Enter Warner Shook -- New Artistic Director Impresses With His Talent And Determination To Take Intiman Productions To Next Level Of Perfection

He has homes in New York and Los Angeles. He's known to jet off to London to catch what's playing in the West End. He'll spend much of this year out of town, shepherding Robert Schenkkan's marathon drama "The Kentucky Cycle" toward its hotly awaited Broadway debut.

Yet Warner Shook swears he's hitching his star to Seattle. He came on board as Intiman's artistic director in January and is eager to put his stamp on the company.

"When Megs Booker founded Intiman 20 years ago, it was as Seattle's classic theater," Shook points out. "Then Elizabeth Huddle added in new plays and modern plays of stature.

"I want Intiman to become a classic, contemporary and new-works theater, a mix of all three. I can't deliver on the new-works part this year because I don't have the time or resources yet. But it has to happen."

For a newcomer to theater management, Shook's determination is impressive. It's one of the qualities friends say he has in abundance. The slender, articulate man of 44 is also seen as a gracious charmer, but also a hard-driving perfectionist apt to lose his cool when high standards aren't met.

And how does Shook see himself?

"I love actors and good acting," says the Alabama-bred director, whose manner blends acquired New York chutzpah with inbred Southern gentility.

"I have a great appreciation for the written word and being truthful to it. And yes, I'm demanding. If not, then what's the point? I give 100 percent of myself, and expect everyone else to do the same."

Some wonder why Shook would cash in a life as a successful, footloose freelancer for the cluster headache of running a modest-sized regional theater. Independently wealthy (thanks to his family's mining business), he has enjoyed a rare sense of autonomy in the hard-scrabble, low-budget world of regional theater.

"I've lived like a gypsy, hopping from one place to another," he explains. "But now I want to make a difference in a community, put my own taste on stage. I want to help shape an organization, and believe me, there's a lot of shaping to be done here."

"Plus," he adds with a nod to diplomacy, "Seattle is a terrific theater town, and this is a great opportunity."

There's little mystery why Shook beat out 165 other applicants for his post, including much more seasoned artistic directors.

"We know Warner," says former Microsoft executive Ida Cole, president of Intiman's board of directors. "We know his tradition of quality and have seen what he can put on the stage. No amount of reference checking, no wonderful resume can make up for that first-hand, personal experience."

As an artist, Shook indeed is a proven quantity at Intiman, where he was drop-in resident director for seven years under Huddle. During Huddle's seven-year reign, which rejuvenated the ailing company she inherited, Shook staged well-received versions of Noel Coward's "Private Lives," Brian Friel's "Aristocrats," and other literate, mostly British plays.

But none of these shows had anything like the Big Bang impact of Shook's confident 1991 mounting of "The Kentucky Cycle."

The epic six-hour chronicle of an Appalachian clan - which ran last year at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and will go on to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Broadway - has showered glory over author Schenkkan, Shook and the Intiman, too. It won the first Pulitzer Prize for a play premiering outside New York, and multiple awards from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.

Of course, Shook didn't become what he kiddingly calls the "flavor of the month" overnight.

Drama has been a major interest for him since boyhood. Raised in Shook Hill, Ala. (named for his coal magnate grandfather), he attended prep schools and then Florida's Rollins College.

"I grew up with theater," he remembers. "I'd go to London on summer vacations when I was in school, and see John Gielgud, Maggie Smith in `Hedda Gabler' . . . I come out of a tradition of great plays and actors."

Shook began his career as a thespian. "He was a good actor," says his old friend Huddle, who met him in the 1970s at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre: She was a leading lady and he an avid student.

Grimacing when asked for his acting credits, Shook jokes, "There'll be a rush to the video store and I'll be dead meat in this town!" Under duress, he admits to stints in the films "Creepshow," "Stay Hungry" and "Streamers," a David Rabe Vietnam play.

But in 1980, Shook grew itchy to direct and recruited Huddle for one of his first shows. "We did `The Subject Was Roses' at a little 99-seat house in L.A.," she recalls, "and it was a superb production. From there I just watched Warner grow and blossom as a director."

