Quick Chat: Steve Haggard

In this week's Quick Chat, we talk to actor Steve Haggard, who plays Valentine Coverly in this season's Arcadia,about his return to the APT, playing Stoppard geniuses and why never speaking again might just be awesome.

APT: It's good to have you back at APT, Steve! How does it feel to be back in the woods?
Steve Haggard: Thanks, yeah, I'm having a lot of fun working on Arcadia and being back in Spring Green. It is such a trip to be on that stage, I forgot how much I love it. It holds a special place in my heart. I realized the other day, while getting ready for a performance of Arcadiajust how much I have learned about my craft and myself at this theatre. Every year out here is like a family reunion of sorts. So, yeah, I am pretty happy to be back.

APT: This isn't your first time working with director James Bohnen on a Stoppard play. How was the process different this time around?
SH: Right. James and I worked together on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead out here a couple of years ago. That was one of my favorite experiences as an actor. I learned so much while doing that play with James. Tom Stoppard's language is so intricate that it demands a very personal commitment from an actor. And while Guildenstern and Valentine are not similar characters, they presented similar challenges. Both are extraordinarily intelligent and express themselves with huge ideas and complicated language. So, you have to figure out how to make these huge ideas, these complicated concepts part of a conversation between two real people, with the needs and desires and passions and missed connections that happen between two different people. The challenge is to figure out what is driving the passion, the need to convey these ideas. When you don't figure that out, even the most interesting ideas get boring pretty quickly.

APT: Can you tell us about Valentine Coverly, what his passions are and why he is so interested in grouse?
SH: Valentine Coverly is a post-grad mathematician who is studying the population changes of grouse on his family's estate. I love playing Valentine because he is so smart. I get to pretend that I am so much smarter than I actually am for a couple of hours. What's not fun about that? He is studying the game books of the estate and trying to reveal the patterns of the grouse population and what variables influence the growth or reduction of that population. This information would hopefully lead him to an equation to accurately describe these changes which, theoretically, could be used to predict other similar population changes. In other words, he feels an immense responsibility to help and help understand our world through science. I love his passion. I love his desire to understand the seemingly invisible forces that drive our lives.

APT: What are your passions outside of the theater?
SH: I like to write music. I love to read. I really enjoy cooking. I get pretty excited about video games.

APT: Would you rather always have to say everything on your mind or never be able to speak again?
SH: I think I would choose never speaking. I think less damage would be done that way. And also I could get one of those cool computer voices that said everything I typed.