Paul Austin

My acting career began when I was 17 at a community theatre fundraiser for the Mass General Hospital, where I had a summer job washing pots and pans. I played the 50-year-old father to the ingenue lead in the musical, Finian's Rainbow. Since then, I've acted On Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, summer stock, Television and film. I've played roles as diverse as Tom in The Glass Menagerie, the Assassin in Sam Shepard's Back Bog, Beast Bait, Neils Bohr in Copenhagen, by Michael Frayn, and the title role in Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. The dozens of roles I've played over the years, include Vivien, the title role in Percy Granger's play, Harry Brock in Kanin's Born Yesterday, Firs in Chekov's The Cherry  Orchard, Tarleton in Shaw's Misalliance, Mickey in Edward Allan Baker's, Prairie Avenue, the Jester in de Ghelderode's Escurial. Films include Sommersby, Tune in Tomorrow, and Trading Places. Television includes Kate and Allie, Law and Order, and West Wing among others. I am a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.

Hit and Run was a joyful occasion in many ways. A wonderful play, fine director, and fellow actor. A chance to indulge my love of baseball. A great review for the play in New York from Marilyn Stasio in the New York Post, in which she said of my performance "...a rich and subtle performance, so good you want to throw your cap in the air."  After the New York run, we were invited to bring the play the Philadelphia Festival of New Plays. But what, more that all else, makes my experience with Hit and Run so memorable is that the woman I loved and I courted our joyous way through Philadephia to a happy marriage of 41 years and counting.

As a young actor in training at Emerson College in Boston, I was very much influenced by Eugene O'Neill  and Arthur Miller because I thought they wrote about matters of great importance. So the first time I read Beckett's Waiting for Godot, the play the whole theatre world was raving about, I thought it was complete nonsense. It made me so mad, I threw it across the room. But something told me to pick it up and read it again. This time, I got it. I Didn't know what had moved me, but I knew understanding it was secondary to accepting it. I was a very happy actor when I got old enough to play Krapp's Last Tape.

Looking up at the booth to check the lighting during technical rehearsal of By the Time We Got to Woodstock for the Liberty Free Theatre's 9th season. My wife, Rilla Askew, was inspired to write the play by a photo of a dear friend frolicking at the Woodstock monument. We'd been living ten years or so in the Catskill Mountains two miles from the original Woodstock concert site in Bethel, NY. The site has been preserved as an arts center and concert venue. A monument to celebrate the original concert was a favorite place to visit with friends. 

Directing Edward Allen Baker's Rosemary With Ginger, the Production that launched ten years of plays, poetry fiction and music at the Liberty Free Theatre. Ed Baker and I first met when I acted in his debut play, Prairie Avenue, Off Broadway at Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. The production brought new attention some of the veteran actors, and launched careers for the young actors in the cast. The play and the performances were so rewarding the company remained friends for years. A bonus for me was getting the favorite review of my career from Brendan Gill of the New Yorker. I was playing a mean, abusive, alcoholic, out of work iron-worker. He wrote I was "… so frightening that if he had happened to cast a single glance in my direction I'd have been up and out of the theatre in five seconds flat." There are some critics some actors might like to chase out of the theatre, but not Brendan Gill, one of the most admired critics of the American theatre.

During the annual Woody Guthrie Festival in Woody's hometown of Okemah, OK, the Woody Guthrie Poets hold readings in three venues outside the concert site: in a replica of Woody's front porch in the Okemah history museum, at the Rodeo Cinema in the historic Stockyard district of Oklahoma City, and at the Woody Guthrie Center in the Greenwood District of Tulsa. I've been honored to read at all three venues over the years. I've also given many readings around the country. My favorite is the Scissortail Writing Festival, in Ada, OK. I've been privileged to be invited many times as one of the 60 or more featured writers who come from all around the country, drawn by the impressive quality of the work and the genuine atmosphere of camaraderie and community.

Fifth appearance at the historic Depot in downtown Norman. Either opening my arms to tell the audience what a treat is was to be back, or in the act of excoriating the '"Preachers of Destruction.'" For over twenty years, the Depot has been a significant cultural force in the City of Norman. It houses a gallery for visual art, presents music concerts, poetry readings and other events of cultural interest. It is a favorite venue for poets from all over the region. I'm happy to say the depot has invited me to curate four special event poetry readings a year.