Howard Hain, BA '95

The next ten years 

In December 2004, Howard Hain, BA ’95, spotted a “For Sale” sign on an old theater while he was killing time waiting for his car to be serviced.  Later that afternoon the writer and director told his wife, Laurie, “I think we just found the next ten years.”  The Hains purchased the Blairstown, NJ theater in early 2005, renovated it and renamed it Nous Theater, from the Greek word for eternal mind.  Says Hain, “We did not know exactly what was going to happen.  The only thing we knew was our mission for the theater, which is the pursuit of truth and beauty.  We wanted to fully embrace that concept.”  Following a sold out, successful first year, Hain says that the support and enthusiasm from the community has been overwhelming, and he calls the experience “beyond words – just off the charts.”

Flling the toolbox

Hain took a somewhat circuitous route to his present career.  He explains, “It clearly was a process, but at the time I had no idea that I was filling my toolbox with the different tools that I would need.”  The Long Island native chose UB because of his interest in both science and humanities.  Although a biology major, Hain found that he was spending all of his time reading philosophy.  After taking a philosophy class with SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Jorge Gracia, (whom Hain calls a “wonderful professor and a superb philosopher”), Hain committed to the subject and changed his major.

Hain moved to Tübingen, Germany after graduating to study philosophy independently.  He says, “That freedom gave me the chance to realize what my path was, as far as embracing both philosophy and the arts.”  He returned to Buffalo to work informally with Professor Gracia, and then enrolled in the graduate program in philosophy, where he was awarded the department’s Steinberg Prize for his writing.  

An aesthetic world

Torn between academics and the so-called “real world,” Hain decided to take time off from school.  He became Senior Editor for WE Magazine, a New York-based publication for people with disabilities.  The innovative lifestyle magazine was a small operation, and Hain found himself thrust into new arenas, interviewing luminaries such as Stephen Hawking and Itzak Perlman, and writing for the fashion and travel sections.  He says that the experience crystallized his humanistic interests.  “It took me to a very mainstream aesthetic world, which was a wonderful change.  I saw it as the first real concrete chance to implement my philosophic beliefs in a practical way, and that was of celebrating the individual.”

Hain wrote his first play, N. A Play for None and All, while working with a film producer in Rome.  The work traces the life of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and was produced in San Francisco in 2000.  In 2002, he wrote and directed a second play produced in San Francisco called Michelangelo Did This?

The broad critical response to his works taught Hain valuable lessons about meeting an audience’s expectations, and he has applied that philosophy to the management of the Nous Theater.  He says, “The reality is that a piece of artwork begins not when the viewer first sees it or experiences it but when they first hear about the artwork.  They have an expectation, whether we want them to or not.  From the postcard, the poster and the press release, you have to be involved in every aspect of the production.”

The missing piece

Hain says that when he met and married his wife, she was “the piece that was missing.”  Personally impacted by the events of September 11, he now saw the world in a different way, and after living on both coasts and in Europe he was eager to establish a home.  He and Laurie settled in rural New Jersey, where Hain worked on his philosophic book God’s Obituary, and Laurie was a teacher.  All that changed once they purchased the theater, and they now devote all of their time to its management.  Hain says, “That was a huge step for us, but we just figured that there is no way to lose, if we stay focused and sincere, and perhaps most of all humble, because we have to remind ourselves every day that this isn’t all about us.”

In fact, the couple envisions a reciprocal relationship between the theater and their small community of 3,000.  Hain says that in many ways they thought that Nous Theater should model a church, where the congregation is part of, and essential to, the ceremony.  He says, “Just like a cleric is the medium between God and the congregation, we feel that the performers are the medium between truth and beauty and the audience.  There are a lot of religious overtones to that, and rightfully so, because we think art is something to be taken very seriously.”

Truth and beauty

To date, most of the productions at the 185-seat theater have been musical, but the couple also plans to stage dance pieces, plays and children’s works.  Recently the New Jersey Symphony performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Nous Theater.  For that production, seating in the theater was limited to 100, so that with the 100 musicians there was a one-to-one ratio of performers to audience members.  Hain recalls the spellbinding impact of that unique environment:  “It was so alive and so intense.  When in the pursuit of truth and beauty you do come close to accomplishing it, it is undeniable.  It is written across people’s faces that they have just experienced something that few others ever get to experience.”

Written by Jessica Dudek, BA 94
April 2006

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