H.B. Ward lives in the Goose Island neighborhood of Chicago, which is not really a neighborhood at all, but it’s quiet at night and close to downtown, and attracts almost no hip youngsters. This does not mean that H.B. is a curmudgeon.
He’s had previous lives in theater that he’d mainly like to forget, but he’s done work he’s proud of in Chicago: Strauss at Midnight with Theater Oobleck, The Art of Unbearable Sensations with the Magpies, two shows with Dog, A Theater Company, a couple of big shows with Collaboraction (including their biggest ever – the Cecilie Keenan directed The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow) and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Texts for Nothing.
He is a full-fledged member of the Curious Theatre Branch and takes a lot of solace in that company’s intelligence, bravery, and absolute lack of ambition. He avoids hanging around with “professional” theater people and seeks the company of the type who can’t resist making art for its own sake. But also likes to have a nice dressing room to change in, with running water and, if possible, snacks.
He works a day job in an office but likes to spend most evenings in the theater, so please forgive the circles under his eyes. A stage manager told him once that after about your 35th birthday you give up theater if you can. Most can and do, and H.B. often puzzles over how. |
