Williamstown Theatre Festival Memories of Peter H. Hunt

30 years ago, I was working for Peter H. Hunt, first in New York City, then in Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It was one of the best six months of my life.

In March or so of 1990, I left Hartford Stage in Connecticut, where I had worked for two glorious seasons, to be publicity director at WTF (don't think for a second that the other meaning of that acronym was ever lost on any member of the company). I had been at Williamstown for the 1988 season, fresh out of Western Kentucky University and before Hartford Stage: that first season, I was the publicity assistant, in an unpaid internship, working for a publicity director who made my life hell, in a season that would turn out to be the last for Nikos Psacharopoulos (if he called the office for my boss and I said she wasn't there, he would hang up without another word). Were it not for some wonderful other interns and very kind and/or colorful celebrities, I would have quit mid-season. When that summer was over, I vowed I would never go back.

But you always go back to Williamstown. It's a joke among everyone that works there - one summer is never enough. And so I went back for the first season that Peter H. Hunt was the sole Artistic Director, first to New York City, for the annual benefit, and then to the Berkshires for the summer season.

Peter was best known for winning a Tony award for the Broadway musical 1776 back in 1970 or so. He directed the movie as well. I have no idea how many things he directed on stage and screens big and small - a lot. That first summer when I had been at WTF, Peter had directed Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and it had knocked EVERYONE out of their shoes: one of the critics who regularly poo poo'd all things Williamstown asked me after she saw it, in all seriousness, "When is this moving to Broadway?" It remains one of the best productions of anything I have EVER seen. When I heard that Peter had been named sole artistic director for 1990, after sharing duties the summer before with two others, I thought, damn, if every production is half as good as Arturo Ui, my job as publicity director will be awesome.

It was awesome. But never easy.

Peter would walk into a room like a boisterous Hemingway, commanding everyone, dominating the space. I was terrified of him at first, but I quickly grew to adore him. I will never forget my first "moment" with him: the Williamstown season had just been announced with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum opening the main stage and a very controversial play, No Orchards for Miss Blandish, opening what was then called The Other Stage. The latter had a rape scene and a LOT of other violence, and we were having a senior staff meeting to discuss whether or not we should put a warning in the lobby or in advertisements about the graphic nature of the play. I had a look on my face that, somehow, betrayed my thoughts, because Peter looked right at me and laughed and said, "Yeah, you're right, what we should have is a warning in the lobby of 'Forum' about the rampant dated sexism in it!"

Peter directed Death Takes a Holiday in August of that season. What a cast - it included Maria Tucci, Blythe Danner, Christopher Reeve, and a newcomer, Calista Flockhart. It was a gorgeous production of a play that, on paper, seemed like a silly and dated melodrama, but at Williamstown, under Peter's direction, it was magical, mysterious and otherworldly. I remember when the designer brought in a sketch of a concept for the poster for the play, and we loved it so much we chose the concept art over his "finished" product. And when I say "we", I mean WE - Peter and I. Because Peter included me, little oh-my-god-do-I-know-what-I'm-doing? me. He wanted to know my thoughts, and it was okay if I disagreed or tried to steer him in another direction when it came to publicity - he listened.

I still have the poster for Death Takes a Holiday in my home office. It is oh-so-precious to me.

Peter lost his voice just before we opened that first production, so I showed him how to say "Eat Shit and Die" in sign language. He was delighted.

At one point early in the season, a dog showed up, wandering around the festival grounds, and he became my dog, as well as the dog of the entire festival. His name was Buster. He followed me EVERYWHERE. I had to go to Peter's office about twice-a-week for a one-on-one. I went into the office, closed the door, and as Peter issued his orders for the week, Buster barked outside the door. And barked again. "Is that Buster?!" Peter almost roared. "Yes..." I said, meekly. "Let him in!" So I opened the door and let Buster in, and that little tramp pranced right by me and over to Peter's side, as though to say, "I know who is in charge." Peter sat there petting Buster and continued to issue orders. After that, when I went into the theater during rehearsals to ask Peter something, Buster would come right in too and prance down the aisle over to Peter, who would keep directing while leaning over to give Buster a pet on the head.

And then there was the aftermath of the July 4th Pittsfield Independence Day parade. The parade organizers had called Williamstown every summer, hoping for a celebrity to be in the parade, and every year, all the "stars" said no. I told Peter the organizers really, REALLY wanted someone this year, and that Williamstown really needed a "we love this community" moment. He said, "I bet Tony Edwards will do it. Want me to ask him?" He knew that if he asked Tony, rather than me, he'd probably do it. Anthony Edwards was in rehearsals for Harvey on the mainstage, and was super duper nice. He was also known to most folks as Goose in Top Gun. Tony said yes, and the stage manager of Harvey, Scott LaFeber, said he would find and dress up in a rabbit suit and sit next to Tony for the parade. I offered to go to the parade with them, to troubleshoot, but they assured me I wasn't needed. Well, parade-goers EXPLODED when "Goose" from Top Gun was announced by the MC, to the point that a crowd almost rushed the car as it went down the avenue. When they came back and told me about the madness, they were laughing, and I laughed right along. They went and told Peter the same story, and Peter thought I'd dropped the ball and not taken care of "my people", and he called to ball me out and let me know it. I hung up the phone and just sat there, horrified. Scott walked in and thought I'd just gotten news that someone had died. I told him about the reprimand and apologized for not being there. Scott marched out, grabbed Tony, told him what happened, and they went right to Peter to say he'd been unfair, that they had refused my offer to tag along, that there was nothing I could have done, and on and on. It was the first time, and one of the only times, someone has defended me professionally. Peter called me as soon as they left and apologized, sincerely. I have never forgotten that apology. Most people aren't big enough to do something like that - Peter was.

