Departure of former theater director a loss for community

It's no secret to local theater folks that Joe Hammond has left town.

The 58-year-old former College of Southern Nevada technical theater director for the Cheyenne campus, and one-time theater producer, was a well-known fixture around these parts. You were just as likely to see him scrubbing toilets at Las Vegas Little Theatre as you would catch him teaching a class, acting in a play or helping a company with sets and lights.

Hammond was a rare breed: an academic who actually cared about his community. Why he left the college, after working there 11 years, is clouded in issues of personality and professional differences. Since we weren't there, it's difficult to figure out who's to blame. But I think it's safe to say, his departure is Vegas' loss.

It wasn't so long ago that the college's play offerings made the institution appear to be little more than a second-rate community theater. When Hammond took over as producer, he vowed to do quality works that were not easy to find elsewhere in town. He succeeded.

Hammond gave us the likes of the violent and funny "Killer Joe" (by the celebrated Tracy Letts), the satirically evil "Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them" (by Broadway's darling Christopher Durang) and a series of early plays by Eugene O'Neill, which showed America's greatest playwright before he got his act together. The college became home to some of Vegas' most exciting experiences.

"It's hard to communicate the scope of his contribution to the public," Insurgo founder John Beane says, "because so much of it has been so quiet. (He had a) stewardship, (a) belief in the revolutionary and challenging power of theater, (a) stalwart dedication to assisting any young 'punk' that came up to him with talent, an honest dream and a work ethic."

Walter Niejadlik, board president of the three-stage Las Vegas Little Theatre, says, "He hung our grid in all three spaces, worked on sets, and even served on our board. ... He was involved with many companies in town, and if he made even half the contribution he made to LVLT, then I'm sure they'll miss him as much as we will."

Hammond often played major acting roles for various troupes. He was known as the person to call if your show was in any kind of trouble.

Hammond claims he was told by the college that he was to do no more "angst plays." He'd be the first to tell you he's not the easiest man to get along with when he's upset, and so, in the fall, he found himself exiled to the Summerlin campus, with no production responsibilities. In January, he accepted a buy-out, and this month headed to his adopted hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas.

As Beane points out, "He bore the brunt of unpopularity and politics like a medieval warrior and never let anything get in the way of what he felt was just or needed. He has the most necessary of traits in a mentor: authenticity."

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at
vegastheaterchat@aol.com. You can write him
c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.