Shook's professional strengths, Huddle believes, are "a God-given talent for understanding what a play is about, and how to make it come alive. Actors will lay down in the road to work with him because they know they'll be stretched to do their best."

Shook returns that loyalty to the colleagues he admires. Staging plays for ACT, San Diego's Old Globe, the Mark Taper Forum and other major West Coast companies, and directing the TV series "Tales From the Dark Side" for five years, he amassed a kind of floating rep company. It includes Los Angeles actors Charles Hallahan and Kandris Chappell, New York veterans Frances Conroy and Dana Ivey, and Seattleites like Jeannie Paulsen and Ken Ruta. All will be welcome at Intiman on his watch.

Many of Shook's colleagues speak of him admiringly. Says Gordon Davidson, head of the Mark Taper Forum, "Warner did an outstanding job with `Kentucky Cycle' and with Doris Baizley's `Mrs. California,' which was a big hit for us. He's a smart, capable guy."

Schenkkan met Shook when their mutual agent recommended him as director of "The Kentucky Cycle." The playwright says he "clicked with Warner right away. I found him very bright and quick, very excited by the challenge of the thing. If I could arrange it, he'd direct every production the play ever gets."

But at least one regional theater manager lauds Shook's skills, yet wouldn't rehire him. "Warner rode our technical staff hard," he complains. "He makes very big demands sometimes, and blows up if he can't get his way."

The "imperial" side of Shook is something even his biggest fans acknowledge - but they say it's counterbalanced by his ample charm and dedication.

Anthony Lee, who acted in the Seattle version of "The Kentucky Cycle," says Shook "can be blunt and tough, and not everyone can deal with that. But he's also really likable and witty and knows how to get things done right."

Adds Jeannie Paulsen, "Warner is quite demanding, but I trust him because of that. He's not complacent. He wants us all to make the best product we can."

And Ida Cole insists Shook is mellowing: "The Warner of old was full of sturm und drang (sound and fury), so independent and used to getting his way. But he's made a long-term commitment now and is no longer the prima donna who can yell and scream because he'll be moving on after the show opens."

In Act 1 of his three-year contract, Shook will be out on the road a lot with "The Kentucky Cycle." But he's hired a ring of trusted cohorts to keep the home fires burning, including Victor Pappas as Intiman's associate artistic director, Huddle as "artistic associate" and Michael Olich as resident designer.

Shook also is working closely with general manager Peter Davis and the Intiman board to reorder some artistic priorities.

No. 1, he stresses, is improving the visual quality of the shows: "Some of the technical aspects of this theater last year were dreadful and you undermine the entire production if you don't give equal weight to all aspects."

That is Shook's reasoning for a 1993 season heavy on small-cast plays (see related story). He would "rather put smaller plays on the stage than a huge amorphous mess. If our audiences see quality on a consistent level, we can grow."

Shook also has ambitious plans to make like the bigger "shop next door" (as he calls the Seattle Repertory Theatre) and develop more new scripts. "I've served notice on the board that we must have a literary department here," he explains.

He has commissioned Schenkkan's next play and is making connections with hot young authors like Tony Kushner (whose "Angels in America" is Broadway's hottest ticket this spring), Howard Korder and Paul Rudnick.

Expanding the Intiman's focus will take more money than the 450-seat theater's 1993 budget of $2.7 million - a figure $500,000 higher than in 1992.

But Cole says the board endorses Shook's goals, even if it means more fund raising. "What he's asking us to do is very appropriate," she says. "No theater worth its salt can survive by doing just old material."

As for how Shook will fit into the overall scheme of Seattle theater, he asks not to be pigeonholed. "I have great respect for Seattle Rep and A Contemporary Theatre," he says, "and I think good competition keeps everyone on their toes. I hope our niche is simply quality."

And does he harbor any trepidations about his new job? Shook, his confident demeanor relaxing a bit, admits, "Any time you make a life change it's both scary and exciting. My only worry is that there's so much I want to do . . . and I just have to learn patience with myself because I'm such a perfectionist.

"I want everything to be happening now, and I want it all to be exactly right."