HB Studio

HB Studio

HB Studio was founded in New York City in 1945 by Viennese actor and director Herbert Berghof as a workplace for the teaching of acting that encouraged experimentation based on classic traditions of theater. Berghof sought to create an institution that allowed for the continuity of education with the opportunities for performance that could include both established actors and beginning students.

Berghof began teaching classes in the evenings in a rented space at the Charles Weidman Dance Studios on 16th Street. In 1947, his future wife, actress Uta Hagen began teaching as well and also took on a leadership role at the Studio. As the classes grew in popularity, Berghof needed more space to hold classes. He found an empty loft in Chelsea in 1950. Over the next decade, the space was renovated and enrollment continued to grow. More teachers joined the ranks including Mildred Dunnock, Betty Field, Lee Grant, Mira Rostova, Eli Wallach, and Jo Van Fleet, many of whom had been former students of Berghof's. Other early students included Jack Albertson, Barbara Barrie, Orson Bean, Charles Grodin, Harvey Korman, Jack Lemmon, E. G. Marshall, Steve McQueen, Anne Meara, Geraldine Page, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jason Robards, George Segal, Maureen Stapleton, and Jerry Stiller. In addition to the classes, Berghof and Hagen began to produce plays to an audience of friends and colleagues, without payment or advertising.

Though the Studio was flourishing creatively, it was struggling financially. Berghof and Hagen were increasingly taking on more administrative duties, but did not have the skills or inclination to manage the business end of the fledgling organization. The Studio was run loosely, with students responsible for the collection of class fees and no central administration to delegate tasks. To solve this, Berghof hired Phillipa Hastings, a stage manager, to be the Studio's first director. Under her leadership, the Studio was soon able to financially support itself without losing its creative openness. HB Studio continued to maintain a strong central leadership. Past directors have included Muriel Burns, Ellen Bernstein, Peter Mawe, Aggie Garret, and Tom Grasso.

In the late 1950s, Berghof and Hagen once again made plans to move the Studio. Though the loft functioned adequately as class space, it was too small and cramped for the productions that were now being produced regularly. In April 1958, Berghof and Hagen began plans to purchase a former stable at 120 Bank St., in the West Village. Though the property was out of their price range, students from the Studio, headed by Olga Bellin and Tom McCready, started the Building Fund. Current and past students, friends, and colleagues all donated money. This grassroots effort was successful and by July they had signed the mortgage and hired Gruen Associates, headed by Angelo Chiarella, to transform the stable into an education and performance space. Construction began in October and the official opening was in April the next year. In the early 1960s, Berghof was able to buy the one-story garage at 124 Bank St. with earnings from his work on the film Cleopatra, and the building was converted into a theater that could seat eighty people. A few years later, 122 Bank St. was purchased with an inheritance received by Hagen and the Studio complex was finally complete.

The Studio thrived in its new space. In addition to the acting classes, a playwrights department was created with Gil Pearlman, Norman Rosten, Horton Foote, and William David Roberts as teachers. Movement, ballet and jazz, fencing, speech, costume and stage make-up classes were also offered. The HB Playwrights Foundation was officially created in 1965 to provide separate administrative support for the production of plays. As before, the productions were strictly volunteer efforts on the part of the directors and actors and sought to allow experimentation and growth away from commercial influences.

Following Berghof's death in 1990, Hagen became head of the Studio until her own death in 2004. HB Studio is still an active organization at the time of this writing (2011) and upholds many of the beliefs of its founder. Functioning as a non-profit, it offers a rigorous, well-rounded curriculum of study for students of all levels, free from commercial pressures. Noted alumni have included Anne Bancroft, Candice Bergen, Matthew Broderick, Billy Crystal, Hope Davis, Drea DeMatteo, Robert DeNiro, Faye Dunaway, Rita Gardner, Whoopi Goldberg, Harvey Keitel, Jane Krakowski, Jessica Lange, John Leguizamo, Dina Merrill, Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Alfred Molina, Al Pacino, William Packard, Sarah Jessica Parker, Amanda Peet, Christopher Reeve, Paul Roebling, Eva Marie Saint, Annabella Sciorra, Kyra Sedgewick, Molly Shannon, Barbra Streisand, Lily Tomlin, and Sigourney Weaver.

Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof

Uta Thyra Hagen (1919-2004) was born in Germany to Oskar and Thyra Hagen. Her father had begun the Göttingen Handel Festival and her mother was a Danish opera singer and teacher. When Hagen was six, the family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where her father founded the Department of Art History at the University of Wisconsin. Hagen was attracted to acting at an early age, training briefly at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London in 1936. She made her Broadway debut as Nina in The Sea Gull (1938). That same year, she married actor José Ferrer and starred with Ferrer and Paul Robeson in the production of Othello. Hagen and Ferrer had one daughter Leticia ("Letty") in 1940. Hagen met Berghof in 1947 when they were both in the Broadway production of The Whole World Over. Hagen originated the role of Georgie Elgin in Clifford Odets' The Country Girl (1950), winning her first Tony Award in 1951. Hagen went on to perform the title role in Saint Joan (1951), as well as starred in Tovarich (1952), In Any Language (1952), The Magic and the Loss (1954), and Island of Goats (1955). Hagen and Berghof were married in 1957.

In the early 1950s Hagen's liberal political views and activities caused her to be blacklisted from television and Broadway and subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1962, Hagen made her return to Broadway starring in the acclaimed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, earning her a second Tony Award in 1963. Her subsequent Broadway appearances included The Cherry Orchard (1968), You Never Can Tell (1986), Mrs. Klein (1995), Collected Stories (1998), and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (2001). Hagen also appeared in the film The Boys from Brazil (1978), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and in Reversal of Fortune (1990). Her television appearances include the soap opera One Life to Live (1986) and television movie Seasonal Differences (1987); she received Daytime Emmy Award nominations for both.

Hagen continued to teach at HB Studio and her master classes became the basis for her two classic acting texts, Respect for Acting (1973), co-written with Haskel Frankel, and A Challenge for the Actor (1991). Uta Hagen's Acting Class (2001) video captured Uta's classroom teaching on film. Also a gourmet cook, Hagen wrote a cookbook, Love for Cooking (1976).

Herbert Berghof (1909-1990) was a born in Vienna to Paul and Regina (Sternberg) Berghof. His father was a railroad stationmaster. Berghof attended the University of Vienna and the Vienna State Academy of Dramatic Art and studied with Alexander Moissi, Max Reinhardt, and Lee Strasberg. He spent twelve years honing his craft on the European stage before emigrating to the United States in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. In the United States, Berghof found work as a teacher at Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at the New School for Social Research and at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Berghof first garnered acclaim in the United States in an adaptation of Nathan the Wise (1942), then appearing on Broadway in The Innocent Voyage (1943), The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), Hedda Gabler (1948), Miss Liberty (1949), The Deep Blue Sea (1952), The Andersonville Trial (1959), and In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1969). He also appeared in summer stock productions such as Design for Living (1943) and The Guardsman (1951). Berghof was also well known for directing the first American staging of Waiting for Godot (1956).

In addition to their individual stage careers, Berghof and Hagen adapted, produced, and performed together works such as Cyprienne (1955), The Daily Life (1955), and The Queen and the Rebels (1959). They also toured with productions of The Play's the Thing (1952), The Lady's Not for Burning (1953), The Affairs of Anatol (1957), and Charlotte (1980), a play that was translated by Berghof and Hagen, produced and directed by Berghof, and starred Hagen. Berghof and Hagen lived in Greenwich Village and had a summer home in Montauk, Long Island.

From the guide to the HB Studio records, 1939-2009, (The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.)