Israel Hicks
The Actors Center Journal Vol. 2, No. 2
Interview With Israel Hicks
Israel Hicks is a leading theatre director of forty years standing and is also head of the undergrad and the graduate acting programs at Rutgers University AND a very busy man. While on sabbatical from Rutgers this past year, he managed to direct four plays. One at Louisville, one at Denver, and two at the new Ebony Theatre Company he founded in Los Angeles and where he serves as artistic director. What follows is a combination of written replies to questions we submitted to him and an in-person interview he was gracious enough to grant J. Michael Miller and myself in between trips to London and Los Angeles.
Philip Carlson: What were you doing in London?
Israel Hicks: I was there for just four days, meeting with the faculty at The Globe and watching our students’ final production, the culmination of their Junior year abroad. We have been sending our Juniors there for eight years now.
PC: Sounds like it’s working out.
IH: Oh, yes.
PC: Weren’t you afraid initially that they would come back all filled with technique at the expense of the emotional work?
IH: We were very clear about what we wanted and what we expected. We are constantly making changes and tweaking what goes on over there. It’s a true collaboration.
PC: What do you look for when accepting students?
IH: Talent first, potential for employment in the industry, is this person trainable? And lastly, are they crazy?
J. Michael Miller: Would you talk about your background? You went directly from your days as a grad student at NYU to directing for two highly regarded theatre companies, namely, The Negro Ensemble Company and The Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, circa 1969 – ’70, in their heyday.
IH: I did indeed go directly to theatres who maintained acting companies and I am grateful that I did so. Plays were chosen with specific strengths in mind, i.e. company members. These were two very different companies [Negro Ensemble and Guthrie]. The first was a small company (15 actors, at best), and the second, a rather large company -upwards of 40 actors when I arrived, with a core of about 20. One company had very little money; the larger company, a great deal. What they had in common was the wish of every actor, director and administrator to “make the company better”. This promoted a true-selflessness and commitment to the work. You would hear actors in the Green Room saying to each other, “Am I giving you enough in that scene?” “Do you need me to do something else?” There was an actor at The Guthrie named Robert Pastine. When he did “Lear” all the actors in the play who weren’t in the first scene and all the other actors in the company who weren’t even in the play, would gather in the wings to watch his opening monologue. To learn from him. And we always did.
JMM: Since then, you have directed at most of the major non-profit theatres in the country. You have witnessed the phasing out of the acting companies in almost all those theatres. What has been the result?
IH: One of the results for me personally was that I began to lose interest in directing. Every job felt like starting all over again. I spent years yearning for and looking for similar situations [that I had found at The Negro Ensemble and The Guthrie]. After several years of bouncing from theatre to theatre, casting on a per-show basis and the work becoming more difficult because of this, I was more than happy to accept the offer at Denver Center Theatre to direct a) as many plays as August Wilson would write and b) to direct at least one show every other year with the larger resident company. I had found a theatrical home. As a result, I chose my own actors to work first on the Wilson plays, and then to join the larger company. I basically had my own company of actors within the larger context of the Denver Center Company.
PC: How did you begin working in academia?
IH: Mike Miller introduced me to Earle Gister. I kept running into Earle in rest rooms at airports and at theatres around the country and he kept urging me to come teach and work at Carnegie-Mellon.
PC: In each of these new work situations—and you have been in so many—was there ever any difficulty in being accepted because you are an African American?
IH: Of course. It was never mentioned, but of course.
PC: How did you handle that?
IH: Acceptance would come through the work. Always through the work.
PC: What do you mean it was never mentioned?
IH: It would come out in other ways.
PC: Such as?
IH: It was assumed there were certain things I couldn’t do. It was subtle.
JMM: If you were to design your own ideal theatre today, and had the funding to attract actors you trust and admire would you choose to build a company or continue to cast on a play by play basis?
IH: Afforded the opportunity and the money, my choice would be clear: put together a company of actors.
JMM: How many?
IH: Twelve.
JMM: Would they all be African American?
IH: The company I am working with now, Ebony, is all black. I would have seven men and five women. There are more roles for men. And you need at least twelve actors in order to rehearse a new play, especially the leads, while the current one is in performance.
JMM: What plays would you do?
IH: One new play. Two standard. And one adaptation of a classic.
PC: What do you mean by ‘standard’?
IH: African American. August Wilson. Lorraine Hansberry. James Baldwin.
PC: That’s not a lot of plays.
IH: I need time for my research to percolate. I used to research like mad and then go directly into rehearsal. I go about it in a more leisurely way today. It pays off.
PC: How would you handle auditions for such a company?
IH: I would probably just make offers. One of the great joys is to work with people you know. You develop a short hand.
JMM: When did you realize that acting companies were disappearing at the regional theatres around the country.
IH: You didn’t notice, at first. Actors who had spent an entire year at a theatre were suddenly asked back for only two plays the following year. Then one. Your reaction is to find other work, not wonder what cultural phenomenon is going on. Meanwhile, the staffs at these theatres were growing in numbers. And plays were chosen with smaller casts.
JMM: Now it’s almost exclusively small cast plays. And not very good ones.
IH: I think most theatres are faced with the financial crisis, and as a consequence, economics drives their decision making when it comes to choice of plays. Most of the classics are large cast productions. Therefore, the choices become fewer cast members, shorter rehearsal periods, and hopefully the same number of audiences in the seats. I agree with you that the lack of substantive work in current repertoires has downgraded the standard of work in most venues. I also feel that most theatre programs have strayed away from classical training as part of their programs. Many have done so in exchange for preparing their students for what they see as the “job market”. That is one reason we send our undergrads to the Globe in London for a year. To give them sense of respect for a larger, more rooted tradition.
JMM: You are a teacher of long standing. What future do you hope for, for our theatre? For your students and yourself?
IH: Realizing that today’s job market for actors has changed substantially, I encourage my young actors to work in all media, but to try and make the theatre their home so that whatever area they happen to be working in, they will always return to the theatre as their bread and butter.
PC: For their souls maybe.
IH: I hope in this way they will continue to enhance our culture by returning to the theatre medium.
PC: Who are the teachers from the past and from your past who have most helpfully guided you to the way you teach today?
IH: Lloyd Richards, Peter Kass, Earle Gister, J. Michael Miller, Ted Hoffman, Ted Kazinoff, Olympia Dukakis.
PC: Why do you think there are so few teachers of color in the training programs?
IH: Job protection. The excuse for not hiring minorities is always job protection.
PC: Why are you going out to LA?
IH: To prepare for the Rutgers presentation out there.
PC: Why do you do a presentation in LA? I think that is the last place I would advise a young actor to go, especially just coming out of a conservatory program.
IH: The students want it.
JMM: Do you think that your students still want to work in the theatre?
IH: About a third of them do. Theatre is home.
JMM: Thank you, my friend, for your time.
