Theater Spotlight of the Week: Bill Fountain

by Shawn Parikh

This guy, Bill Fountain, can't focus on one thing. He is an actor, director, playwright, filmmaker, and get this, teaches technology at a private school where he just won an award with his students. With all of this on his plate, I had to feature him to see how he does it.

Currently, a play he wrote, Abide in Shadow, will be premiering at the DFW Fringe Festival, which he co-directs with Stephanie Jackson. Of course, I asked him what his goal is in writing the show and what he wants the audience's reaction to be.

This piece sounds pretty intense, but he doesn't just focus on this style. He also writes children's shows. Little Bo Peep and the Lost & Found, another show he wrote, is currently playing at Artisan Center Theater, and a new show will be premiering later this year with the new theater company, Teatro delle Muse. He spoke about what it was like to have directors just take control of his words without him having any involvement in the process. He even stated that he has twelve plays in the works for next year.

In addition to writing, he is the head of two companies: Cautionary Tale Theater and Level Ground Films. Obviously, you can figure out what each company focuses on. So I had to see what makes him multitask to this extent and why he prefers all these endeavors.

The Theater Spotlight will feature a theater artist every week that has an ongoing or approaching show at that time. To suggest someone for an interview, contact Shawn.