The Director- Who Am I?

I'm Hamilton Armstrong, an actor, director, and teacher from New Orleans, Louisiana. For the last twenty years (from August 1987), I have lived and worked in Japan. I teach Acting, Social Justice, Public Speaking, and a variety of ongoing literature, women's studies, popular culture, and diaspora studies seminars at Aoyama Gakuin University in Shibuya and Sagamihara. With a Master's degree (MFA) in Acting and Directing and a PhD in Theatre Theory, Criticism, and History, it is fair to say that I have really immersed myself in learning all I could about "the communal art".

In the early 80s, I was dancing with a contact improv dance company, teaching at a cooking school, managing a restaurant, running my own catering company on the side, and getting cast in musical after musical: Grease, South Pacific, Godspell among others. Even young and energetic, I got fried on all that physicality quickly and began to exercise my acting chops by taking on, first, comic and then, soon, a string of dramatic roles. In fact it was the deaf mute role (I signed the whole show) in Elizabeth Swados' The Runaways that got me into the Resident Acting Company that supported my Master's work. From there it was my interest (and an offshoot of my work with deaf and blind young adults) to attempt roles that had a kind of physical challenge for the performer, especially those depicting a disability. In 1985, I was very lucky to be cast in the eponymous role in the (then) new Bernard Pomerance play The Elephant Man, a retelling of the life of Joseph Merrick, a man born during the Victorian period with the extremely rare (less than 200 cases in recorded history) genetic mutation called Multiple Neurofibromatosis or "Proteus Syndrome". Flexable, slim, and decidedly not hideously deformed, it was a good learning role for this young actor. A huge challenge and one not supported by the relatively little dramatic work I had done. Happily, it provided me the best reviews of my career, thanks to a wonderful director, a stellar supporting cast, and a handsomely conceived production in one of the great classic community theaters in the United States, Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre, located in the heart of the New Orleans French Quarter. I was so fortunate and, naturally, forever enamored of this beautiful gem of a play.