PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- From a vision of giving actors a place in the community, Adrian Hall doggedly built Trinity Repertory Company into one of the country's top resident theaters. Now, he is packing his bags.
After 25 years at the helm, Hall yearns to take on whatever new projects excite him, unfettered by the distractions of running a theater. He is discussing a possible Lincoln Center-sponsored Broadway run of Robert Penn Warren's 'All the King's Men,' which Hall adapted for the stage in 1987.
Hollywood also beckons. He plans to direct a film next spring based on his adaptation of 'Ethan Fromme.'
'I do have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. There is no question of that,' Hall says. 'I'm tied to Trinity because of its place in American theater. Yet I worry about being 60 years old and not having 10 successful films under my belt.'
So Hall has begun a gradual withdrawal from both Trinity and the Dallas Theater Center, where he took on a mirror role as artistic director in 1983.
Escaping Trinity's grip is not a quick step. This native Texan came toProvidence in 1964 to get away from the commercialized stage he found and loathed in New York.
He built Trinity into a company of reknown through myriad financial and creative struggles. But he insists it is the resident actors, directors and designers -- not him -- who make Trinity so special.
'The goal at Trinity from the very beginning was to move the artist to the center of it, so that it became an institution not about accountants and promotion people and managers, but the goal was to make a place where the artist were permanent,' Hall says.
'The craft has always been practiced in a communal way. We have to respect the fact that the most important members of the community have got to be tied into this -- economically, socially -- but not to make the product. Management has to understand that it is not a game about power. It just isn't. It's about sharing, about community. And the rewards are enormous.'
The company has a core of about 25 actors who have made Trinity their home, many staying for 15 years or more. Others like Blythe Danner, Katherine Helmond, Vincent Gardenia and JoBeth Williams have moved on to more lucrative settings.
Trinity has always been known for risk-taking and unconventional staging. In 1968, it became the first professional American theater company ever invited to the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland. In 1981, it won a special Tony Award, the industry's highest honor, for excellence in regional theater. That same year, the State Department sent Trinity on a six-week tour of India and the Middle East.
It built its own sophisticated audience through Project Discovery, an innovative 1960s program that brought every Rhode island high school student into the theater for four performances a year. Now, Project Discovery alumni now make up one-third of Trinity's base of 18,000 seasonal subscribers.
While Hall's departure is not expected until well into the theater's 1989-90 season, Trinity and Trinity-watchers ponder what life will be like without him.
Rob Marx, director of the National Endowment for the Arts' theater division, says the next director must make his or her own stamp on the theater, no matter how intimidating that seems.
'Trying to replace Adrian will be a formidable job for anyone,' Marx says. 'But you can't be a creative individual, you can't be a creative institution, if you allow yourself to fall into a rut. There has to be constant change -- new ways of dealing with problems, new ways of communicating with an audience.'
Hall, a member of the committee now searching for a new director, makes it clear he wants no clone to fill his shoes. What is important, he says, is that the important work of theater be carried on with new, creative ideas.
He measures his own success by the fact that Trinity is around to celebrate its Silver Anniversary season.
'My whole generation was determined that we were going to be a part of the American landscape, and that there was going to be an American theater,' Hall says. 'When I first came here, it really looked like we were not going to be a part of the American dream, and might go the way of buggy whips.
'These institutions may have a rise and fall, but today they are not quite as susceptible to being wiped off the face of the earth as savings and loan companies in Texas are.'
