A WALK THROUGH WILLIAMSTOWN WITH JESSICA HECHT
A Walk Through Williamstown is our weekly series celebrating the town that supports WTF every summer, and the artists who return year after year. Every Sunday, join one of our artists as they chat with us at their favorite local spot.

JESSICA HECHT [9^th WTF Season] Favorite Williamstown Spot: Spring Street Benches outside Papa Charlie’s and across the street from Sushi Thai Garden
Currently on stage in: LEGACY through July 12

Why are we in this spot? What does it mean to you?
It’s really the crossroads of the festival and the college. I’ve lived several times above Sushi Thai Garden, which happens to be the restaurant where we spend the most money during the year. We live in New York City, but we also have a house in Williamstown and we don’t spend on anything as much as we spend on Sushi Thai Garden. In the summer, we often get food from there and sit on these benches. I also love the crowd that forms at Papa Charlie’s. So this spot is just a meeting place for actors, a lot of the Non-Equity Company will sit here and I’ll see people working on material or talking and then actors will ride by. It’s a place where you see everybody. And during the year when I’m her, it’s a whole different vibe. It’s mostly athletes and townspeople sitting here, coming out of the gym.

What keeps you coming back to WTF?
I love the small town feel of making theatre in this environment. I was just telling you how stressed out I was but I’d much rather be stressed out here than in New York. It’s a painful level of fear rehearsing a show and thinking, “I will never get this together in three weeks” but it does always happen that it comes together. And there’s something about being in my home and having the pretense of a full time job in this town that is very appealing to me. I find it a lifestyle that I would be so happy to have. You just are in this very, very idyllic place to live and make theatre, but you’re working on something extremely sophisticated. Which is really what happens all the time here during the year, it’s just in an academic way.

Why did you decide to buy a house here?
I purchased a house here because after years of coming we became enchanted with the idea of spending more time here off-season and nurturing relationships we had with people in the town. My husband is a very good artist and the cultural and intellectual scenes during the year are incredibly happening. And just because ultimately I could see myself with long white hair strolling down the street with a paintbrush and a book. But for a while, we couldn’t find anything. Then I was doing Streetcar here three years ago and my friend Amy Russell [WTF Business Manager] said, “Oh, one of your neighbors is selling their house. They stopped by and brought you a note,” and there was a little hand-written note that said, “If Jessica Hecht is still looking for a house my parents are selling.” Her parents were then in their eighties, had lived here their whole lives, and it was the house that was built for them It’s literally out of Leave it to Beaver – a little fifties cape. It was utterly perfect. So we bought it, and in the first season Dylan Baker said, “Well, you’ll never work here again. That’s the curse. No actor has ever bought a house here and gotten a job.” So, for the following two years I was employed in New York and couldn’t come up here. I thought, “this is just fate. No one is going to ask me to come up here. She actually wanted to live in the town, be a part of the community AND do a play? Screw her!” But then Mandy [Greenfield, WTF Artistic Director] broke the curse.

Describe Legacy in five words or less.
Desperation for a little baby.

Papa Charlie’s has sandwiches named after actors that have worked at WTF. What would be in the Jessica Hecht sandwich?
I love the salad I get there now, which is just a garden salad with hard-boiled eggs and croutons. Maybe they’ll name that after me. I don’t know. The great virtue of Papa Charlie’s for me, is that I feel honored that I know a lot of people whose names are on the food who are no longer alive or who no longer come here. But where is Becky Ann Baker’s sandwich? That’s what I want to know. Where the hell is Becky’s sandwich?

What would her sandwich be?
Well, she doesn’t eat sandwiches that much, I don’t think but she makes amazing guacamole. I think it would be something along the lines of a salad with avocado and chicken. And an iced tea. She only drinks cold drinks. I think that would be Becky’s.

What’s your favorite dish from Sushi Thai Garden?
First off, they know my family extremely well and they are so nice to us. We get gallons of miso soup, boxes of chicken satay, sticky rice, mango sticky rice in the summer, and I always get tofu with broccoli and brown rice. My daughter is going to Thailand this year, and she believes that the food will still be better at Sushi Thai Garden than she will find in Bangkok. We will tell them if that’s true.

If you could have any other job at the festival, what would it be?
I feel terrible saying this because Jason [McDowell-Green, Director of the Professional Training Program] is amazing, but I would run the Professional Training Program. I love teaching. I would work with the Apprentices and the Non-Equity Company. But please, if we include that say my hat is off to Jason.

[Photos: Paul Fox]