At one point that summer, someone in the company tried to blame me for a profound misstep with a member of the press. I walked over to Peter's office in the evening, knowing he would still be there, and told him exactly what had happened, and exactly how I had NOT been involved. And he believed me. And he stuck up for me. And that pretty much sealed the deal for how I felt about Peter Hunt.

When the festival was over, I took a job on the West Coast at a theater where I could work year-round. A few weeks after I took the job, Peter called the theater, looking for me, and when I got on the phone, demanded to know if I was going to come back the next season, saying he absolutely needed me. To this day, I regret not telling him yes. That job I had taken on the West Coast turned out to be a disaster, and in the spring of 1992, I reached out to the Williamstown Theater Festival and asked if they wanted me back. They did - but I backed out before I signed the contract, right after getting offered my first well-paid position ever, in the HR office of a hard drive company. I couldn't take the hit financially of moving again, just to be out of a job again at the end of the summer. It was my last chance to work with Peter, and it was gone. And I never worked in theatre again.

All these years later, I don't know if Peter H. Hunt would have remembered me. But I remember him. I know not everyone liked him. Not everyone likes me. He remains one of my favorite people that I have ever worked for. He trusted me, he recognized me, he valued me - and I would have gone through fire for him.

Peter has died. He was 81.

I have more stories... like when he tossed his Tony medallion to me (at me?), but I'll save those for friends. We'll get together, drink wine, and share war stories of working for Peter H. Hunt.

Rest in peace, sir.

Goodbye, artist

Sometimes, I look online for people with whom I've lost touch. The motivation varies. Maybe some hilarious person from a high school English class crosses my mind, and I wonder where she is. Maybe I remember the name of someone from my childhood, and I wonder whatever happened to him or her. Maybe it's someone I want to avoid, and I'm just checking in to make sure we don't live anywhere near each other and I'm not visiting where they live any time soon. Rarely is it to reconnect with someone, and rarely do I reach out at all, because I think, at this point in our lives, given how easy I am to find online, anyone who wants me to find them, and wants to find me, can easily do both, so if we're not connected now, that's probably as it should be.

A "like" on the page of someone I was wondering-whatever-happened-to lead me to the Facebook account of a former co-worker I shared a house with for one year. I wouldn't call my housemate a friend - we rarely hung out, though we did throw quite a few parties, large and small, for our work colleagues, and our dogs loved each other. I lived in the house she rented - which was very much HER house - only one year, and my time there, and our relationship, ended badly - as did my job a few weeks before. Once I moved out, we had no contact. But I did learn some things in that year in her house, from her, that changed my life: how to make a really boring house quite interesting on even the tiniest budget (it was her idea to rig up an outdoor shower, with hot and cold running water, in a shoddy gazebo in the back yard - it was a rather brilliant idea), how much fun and worthwhile gardening is (yup - learned it from her), and the awesomeness of beautiful dishes. In fact, the dishes I have now look really similar to hers, because I really loved those dishes... She loved the movie Cool Hand Luke, and made me watch it for the first time since I was a kid on the day that I got royally insulted at work by someone that worked really hard to derail my career; she said it would make me feel better and, yeah, it really, really did.

I've never had any interest in reconnecting with her. And the feeling was probably mutual. But when I saw her "like" from two years ago on someone else's page, I was curious as to what she was up to, where she lived, etc. While our friendship was long over, I do remember her as an interesting person, though bitter about something in her past that she just couldn't seem to get over, and it colored much of her life, every day. I wished her only the best - a great job, and much happiness. So I clicked on her name.

She's gone. She died. And she lived right here in the Portland, Oregon area. We were living here at the same time for at least a little while, maybe a few years.

I feel profusely sad. Did she get over that bitterness and have a lovely, fun life at last? Did she make her home as cool as the other homes she's had? Did she stay active in theatre? Did she keep throwing great parties for co-workers? Did her beloved dog that she had when we lived together live a long, wonderful life? What happened to the dogs she had when she died? How close did we come to crossing paths here in the Pacific Northwest? It sounds like she was surrounded by people that loved her very much at the end, and I'm very, very happy for that. She deserved that.

We don't have any mutual friends anymore. The place we worked doesn't even exist anymore.

I feel sad. And weird. I'm so sad for her and those that loved her. Because while we weren't friends, she did matter in my life for an entire year, and some of her influence is right here in my house, right now. And she was a talented, interesting person. I'm so sorry she's gone.