Aside from the amazing, full-length view of the Space Needle outside her office window, one of the most notable items in Linda Hartzell's work space is a typed letter from all-star playwright Arthur Miller.
And when Hartzell points to it, she does so beaming with pride.
"I was so honored that he wrote back," she said.
Miller was responding to a letter Hartzell had sent 20 years ago, inviting him to write a children's play for Seattle Children's Theatre. Though in his letter he wrote that he "wouldn't know where to start," Hartzell wasn't discouraged. Why not start with the best? She sent similar letters to other well-established writers. But Miller was first because, she felt, he had a teen personality and genuinely understood young people. Scenes of Biff in "Death of a Salesman," and the witchy temptress Abigail Williams in "The Crucible," came to her mind.
But if anybody knows the teen and child sensibility, it might just be Hartzell. This year marks her 25th anniversary as artistic director of SCT. She has overseen musical productions of "Peter Pan," "The Wizard of Oz," "Perô," "Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs," and a host of others. Since the theatre began in 1975, it has produced more than 170 plays. More than half of those have been world premieres. It's the biggest and most revered children's theatre in the country next only to Minneapolis' Children's Theatre Company.
In her tenure, Hartzell has directed 45 plays at SCT, 35 of them world premieres, including "The Red Badge of Courage," and "The Odyssey." And even after so many performances and years, there is a strong sense of humility and curiosity about Hartzell. She loves where she is, is well aware of her fortune and believes with all her being the importance of theatre in the lives of children and in American culture.
"I'm so thankful to have this job and it has given me so much in my life," she said. "And I stay because it's about the whole mission: to affect a cultural change among Americans."
Hartzell was born in Chester, Penn., but soon after moved across the country to the Lynnwood area where her dad worked for the Scott Paper Co., and where she went to school at Meadowdale High School. She was dedicated to her studies, outgoing, tall and wore a dark-brown bob hairstyle. She made plenty of friends and was always involved in school activities. Though she was driven in all of her projects and activities, she didn't know what she wanted to do after high school.
"In the 1960s, there weren't a lot of options for women," she said. "There was stewardess, teacher, nurse and homemaker. But the thought of a career in theatre? That was not something you did."
It was her drama teacher, Bill Crossett, and music teacher, Bob Burton, who first planted that seed of possibility in Hartzell. And there it remained, even as she got a bachelor's degree in education at the University of Washington, and, at 21, got married. At the university she took advanced acting classes and then was asked by Megan Dean to be in an Empty Space show with Steve Tomkins, who would later start the Village Theatre in Issaquah, and Kurt Beatty, current artistic director at the ACT Theatre.
"It was called 'Cheez Wiz' or 'Puttin' on the Ritz,'" Hartzell recalled with a smile. "That was the beginning for me." She realized then that it just might be possible to make a living in the theatre.
She coupled that by becoming the drama teacher at Lakeside High School. She supported herself doing both, even with a child, her son, Adam, in tow. Adam would often accompany her to shows, and would often take naps backstage. She joked that he became a theatre connoisseur, but as he grew up, veered away all together from theatre.
In the early '80s, the late Ruben Sierra, a local theatre legend, gave Hartzell her first directing job with "Creeps" at the Group Theatre. That led to her directing the Seattle premiere of "Angry Housewives," a mega-hit that ran for nearly eight years.
Then in 1984, she was named interim director at SCT, and has stayed on the job ever since.
The job has had its peaks and valleys. But one constant seems to be fundraising. There is always a concern about money, she said. Aside from getting people to see theatre as a meaningful, even vital institution in American culture, working within the nonprofit model is no easy affair.
"In the 1990s there were so many little kids, but that was before the Internet," she said theatre attendance and interest by children. "Now we've seen a cultural shift in how people entertain themselves."
That said, there have been extremely rewarding moments during her days at SCT, that have told her that the value of theatre has not been lost on the next generation. For instance, as the curtain opened during a performance of "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle," a baby in the audience sitting on his mother's lap, suddenly came to attention, leaning forward with eyes bugged out and mouth wide open. "He was so overwhelmed," Hartzell recalled. And then there was the mother and young son attending the performance of "Little Rock," which wasa drama about the nation's desegregation of schools. The African-American mother told Hartzell that she wanted her son to see the play, to know about those ahead of him. "They were blown away," Hartzell said.
And now, in her 25th year, Hartzell just wants to keep going, to stay creative and sing theatre's praises. It has been her life's work and will continue to be.
"It's been a lifeline to me and I hope it does that for other people," she said. "When we laugh and cry together, there is a safe feeling, community. Theatre does that."[[In-content Ad]]
