ADRIAN HALL was an American theater director born on this date (d: 2023); Hall’s directing style was described as “bold” by the New York Times, and his work was considered part of the first and second generation of the regional theater movement of the 1960s and late 1980s. He was the founding Artistic Director of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island from 1963 to 1986, and the Artistic Director of Dallas Theater Center in Dallas, Texas from 1983 to 1989. He is considered to have created major and divisive change within both institutions.

In addition to his work producing plays at Trinity Repertory, Hall oversaw and participated in the Project Discovery program at Trinity Repertory, which introduced high school students to theater. Actress Viola Davis credits Hall’s visit to her high school and the subsequent visits to the theater during Hall’s tenure as what “changed her path.” Two of Hall’s productions at Trinity Repertory Company were featured on the PBS series, Great Performances.

Mr. Hall had a big personality and sometimes clashed with theater boards; his reluctance to set his full season in advance was one source of friction, since that made it hard to market subscriptions. A split with the Trinity board led him to leave Providence in 1989 and devote his full attention to the Dallas job, only to have that end when he clashed with the board there the same year, after which he became a freelance director.

“Every once in a while,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1989, “an Adrian Hall will meet an unmovable object such as the Dallas Theater Center board.”

If his personality set him apart, so, to some, did being openly gay. It also influenced his work, “Being gay, well, it’s an outsider status, no matter what anyone else says, and part of me really likes that,” he told The Globe in 1986. “It keeps me on edge, keeps me aware of what it’s like not being fully accepted, what it’s like being scored and thought less of because you’re different.

“I identify with society’s rejects. Always have. That’s what my work’s about.”