Remembrance: Atlanta remembers Andrew Houchins, beloved actor, director and mentor

Andrew Houchins, associate artistic director of the Atlanta Shakespeare Company and a beloved actor, director and mentor to the Atlanta theater community, died November 9 after a sudden, brief battle with metastatic gastroesophageal cancer. He was 45.

Friends and colleagues remember his humor and kindness, his passion for education and Shakespeare and his love for his family.

During the Suzi Bass Awards ceremony November 10, Houchins was posthumously honored with the Spirit of Suzi Award for his contributions to the community. His two daughters, Stella and Molly, accepted the award, telling the audience that they were inspired by their father to work in theater.

“He said something that I still carry with me to this day,” Stella said on the stage. “I asked him once, when I was a precocious child very concerned with the world, why he chose to become an actor instead of something like a doctor. He said that while doctors are physicians of the body and therapists are physicians of the mind, actors are physicians of the soul.”

Associate Managing Director Kati Grace Kirby, who had an 18-year friendship and working relationship with Houchins, said that she was grieving the loss of the art they had planned to make and the future they were planning for the Atlanta Shakespeare Company.

Houchins’ favorite plays included Richard III and Much Ado About Nothing, Kirby said, but his favorite roles in life were as a husband to Megan Rose-Houchins and as a father to his daughters. 

“He wanted to play Macbeth again, but with his wife Megan as Lady Macbeth,” Kirby said. “And he wanted to retire by playing Prospero in The Tempest.”

Known for his frequent good humor, Kirby said Houchins was the funniest backstage during a show.

“The more serious or tragic the play, the more he was goofing off in the dressing rooms and the green room,” she said.

Houchins graduated from Greensboro College in North Carolina in 2001, then spent time working at Rags to Riches Theatre for Young Audiences and Unto These Hills. 

Charles Swint, who now works at Theater Emory, worked alongside the Houchins’ in North Carolina and was the officiant at their wedding.

“One of the things I will remember most about Andy is his sense of humor and how, no matter how weird or awful the situation was, he could always find a way to make you laugh about it,” Swint said. “Andy was such an amazing person, and we have lost someone truly special.”

Houchins first came to the Shakespeare Tavern in 2005 after auditioning for the apprentice company, later joining the staff as a leader of the education program. He directed and starred in dozens of productions there. He and actor O’Neil Delapenha spearheaded the Muse of Fire BIPOC Playwriting Festival.

Performer Dani Herd considered Houchins a life-changing inspiration. At age 18, Herd was cast as Hamlet for the Shakespeare Intensive for Teens summer program, led by Houchins.

“Andy Houchins was the best kind of teacher: funny without being mean, challenging you because he sincerely believed in you, thoughtful, compassionate and so breathtakingly smart,” Herd wrote in a message. “Being in class with him or being directed by him always felt like being on a fun quest together to find the answer to the funniest bit or the most honest delivery of a line.”

He was powerfully insightful and kind, Herd said.

“Andy saw you — not the fearful hope of a person you were trying to be or the awkward potential you felt you had to live up to,” Herd wrote. “He saw you exactly as you were, and he helped you find what you needed to illuminate that flame.”

Playwright and performer Claire F. Martin remembered Houchins as keen and passionate.

“Earlier this spring, Andy and I met at Dancing Goats to debrief about some auditions I had hosted for the Tavern,” she said. “We discovered we had some diametrically opposed ideas about how best to direct the Bard. We got into a really spirited debate about it that made the time fly … I do vividly remember having the thought as I was driving home, ‘I can’t wait to do this with him again.’”

Even the Tavern’s kitchen staff adored him. Michael Rocchins said his favorite memories of Houchins were all related to food.

“He’d come in on opening night, right as the show ended, and sneak a bite from the cast party buffet we’d have set up,” Rocchins said. “He would usually come in several times, sometimes to get a look over, then eventually to sneak a bite … He’d sneak a slice of bacon with that mischievous grin of his, maybe with that bark of a laugh. I always knew to have extra crispy slices for him.”

Marketing Manager Jeanette Meierhofer said Houchins always provided a safe space for anyone. He also led charity and volunteer initiatives.

“He was open to talking with anyone about anything, and he made you feel seen and heard,” she said. “He was a big advocate for helping others and bringing us together in community.”

For Artistic Director Jeff Watkins, the sudden loss of Houchins is profound, not just professionally but personally. Houchins — who had also trained at Shakespeare & Company in the Berkshires — was intended to lead the Tavern into the next 20 years, alongside Kirby. 

Watkins said Houchins and Kirby worked very well together. The two of them programmed the current season. Houchins and Delapenha had been set to play Ebenezer Scrooge in repertory for A Christmas Carol at the Tavern. Kenneth Wigley will step into the Houchins’ role now.

“He was genuine, never in it for himself,” Watkins said in an interview. “He was always in it for the work and the people he was working with. He was unapologetically loud and could be very crass, and it was enjoyable because it was coming from a good place. He had a big soul and just brought joy to the work.”

Watkins said that no words of Shakespeare could ever prepare you for a loss like this, but he paraphrased Hamlet in remembrance of Houchins.

“He was a man, take him for all in all,” he said. “We shall not see his like again.”

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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.