A couple of years ago, playwright Naomi Wallace was meeting with James Houghton, the artistic director of the Signature Theatre, one of the most prestigious of the off-Broadway non-profits. She indicated to him that she had not always been a critics’ darling. His reply was succinct. “To hell with the critics,” he said.Wallace was among the playwrights penning heartfelt tributes when word came that Houghton, at 57, had succumbed to stomach cancer on August 2, after a two-year battle. Referring to her initial encounter with Houghton, she wrote, “For a playwright like myself, who has written on the periphery of American theater for 25 years and almost always alongside an antagonistic press, his words were a gift I didn’t realize I’d been longing for all my life: unwavering support and encouragement for the work I was doing.”Given the vicissitudes of the theater and expanding budgets, artistic directors of non-profits can’t be blamed for keeping an eye on box-office receipts, often impacted by press notices, as well as feeling the pressure to deliver productions that might transfer to Broadway. Tony Awards and a theater’s ability to tout development of commercial hits are powerful incentives to big-money donors, for which there is fierce competition.And yet, among all his peers, Houghton had the most pristine reputation for putting the playwright first in all his deliberations. Tony Kushner, in his moving paean to Houghton, noted, “Jim created the Signature Theatre out of a beautiful, original idea, born of his unswerving certainties that dramatic writing is serious writing which merits and rewards sustained, in-depth exploration; and that theaters should be homes for artists, not factories for manufacturing marketable product.”Houghton’s faith in the supremacy of “ideas” and the rigorous standards to which he submitted his artists make his contribution to the theater all the more impressive. Beginning in 1991, when he was in his early 30s, Houghton, a former actor, became convinced that certain once-celebrated playwrights were underserved or, worse, neglected. A case in point was Romulus Linney, in one of whose dramas Houghton had acted. Scraping together $35,000, including from his own funds, the fledgling artistic director produced six of his plays in an 85-seat theater. The Signature Theatre, unheralded as it shone a light on a playwright who’d fallen into obscurity, was born.More than a quarter-century later, under Houghton’s passionate tutelage, the theater’s annual budget has grown to $13 million and its founder lived to see his once-homeless organization move into a 75,000-foot space with three theaters, a bookstore, and a café designed by Frank Geary. During the opening ceremonies of the Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street, Houghton was so absorbed in saluting the writers whose work he’d presented — the famous (Kushner, Arthur Miller, Horton Foote, Sam Shepard, Edward Albee) and not-so famous (Wallace, Maria Irene Fornes, Adrienne Kennedy, Lee Blessing) — that he forgot to thank the donor who’d given $25 million to the capital budget.Actor Edward Norton wrote of Houghton, “Very few people are possessed of authentic artistic talent, brilliant institutional vision, leadership skill, and deep commitment to service. Jim did and inspired me as much as anybody I’ve ever worked with. Many of the best experiences of my career flowed from collaborating with him. He elevated everybody around him, as artists and as people.” As Kushner observed in a final benediction, “Everyone who knew him and who worked with him will miss him — and that’s a staggeringly large number of people. Everyone who loves theater is in his debt.”
↧