Israel Hicks

Israel Theo Hicks (August 23, 1943 – July 3, 2010) was an American theatre director who produced works at regional theaters around the country and Off Broadway, and was best known for his stagings of the entire series of plays by August Wilson about the African-American experience in the U.S. during and following the Great Migration.

Early life Hicks was born on August 23, 1943, in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He moved to Brooklyn, New York City, with his family as a child, and spent summers on his grandfather's farm in South Carolina. He developed a love of theatre while attending the Boston University College of Fine Arts and honed his skills while earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University. Lloyd Richards, who directed several of Wilson's plays on Broadway, was a mentor to Hicks at NYU and introduced him to the works of August Wilson.

Career Hicks was an acting instructor at Carnegie Mellon University and headed theatre arts programs at the SUNY Purchase's Conservatroy of Theatre Arts and at the Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers University. Hicks directed at the American Conservatory Theater, the Cleveland Play House, the Guthrie Theater, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Pittsburgh Public Theater and Primary Stages. In his two decades with the Denver Center Theatre Company, Hicks directed nearly 20 plays, and was scheduled to direct Ruined in 2011 for the company.

He was described as a major influence on African-American actors, with Stephen Henderson describing Hicks "as a role model as well as a leading figure in the field" and that "so many actors, directors, and playwrights owe the start of their careers to him". Henderson said he was among many who felt "Hicks was one of the best directors [he] ever worked with as an actor" as a result of his "remarkable ability with an ensemble, to bring it together, to elicit better performances from the actors than they often gave in other productions". He was survived by his second wife, Renée Harriston-Hicks.