Theatre Puget Sound is proud to honor Jim Ragland as the 2005 recipient of the Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award
Jim Ragland was announced the recipient of the Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award, presented by Theatre Puget Sound (TPS). This award honors an individual who has devoted time, energy and talent to Seattle’s theatre community, and who has had an influence on theatre locally and beyond.
This will be the eighth annual Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award. The award was initiated in 1997 through a generous donation by Jean Falls to honor the memory of Seattle theatre visionary Gregory Falls. TPS honored Ragland at a luncheon event on Monday, October 24, 2005 in the Alki NW Room at Seattle Center.
JIM RAGLAND
Jim started in theater as an actor in NY in the late 70's. He eventually made his way to The Williamstown Theater Festival as a composer.
At Williamstown, he met John Kazanjian and Charlie Rathbun. When they moved to Seattle and started New City Theater in 1983, Jim came here and joined them. On opening night of A Tooth of Crime he decided he was gong to be a theater composer and sound designer, and proceeded to work as hard as he could at it in the unshakeable belief that sooner or later someone would begin to pay him for it, which gradually happened: The Empty Space (Rocky Horror Show, In Perpetuity Throughout The Universe). The INTIMAN, (Hamlet), ACT (Our Country's Good) The Group (Marisol) Seattle Children's Theater (Alice in Wonderland), Seattle Rep (Julius Caesar).
At this point he was working harder than he was earning, not unusual in the theater, but fortunately managed to hook up with Warner Shook and the developing show The Kentucky Cycle at The INTIMAN, which took him to Broadway.
After that, he did many shows with Warner at The INTIMAN including Angels in America, Faith Healer, Molly Sweeny, and The Royal Family, shows like Sub Rosa and Djinn with Nikki Appino and House of Dames, Seven Guitars at The Rep, and more out-of-town work including Electra at Hartford Stage in Connecticut, Macbeth at Portland Center Stage, Jitney at Houston's Alley Theater, and Reckless at Berkeley Rep.
He does at most two shows a year now, always doing projects he loves, such as playing bass for Black Nativity or, more recently, writing a 40's score for Born Yesterday at ACT (the music for which South Coast Rep has picked up for their production). He teaches at Seattle University, a job he loves, spends a lot of time with his wife of six years, Sonya Joseph, and his kids, and has returned with his usual fierce and irrational dedication to that which he has missed most dearly over the past twenty years: writing, singing, playing and recording his own songs.
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