Nick Hovick returned to the Monterey Peninsula this summer after being away for a number of years. He is presently finishing up a summer season with Pacific Repertory Theatre - directing CHARLIE'S AUNT and CORIOLANUS and performing in THE COMPLEAT WORKS OF WLLM SHAKSPR (ABRIDGED) and in ROMEO AND JULIET, in the role of Friar Lawrence.

Nick was born into the world of theatre, being the son of Marcia Gambrell Hovick. His father was a physician. Throughout his life he moved around a good deal. He was born in Oakland, lived in various places around the San Francisco Bay area, moved to Baltimore, MD. (his father went to medical school there), Birmingham, AL.,and Bakersfield, CA. In the summer his mother would take the children to stay with her family in Texas. Finally, when he was in the middle of 5th grade, his family moved to Monterey. He attended Monterey schools - Monte Vista, Walter Colton, and Monterey High and then went for a few years to MPC, then studied Theatre Arts in Texas, came back to Monterey, moved the the San Francisco Bay area where he ran a band ( jazz, classical, folk), moved to Nevada City, CA. where he completed a degree in Psychology with a minor in Theatre Arts, went for a few years to an Episcopal seminary, returned to Monterey, did graduate work in Pastoral Theology in Austin, Texas, and eventually moved to Southern California where he ran a business doing residential remodeling. Then, as Nick describes it, "I decided I wanted to explore what would happen if I were to start directing or acting professionally. So for the last 3 1/2 years I have started to pursue that, with increasing conviction. Last summer I worked at PCPA in Santa Maria doing WOODIE GUTHRIE'S AMERICAN SONG. Then, in January of this year, Stephen Moorer asked if I'd be interested in directing CORIOLANUS and the rest evolved through the spring."

Of course, theatre was part of always a part of Nick's life. He was first on stage in a children's production in Baltimore at the age of 7. And wherever he lived Marcia was doing amateur and semi-professional theatre. He remembers starting classes at Children's Experimental Theatre when he was about 14 or 15. At the same time he began acting in small theatres around the Carmel area - for Fred Rider, Nick Zanides, and Norm McPhee. He also did some acting at Monterey High School. Morgan Stock was head of the Theatre Arts Deparment when he attended MPC, and fellow classmates included Peter DeBono, Conrad Selvig, and Layne Littlepage. And as he moved about, attending various colleges or maintaining a business, he continued to include theatre as part of his life - by being in theatrical productions, by returning to Carmel to direct, act, or build sets, or when working with troubled teenagers.

Nick really believes theatre can be a positive force in a person's life. He describes working with the children in a delinquency diversion program, "I worked some theatre-related exercises and each one of them involved those kids in determining what kind of person they'd like to be, the life they'd like to have, and we'd play out the self-defined roles in a supportive environment, just ad-lib. And every one of those kids really gained a sense of empowerment." He sees a similar situation at C.E.T., "Clearly, kids who I've seen at my mom's theatre....many with a sense of isolation and lack of identity within the group - they go through this process in the theatre, they learn to memorize some lines, do some blocking, support some other people...and suddenly it's like they have learned a new language and go out into the world and connect. So theatre fosters listening and opening one's self." Talking about the actor Nick states, " Theatre is showing us about ourselves. You have to listen to the playwright with such intensity in order to bring their words into life. It's about listening, speaking in a way that matters....Actors who are doing work in themselves as well as the role are charging every single moment they're on stage with a kind of vitality - and it tends to make for a kind of theatre that is really engrossing." And talking about theatre and the audience, he explains ,"I think the aim of good theatre is to create a sense of instant, of moment, with such a vivid committment to the work that the audience encounters it as if it were an experience within their own spirits."

Nick will be moving on again when CORIOLANUS closes. For the near future he's been offered the role of Captain Von Trapp in THE SOUND OF MUSIC at The Willows Theatre in Concord. Then he'll continue "going where there's work." Also, he wants to get back to his music and his writing (novels, short stories, poetry, essays, a bit of play-writing). And he would like to do some traveling - to the Fendhorn in Northern Scotland, to France, Italy, other parts of Europe, and eventually to Tibet. As he describes it, " I'd like to dance around for a while. I feel like I've tried to live a real heavy-footed life."