Lehigh University founder Asa Packer on film and in person; Miller and Scuffle bringing mumming and the Selkie Strawboys to the Celtic Classic in historic Bethlehem, or a recitation of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” at Helfrich’s Springs Grist Mill, Whitehall.

If all the world’s a stage, then the world was Miller’s stage.

And, if there is such a thing as true theater, or maybe I am now coining the term, George B Miller was a champion of it. He stayed true to the playwright’s vision, brought that vision to the stage by breathing life into the words in his direction of the actors, had a builder’s passion for stage sets, and was ever-mindful of the audience impact.

George B Miller, my friend, I leave you with this, for my words are wan and wanting, from William Shakespeare, “Hamlet,” Act V, Scene 3:

“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. ”