Intiman: Shook's Last Hurrah -- Artistic Director Molded Company Into Prominent Regional Showcase For Contemporary Theater

Theater season preview "A Question of Mercy" by David Rabe, the Intiman Theatre season-opener, previews Friday through Tuesday, opens May 12, and runs through June 5, at Intiman Playhouse, Seattle Center. $10-39. 206-269-1900.

Warner Shook has lightened up.

The Intiman Theatre's nationally respected artistic director may still dress with preppie precision and obsess over tiny production details.

But friends, associates and Shook himself agree that six years of running a major Seattle playhouse has mellowed him out considerably.

And members of Seattle's theater scene acknowledge that when Shook leaves the company next January, he'll be a hard act to follow.

As the Intiman opens its 1999 season this week with David Rabe's provocative euthanasia drama, "A Question of Mercy" (staged by associate artistic director Victor Pappas), Shook says he feels great about "leaving this theater when things are in such good shape."

"I turned 50, it's a new millennium, and it's time for me to move along in my life. But I wanted to go when Intiman was on the upswing."

The Seattle Center theater has been on the upswing, in fact, since Shook took the reins from former artistic head Elizabeth Huddle in 1993. For a guy who "never in a million years expected to do this job," he's done it well: increasing Intiman's attendance, raising its national profile, and overseeing the building of The Studio, a new 150-seat "black-box" second stage.

More crucially, Shook has changed Intiman's image from a company devoted almost exclusively to the classics, to a classy local presenter of new and recent plays by such prominent contemporary writers as Tony Kushner, Brian Friel, Terrence McNally and others.

More aggressive

That trend, which puts his theater in more direct competition with Seattle Repertory Theatre next door and A Contemporary Theatre downtown, began with Shook's predecessor and old pal Huddle, who now runs Oregon's Portland Center Stage.

But the lean, patrician Shook - who is part gracious Southern gentleman, part tenacious showman - has been far more aggressive about snagging the Seattle rights to major Broadway and off-Broadway plays.

Last season Intiman presented Paula Vogel's Pulitzer-winning "How I Learned to Drive," the docu-drama "Gross Indecency," and other hot scripts.

Shook's farewell season, however, looks rather different on paper than he originally intended.

That's partly because two slated shows fell out, triggering a major reshuffling. One was the premiere of "Paper Doll," a play by Mark Hampton about pop novelist Jacqueline Susann. "We just couldn't work out a deal," says Shook.

The other dropout:"House Arrest," a sprawling multi-character work by Anna Deavere Smith co-produced by several regional theaters. An early draft of the piece had a disastrous debut in Washington, D.C. A revised version recently opened in Los Angeles to tepid response.

According to Penn, the Intiman sank more than $50,000 into the co-development of "House Arrest," but may never present it. "I don't know what the play's future is, but we want to continue our relationship with Anna," she says.

`A big thank-you'

Working around these unexpected shifts, Shook still plans to give his audience "a big thank-you for all the wonderful years I've had here."

He replaced `Paper Doll" with Alfred Uhry's Tony Award-honored `"he Last Night of Ballyhoo," a romantic comedy that he warmed to slowly but now relishes directing. `"t packs quite a little wallop underneath its genteel surface," he says.

Also slated is "Skylight" by David Rabe ("a play about people trying to balance the personal and the political") and an ensemble version of Anna Deavere Smith's docudrama of black-Jewish urban tensions, "Fires in the Mirror," staged by artistic associate Steve Alter.

Shook will close the subscription series with a pair of "valentines to the theater," in rep: the vintage George S. Kaufman-Edna Ferber comedy, "The Royal Family" (a spoof of the Barrymore acting clan), and Jerome Kilty's "Dear Liar," based on the lively correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell.

"I still just love those talking heads plays," says Shook with a hint of his native Alabama drawl. A wide assortment of "talking-heads plays" - literate, highly verbal works by writers from Albee to Fugard to Williams - have been the linchpins of his Intiman repertoire.

But in tandem with managing director Laura Penn and resident artist Jacqueline Moscou, Shook widened the theater's cultural scope somewhat to offer works by black and Asian-American writers - such as Pearl Cleage's"Flyin' West" and Chay Yew's "Red."

Loyal to favorites

A former actor, he also stays loyal to an extended web of thespians whose talents he admires. One is Barbara Dirickson ("one of my favorite actresses and people on the planet"), who has roles in "Last Night of Ballyhoo" and "Royal Family."

"My conception as a director always centers on the performer," Shook explains. "That's what makes Intiman different. Our thrust stage puts the actor right in your lap, and creates a sense of immediacy."

Looking back, Shooks marks the 1994 and '95 productions of Kushner's two-part AIDS epic "Angels in America," featuring some of his favorite local actors (Jeanne Paulsen, Laurence Ballard, Gina Nagy), as a high point of his Intiman tenure.

While the eloquently polemical script (and frontal nudity) challenged Shook's audience, it also "was life-changing for me," he recalls. "Something about that play opened me up - as an artist, as a gay man, as a human being living at the end of the 20th century."

Taking time to replace

After Shook decided late last year to move on to new endeavors, Penn says the Intiman board "began a very careful process of preparing to replace him. They've been taking their time, and trying to do it right, because it's both exciting and daunting."

Penn fields several calls a week from potential candidates. And the board has hired Gregory Kandel, an arts head-hunter, to assist the search.

Penn expects final interviews won't occur until July, and the new Intiman honcho won't be on the job until January of next year.

In the meantime, Shook is already selecting plays for the theater's 2000 season. And he's looking ahead to his own future, which may involve living part-time in New York and in Seattle, where his partner, a lawyer, resides.

He already has future commitments to direct "The Man Who Came to Dinner," at Oregon Shakesspeare Festival, and another Broadway chestnut, "The Guardsman," at San Diego's Old Globe Playhouse.

"I'd also like to run a bigger theater," Shook confides."I'm ready for that now."

And he has some friendly advice for his successor at Intiman. "I hope whoever comes in after me will maximize the new space. It's a great venue for play development, and for cutting-edge stuff.

"And I hope they'll honor this terrific audience. They're smart, smart people who love a challenge."

Also at Intiman in 1999

-- "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" by Alfred Uhry (June 11-July 10) -- "Fires in the Mirror" by Anna Deavere Smith (July 16-Aug. 14) -- "Skylight" by David Hare (Aug. 20-Sept. 18) -- "The Royal Family" by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber" (Sept. 24-Nov. 14) in rep with `"ear Liar" (Oct. 15 to Nov. 20) -- Special holiday show (non-subscription): "Black Nativity" by Langston Hughes (Nov. 27-Dec. 26)