If you want to know how to succeed in life after college, just ask University President Henry Bienen.

Bienen has a small, but important role in this year’s Dolphin Show, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” said Communication junior Rachael Scholten, business producer of the Dolphin Show.

“We wanted to get someone famous in the Northwestern community and he was the first person we thought of,” Scholten said.

The show’s plot centers on a window washer who discovers a book, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” The book guides him, helping him climb the corporate ladder. Bienen provides the voice of the book.

His voice comes in about every 20 minutes, Scholten said.

“The book voice is supposed to be very authoritative and all-knowing,” Scholten said. “(Bienen) comes across exactly that way.”

This was his breakthrough role, Bienen jokingly said in an interview with The Daily.

“It’s my next career,” he said. “I was looking for another career after being president here.”

Students may not have recognized Bienen’s voice immediately, but it is listed in the program, said Morgan Beck, a Communication junior.

“It was kind of neat, but it’s not a hard part,” Beck said. “He sounds like a book to me.”

Bienen said he has an avid appreciation of theater and serves on the board at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying debuted last weekend in Cahn Auditorium, and Bienen saw the show

Jan. 22.

“I told my wife that my voice sounded very throaty,” he said. “We got an extra boot out of listening to it.”

“When his voice came on Saturday his wife started laughing very hard,” Scholten said. “He laughed too.”

It wasn’t hard to convince him to help with the show, Bienen said.

Board members called his office, explained their requests and then came into the president’s office with recording equipment.

The whole process took about half an hour.

The sound recordist made a few minor requests about his voice, such as articulation and emphasis, but mostly it was Bienen’s interpretation of the part.

“When they asked me, I thought it would be fun and it was,” Bienen said.

Bienen has appeared in two or three NU shows, sometimes by reading things on stage.

In the original Broadway version of the musical, Walter Cronkite played the voice of the narrator.

“How to Succeed in Business Without Trying,” will be playing Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.

Reach Ashima Singal at [email protected].