AMERICAN THEATRE | Joan Hotchkis: From Actors Studio to the TV Studio, Then to Performance Art

Joan Hotchkis—veteran actor, author, screenwriter, playwright, and feminist efficiency artist, whose profession spanned greater than 5 a long time—died on Sept. 27 in Los Angeles of congestive coronary heart failure, in keeping with her daughter, Paula Chambers. She was 95.

Hotchkis was the final surviving youngster of Preston Hotchkis and Katharine Bixby, civic leaders in Los Angeles with statewide and nationwide affect all through the final century, who led every little thing from the Metropolitan Water District to the California Historical Society. More importantly, Hotchkis was an beautiful human being: heat, beneficiant, supportive, gracious, open-minded, and humorous. She cared about every individual she met and used her assets to uplift the downtrodden, particularly ladies, artists, and elders. Hotchkis was additionally forward of her time in writing and starring in performs, a characteristic movie, and efficiency artwork with a progressive feminist viewpoint.

After incomes a B.A. in psychology from Smith College and an M.A. in early childhood schooling from Bank Street Teacher’s College, Hotchkis taught nursery faculty in New York “for about 15 minutes” (her phrases) earlier than turning into an actor in 1954 on the age of 27. She acquired work instantly regardless of her inexperience. While dwelling for the vacations, she auditioned for the main function of Lizzie in The Rainmaker on the Players Ring Theater in Hollywood and acquired the half, incomes reward and encouragement from different actors.

Returning to New York, Hotchkis turned a member of the Actors Studio, the place she studied with Lee Strasberg. She was forged in quite a few TV commercials and visitor spots. While capturing a kind of commercials, she met director Bob Foster; they married in 1958 and had a daughter, Paula. 

Hotchkis performed Myra on the cleaning soap opera The Secret Storm, portrayed Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire on the Northland Theater in Detroit, did summer time inventory, and debuted on Broadway in 1960 on the Cort Theatre in Advise and Consent, with Conrad Bain, Ed Begley, and Richard Kiley.

After divorcing in 1967, Hotchkis moved with Paula again to her hometown of Los Angeles, the place she joined the Actors Studio West and shortly landed visitor spots on numerous TV reveals, together with the function of Dr. Nancy Cunningham, someday girlfriend of Jack Klugman’s Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple. 

Hotchkis additionally had a present for writing. With Method appearing trainer Eric Morris, she co-wrote the now-classic appearing handbook No Acting, Please. In 1974, Hotchkis turned a playwright with Legacy, about an upper-class housewife who spirals into a whole psychological and emotional breakdown. She starred within the play on the Actors Studio West, directed by Morris, and later adapated it right into a screenplay. Shortly after the movie was accomplished, she was identified with meningioma (a non-cancerous mind tumor) and had it efficiently surgically eliminated, permitting her a long time extra productiveness.

It additionally modified Hotchkis’s priorities, as she gave up on TV and movie and returned to the stage. At the Taper Too, she performed Fluffy Mother in Cowboy Jack Street (1976), adopted by Madame Irma in The Balcony on the Odyssey Theatre. At Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Hotchkis performed Paulina in A Winter’s Tale, Lady Gay Spanker in London Assurance, and Judith Bliss in Hay Fever. At Milwaukee Repertory Theater, she performed Isabella, Louise, and Mrs. Kidd in Top Girls, and Mrs. Sutphen in A Woman Without Means. In Los Angeles, she performed Mrs. Temptwell in The Grace of Mary Traverse at Los Angeles Theatre Works in 1988. Hotchkis portrayed Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie 4 occasions: at Los Angeles’ Callboard and Fountain Theaters in 1981, at Nashville’s James Polk Theater in 1982, at Cincinnati’s Playhouse within the Park in 1985, and at Los Angeles Theater Center in 1988.

Inspired by a “writing for performance” workshop taught by the legendary Rachel Rosenthal in 1990, Hotchkis remodeled herself from actor to efficiency artist. Her first efficiency artwork piece, Tearsheets: Letters I Didn’t Send Home, directed by Steven Kent, was a multimedia solo work exposing the sexism and brutality beneath the gorgeous floor of her upper-class childhood. Hotchkis debuted Tearsheets at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, obtained rave opinions, toured it by way of the Southwest, and then to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the place it was the one American manufacturing to win a “Fringe First” award in 1992.

In 1996, a 68-year-old Hotchkis debuted Elements of Flesh, or Screwing Saved My Ass, a surprising, extremely private tour de pressure about getting old and sexuality, directed by Clifford Bell and once more produced at Highways. Joan carried out Elements to sold-out audiences and standing ovations at Highways and all through Southern California. The present acquired nice opinions, and likewise hate mail—proof that she had dealt a blow to the sick and damaging perception that elders don’t, can’t, or mustn’t have intercourse.

Hotchkis was all the time very thinking about social justice, supporting progressive nonprofits and mentoring vivid younger ladies from underprivileged backgrounds. She offered crucial help to activists, together with Torie Osborn, who would go on to develop into head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and Bogaletch “Boge” Gebre, defender of Ethiopian ladies’s rights.

As an actor, author, producer, efficiency artist, philanthropist, mentor, and pal, Joan Hotchkis impressed numerous individuals together with her ardour, braveness, generosity, and pleasant mix of class and playfulness. She is survived by daughter Paula and plenty of family members who will miss her significantly. 

Her memorial will likely be non-public, however donations might be made in Hotchkis’s reminiscence to Highways Performance Space, which supported her transformation from mainstream actor to efficiency artwork crusader for the rights of girls, artists, and elders.

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