We were lucky to catch up with Jason Heil recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jason thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

For me, learning the craft has been a lifelong process.

One of my teachers describes it best.

There are all of the THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO (memorization, character, dialects, stage combat, movement, etc.). The performance cannot exist without all of those elements, presented at the highest level of craft.

And then there is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: truth. None of the above elements matter at all if they aren’t grounded by honesty.

Of course, that’s what makes all of this so hard. We HAVE to have both essentials for it all to work. And achieving both is really, really hard!

So, for me, I constantly feel like I’m on a pendulum. I nail the lines, but haven’t found the foundation. I find the depth, but then can’t quite get the dialect correct. So, I swing back and forth. Some years, I feel better at one end. Other years, the other.

To me, if I ever realize that I’ve stopped trying to get both right, that will be the time to quit.

Jason, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hey!

I’m Jason Heil. I guess I would say that I am a theatre artist. Acting is my dominant force, but I also direct and teach.

I have been a professional actor for over 35 years, working primarly in theatre. Here is a bio formatted in theatre language: Off-Broadway: SEA OF SOULS. BHANGIN’ IT, ZHIVAGO (La Jolla Playhouse), PLAID TIDINGS, TWELFTH NIGHT (Old Globe), CABARET (Arkansas Rep), TAMING OF THE SHREW, DRACULA (Tennessee Rep), MAPLE & VINE (Capital Stage), THE WINTER’S TALE, THE LEARNED LADIES (A Noise Within), & nine seasons with the Utah, Lake Tahoe, Marin, & Texas Shakespeare Festivals (roles included Christian, Orlando, Bassanio, Bolingbroke, Thomas Jefferson, Freddy Hill). Other San Diego Theatre: MOTHER ROAD, SWEAT, BEACHTOWN, HAND TO GOD, VIOLET CLYBOURNE PARK, A CHRISTMAS CAROL (SD Rep), THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE, BABETTE’S FEAST, INTO THE WOODS, WIT, THE GLASS MENAGERIE (Lamb’s Players), NOISES OFF, CABARET (Cygnet), PASSION, ANGELS IN AMERICA (ion theatre company), ART (Intrepid), THE LION IN WINTER (Moonlight), SLOWGIRL (Onstage),THE SCHOOL FOR LIES, DRACULA (North Coast Repertory Theatre). MFA: UC Irvine. www.jasonheil.com

While I have worked Off-Broadway and regionally, for the last 20 years, San Diego has been my home. After early-career stints in Los Angeles and NYC, my wife Kim (also in the business, but on the producing/casting side) and I wanted to find the way to have the middle class artists’ lifestyle.

We were able to find that in San Diego. We both have been able to work steadily and make our living in theatre. We have also been able to buy a house, raise two kids (currently, one in college and the other in high school), have a dog and generally, be able to be “human” while pursuing this crazy business. For us, leaving the big cities was a valuable ingredient to make that happen.

For myself, I love storytelling. Since I was a kid, I loved the ability to step into other worlds, have them wash over you, and then return to your life. As a theatre artist, I have loved the three sides of my expression. As an actor, I don’t have to worry about the big picture. I can just attempt to step into a character and participate in this larger make-believe/truth that we are creating. As a director, it is the opposite. I can’t just worry about one element. It’s my job to coordinate the work of multiple (often amazing) artists and bind their work into a cohesive narrative. And as a teacher, I feel very connected to the centuries-old lineage of passing along the institutional knowledge to the future generations who will carry it forward.

In my art, I look for the blend of craft and fun. It’s the reason that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is my favorite film and CYRANO DE BERGERAC is my favorite play. Each can be analyzed by scholars in the field for their craft and skill. But at the end of the day, both are fun stories that tug at your heart. You can love them as an academic or a teenager off the street. I think it’s why HAMILTON is so powerful. When you can do one of those things, you are ahead of most of the art out there. But when you can do both?

I think the thing I would be most proud of is that I try to conduct my business with integrity. I haven’t always succeeded and some of my failures were hard lessons, but at the end of the day, theatre doesn’t exist without relationships. It is a collaborative art form. I appreciate that I have working relationships that are decades long. Many of my deepest friendships have also come out of previous projects. How amazing is that?

I also am so grateful that I have found sanity in this crazy business. I have an incredible wife who constantly supports and challenges me through the ins and outs of this world. We have had times where we have chosen family over work, but conversely, there have been times when we knew we could place the work higher, BECAUSE of the foundation that we had built. This industry is hard. I am grateful to have a partner with whom I can navigate the twists and turns.

As is frequent in this business, I am in a moment of flux. I directed two college productions in the Fall. As I write this, I am wrapping up the semester at the three separate colleges at which I teach. I am also several weeks into rehearsals for the next project, where I will be playing Merlin in CAMELOT at North Coast Repertory Theatre and then at Laguna Playhouse. So, in other words, a typical month in my artist’s life.

More of my history can be found at jasonheil.com

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think in this moment, it is important for art to shrink. For years, the trend was to focus on reaching larger and larger audiences. Those audiences tended to self-select as whiter and more affluent.

As other platforms (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) have shown, there is a true desire for targeted programming to specific demographics, whether it is race, gender, sexuality, age, or other. On those platforms, the numbers of people across the world are enough to drive the market.

However, for those who work in live performance (for me, theatre), it is much harder to reach a targeted audience without support. It requires marketing, often to demographics who don’t have a regular habit in this regard.

One of the biggest challenges is that I am seeing theatres trying to expand their programming to be more inclusive, but they do not have a way to reach those who might best enjoy the expansion..

I would love to see funders support theatres that are trying to think outside of the traditional marketing platforms. Often, this may not yield an immediate return, but I do think that one of the long-term benefits will be creating new theatre-going habits among communities who do not currently have them.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Be careful what you wish for.

Or rather, be intentional about what you wish for.

When I was younger, I made it a goal to “be a working actor.”

I achieved that goal. I was fortunate enough to work steadily for many years. I frequently was booked back to back to back on projects.

It should have felt like the proverbial dream come true.

However, I frequently found myself working on projects that didn’t excite me or speak to me as an artist. I was working with wonderful artists and doing good work, but I wasn’t really feeling artistically fulfilled. I began to reexamine my goals.

As time went on, I revised my mantra. Now, my goal is to “make art that I would want to experience.”

That little shift has been transformative. Of course, I can’t control every project that I do, but more and more, I find myself doing work that makes me go, “I would want to see that.” As an artist, that adjustment has made a world of difference in how I am able to navigate the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jasonheil.com

Image Credits

Headshot – Diane Toshiko
Bhangin’ It, La Jolla Playhouse – Rich Soublet II
Slowgirl, Onstage Playhouse – James P. Darvas
Mother Road, San Diego Repertory Theatre – Rich Soublet II
The Woman in Black, CSU San Marcos – Blake Schilling
Plaid Tidings, Old Globe – Henry DiRocco
Sea of Souls, Off-Broadway – Claudio Raygoza
Shot of me at curtain speech of The Hatmaker’s Wife, Grossmont College (which I directed) – Michael McKeon