Act's Artistic Director Shares Her Grand Vision

Peggy Shannon was sitting in a Queen Anne coffee house, sipping steamed milk and talking about "the vision thing."

A slender woman in her late 30s, who wears her hair in an eye-catching cascade of red-gold curls, Shannon had won the top artistic job at A Contemporary Theatre a mere month earlier. She had not yet moved her belongings (and infant son) from Los Angeles to Seattle, or found local digs. But this intent, turbo-powered theater artist already was spinning a grand vision for her tenure as ACT's new artistic director.

"In the future I'd like to see ACT be the home of the next `Angels in America,' " said Shannon, referring to the ground-breaking hit drama playing down the block from ACT at Intiman Playhouse.

"I want us to be a generator of new work, a place where world-class, visionary artists can develop that work," she emphasized. "I want us to be innovative on some level, striking and thought provoking."

Shannon's gung-ho enthusiasm is clearly infectious: It's one of the qualities that earned her the unanimous approval of the ACT trustees, according to ACT board president Katherine Raff.

And her intention to seek out more scripts by minority and women playwrights, and dramas that explore "large ideas, large almost in a classical sense," may recharge a company that has retained its audience but suffered from creative insularity and staleness in recent years.

Why are some surprised?

So why, then, has Shannon's appointment surprised those in the know about West Coast drama?

She is, after all, a well-traveled director with a decade of freelancing under her belt. Her many professional credits include productions at more than a dozen U.S. resident theaters, from Seattle Repertory Theatre (where she directed "Hunting Cockroaches" in 1988), to San Jose Repertory Theatre. And she's conceptualized the classics at Shakespeare fests in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Berkeley and New Jersey.

Her resume boasts of acting training at two schools in London, plus an M.F.A. degree in directing from the University of Washington.

And in Los Angeles, where she's lived since 1987, Shannon was associate artistic director of L.A. Theatre Works' star-studded radio drama series, staged shows at the Matrix and other playhouses, and had just begun a job as artistic director of the University of Southern California drama department when the call from ACT changed her plans.

Yet even among those colleagues who praise her work as a director, and laud her idealistic verve, Shannon was not an early odds-on favorite for the ACT post. Her competition included men and women of greater artistic reputation, who already had run high-profile theaters (which Shannon has not).

A few candidates even could claim direct experience overseeing the kind of $28 million, inner-city renovation project ACT is preparing for its overhaul of the Eagles Auditorium as its new theater.

`An unknown quantity'

Shannon admits she's an unknown quantity to many on the Seattle arts scene. That's why, she said, "I want to hold a community meeting here soon, maybe in November, to talk with local theater people about what I'm doing.

"I feel like I'm walking into a situation where a lot of people want to know what I'm going to do for them, and for the arts community."

At this early stage, Shannon's dreams for ACT can't help but sound more like sweeping generalities than hard plans. It's very clear though, she shares predecessor Jeff Steitzer's passion for new plays.

Though as a footloose director-for-hire she staged a lot of Shakespeare classics and light-hearted fare (including a blandly pleasant version of "You Can't Take It With You" at Ashland's Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer), Shannon says her personal aesthetic was forged by the experimental, politically relevant ensemble shows she helped create as a young actress in London's alternative Stirabout Theatre.

"I'm most interested in contemporary scripts, or in contemporary approaches to classical works," she explained. Does that mean we'll see Shakespeare at ACT soon? Maybe: "I would leave that option open."

Bringing in prominent guest directors is also high on Shannon's agenda. Her examples include two hard-to-get English superstars, Peter Brook and Deborah Warner, and a well-known American avant-garde director. (ACT is in negotiations with the latter, to bring in a scaled-down version of his adaptation of a Greek tragedy next season.)

While Shannon lauds the cadre of gifted local actors who've been ACT regulars, and hopes to keep them in the fold, she's quick to contrast her artistic agenda with Steitzer's.

In his eight years in charge, Steitzer presented a fairly eclectic roster of new and recent plays, and the occasional chamber musical. He displayed a special fondness for modern British comedies, and for new works by a small circle of American authors: Steven Dietz, Jon Klein, Doris Baizley, Lee Blessing.

Some plays Steitzer introduced at ACT, most recently Klein's "Betty the Yeti" and Dietz's "Lonely Planet," later moved on to multiple productions around the country.

Dietz's new historical family saga, "Handing Down the Names," debuts at ACT in 1995 - with several other works initiated by Steitzer before his sudden departure last spring.

Bringing ethnic diversity

But Shannon is already bringing aboard her own writers. The upcoming 1995 season promises plays by Edit Villarreal, Alan Havis and Velina Hasu Houston - a more ethnically diverse group, new to Seattle but favorites of Shannon.

"Jeff had a very strong but a very narrow vision," she contends. "The plays you saw at ACT were often about people who were British and white and middle-class, and if you're not that, you might enjoy seeing those shows, but they wouldn't necessarily entice you to subscribe."

Shannon has a "wider" mandate in mind. She clearly wants to encompass more works by minorities and women, but insists, "It's not just about color or gender. It's also about life experience."

Diversifying the repertoire is, of course, a national trend among nonprofit theaters. And most sizeable Seattle playhouses have already taken up the mandate.

But Shannon believes - naively, perhaps - that her efforts in this direction will help ACT succeed downtown at the expansive Eagles facility. After renovations of the hall are complete, probably in 1996, ACT will boast two theaters instead of the one it runs now on lower Queen Anne. And the audiences will have to expand accordingly.

Raff has noted that Shannon's support for ACT's ambitious capital venture was another key factor in her hiring. But finding money for the facility is not part of her job description, Shannon explained: "I'm not doing the fund raising, because I'm not a fund-raiser. My job is being the artistic director."

Though no one denies the sincerity of her goals for ACT, Shannon still has much to prove as an artistic administrator. One theater manager who worked with her called Shannon a "competent but unexciting director," and other former colleagues are not convinced she has the right temperament or experience to manage a big-budget drama operation.

Some theater professionals asked for references on Shannon say they gave her mixed reviews, but felt their remarks fell on deaf ears.

But others express confidence in and warm support for Shannon. San Jose Rep artistic director Timothy Near, who hired Shannon to direct Neil Simon's "Rumors" and next spring's "Sleuth," finds her "delightful to work with. Peggy's inspiring, energetic, enthusiastic, hard-working. I think an artistic director needs those traits to succeed."

Pat Patton, Oregon Shakespeare Festival's associate director, also gives Shannon high marks. "I think she's a splendid choice," Patton said. "She is a very personable young woman and a good, solid director who could be just what ACT needs right now."

Shannon projects confidence in her ability to mold ACT into the "vanguard" theater she intends it to be.

"I'm a very good director," she says unequivocally. "But this whole thing isn't an ego trip for me.

"ACT has a borderline national reputation now. And what I want is for it to be recognized as a theater committed to new American voices, to doing productions with a lot of vitality. . . . Ultimately it has to do not with who I am, but with what the theater becomes. And I want ACT to be one of the best."