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The Rice Thresher
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Search to replace longtime Players' director to commence this spring by SUSAN ABRAMSKI FOR THE THRESHER The Future of Theater Committee is searching for two people to replace Rice Players Director Sandy Havens in anticipation of his April retirement. Havens has been involved with the Players for 36 years, and this April he will direct his last play, A Man for All Seasons, which was also the first play he directed at Rice. According to committee head and English Professor Dennis Huston, the committee was formed in September to explore possibilities for Rice theater. The committee officially became a search committee Feb. 17 when President Malcolm Gillis and Dean of Humanities Judith Brown approved the recommendation to hire two faculty members to replace Havens. Committee members include three faculty members, the assistant to the president, two undergraduates and the chair of the Houston Society for the Performing Arts. The first of the positions to be filled is Sandy Havens's current position as director of the Rice Players. "This person will have to be somebody who can direct, teach acting and perhaps theater history, and interact effectively with students," Huston said. In his time at Rice, Havens has given the Players a great deal of independence in the production of plays by letting them significantly influence the choice of plays. He has also been essential in the development of theater in the colleges, Huston said. "We want somebody who can establish comfortable, trusting rapport with undergraduates, who has real skills as a director, who can interact well with the rest of the community and be able to make theater more visible and viable here at a time when it's hard to get people to attend theater because there are so many other things going on," Huston said. Liz Durham, a student coordinator for the Rice Players, said that in addition to directing, the director currently functions as an expert teacher and adviser to the Players. "If there's something you don't necessarily know how to do, he can help you brainstorm different ideas," Durham said. Currently, the committee is looking ideally for someone who has experience directing, acting and working with students who are near college age. "The job that Sandy has been doing over the years is a job that has taken on more and more administrative work," Huston said. A new position, Rice Players assistant director, will be created to take on this administrative work, primarily involving the management of Hamman Hall. As Hamman Hall has become an increasingly popular venue for many types of theater events in the Houston community, it has become more of a responsibility to manage the building. "[Hamman Hall] is used nearly every weekend of the year that they don't have Rice Players for some kind of cultural event," Huston said. When the building is reserved, someone must make sure that technicians are on hand and that the facility is accessible. The new position will also require knowledge of technical theater. "It would be nice to have someone in that office who is a constant source of that knowledge as opposed to just relying on students to pass it down," Durham said. "It is not common of people that direct to know a lot of technical theater. We need to have somebody at Rice who knows how to do things like set design and construction so that the students can learn it," Huston said. Because students often teach other students these skills, it is conceivable that students could continue to do technical theater without professional instruction. "But since the administrative work of running Hamman Hall is time-consuming and energy-consuming, ... it would be useful to have somebody that knew technical theater," Huston said. Huston explained that this person might also have ties with other Houston theater groups such as the Society of the Performing Arts and the University of Houston, so that guest performers or lecturers who visit those groups could be hired to come to Rice without travel expenses. Depending on the skills and time allowances of the person hired, he or she might teach a course in technical theater or possibly direct a play. Huston said he hopes that by having a director and assistant director of the Rice Players, theater will spread to more Rice students. If this happens, it may also help Durham reach her goal of increasing student involvement in the Players. "One of the things that I've been trying to do, that all of the student coordinators have been doing, is trying to get a larger number of students involved," she said. "It would be very, very nice if we could expand our numbers and have people who just come in and do one or two shows every now and then as opposed to having a small number of people that do every show." The committee is working under a rigorous schedule, Huston said, because both positions need to be filled by sometime in May. The committee expects to hire a director before the students leave for the summer so the Players can begin the process of picking a show for next fall. In the interim, the committee must place ads and conduct interviews. Havens is currently listed as an art history professor even though he has no contact with that department. "We expect to attach the new faculty members to the Fine Arts or English Department, whichever fit looks better," Huston said. He said there is no possibility of forming a theater department at Rice. Huston said the appointment is for two years and renewable for three years. If the position is renewed once, it may or may not be renewable after that. "It will not be a tenure-track job because we don't want this person to have to compete in the publish-or-perish universe of publication, while she or he is doing all of this other work," Huston said. Splitting Havens' job into two will increase the number of man-hours available for advancing theater at Rice. "We are hoping that it will bring more theater expertise to the Rice community and so make available to more students the possibilities of learning about theater in all its many forms," Huston said. - back -
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