James Houghton (September 4, 1958 – August 2, 2016) was an American educator, mentor, and arts administrator. He was primarily known for being the former Director of Drama at The Juilliard School and the former artistic director of Signature Theatre Company.
Early life
James Houghton was born in San Francisco, California to his mother Joan Heaney, a preschool teacher and dental assistant, and his father Sherrill Houghton, a school administrator. He first found his love of theatre at St. Ignatius Preparatory School, a Jesuit school in the Bay Area. There, he started his own theatre company with friends called Overeasy Productions at age 18.
Then, Houghton attended Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas as young actor, and directly after college auditioned for John Houseman and gained a spot in his prestigious group, The Acting Company.
Houghton was married to actress Joyce O'Connor with whom he had two children, Henry and Lily.
Career
Acting and Directing
While in New York City early in his career, Houghton worked as an actor, director, waiter and carpenter.
Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center
Houghton became the artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut from 2000-2003. Here, he developed plays by Kia Corthron, Gina Gionfriddo, David Lindsay-Abaire, and Adam Rapp among others.
Signature Theatre Company
When he was working with Romulus Linney, he first got the idea for Signature Theatre Company to showcase one playwright for an entire season. Featuring Linney, the first season starting in 1991 had 6 shows in an 87-seat house and spent $35,000. In the 1994-1995 season, they featured playwright Horton Foote and produced The Young Man From Atlanta, which later was produced on Broadway and won a Pulitzer Prize. Signature would go on to feature playwrights such as Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Adrienne Kennedy, Maria Irene Fornes, and more recently the likes of Athol Fugard and Annie Baker.
It became apparent to Houghton soon that Signature Theatre Company needed a permanent and flexible home, and needed to build a theater, so in 2009 Houghton began fundraising. The building was first going to be featured at the Ground Zero location downtown as part of a redevelopment of downtown by mayor Michael Bloomberg. When costs began to be prohibitive, they moved towards the 42nd street Times Square theatre district. Part of the program to convince to build there was a plan to underwrite tickets so that they would be frozen at $25 each.
Houghton ended up raising $70 million for the project. Pershing Square Signature Center opened in 2012, and is a three-theatre, 75,000 square foot complex designed by Frank Gehry Architects. It also includes two studio spaces, a shared lobby with a café, a bookshop, concierge desk, and administrative offices. The intent was to create a haven for theatre-makers, especially playwrights, that would hold 10 playwrights in residence to produce shows from the level of readings to full productions and all levels in-between. The goal of these types of programs and the subsequent building where to provide a sense of living and creating under one roof and creating points of intersection between artists, as Houghton once explained:
"What running these three programs simultaneously is about is that we get to collide. The artists and audience get to breathe the same air. We have such an appetite for it, whether we’re colliding with ourselves in the story we’re seeing, or the people we’re seeing it with, or the artists we bump into. To me, that’s what theater is. I hope this one gives much pleasure to many people for many years to come."
Houghton stepped down for the 2015-2016 season, and was replaced by Paige Evans, formerly the artistic director of LCT3, the new-play development program at Lincoln Center Theater.
Juilliard School
Houghton became the Richard Rodgers Director of Drama at The Juilliard School in the 2006-2007 season, taking over the program that was founded by his former mentor John Houseman.