FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1990 Résumé
Jace Alexander was what he calls "a backstage baby," an almost inevitable development when his parents are Jane Alexander, the actress, and Robert Alexander, the founder and director of the Living Stage in Washington.
"I was in 'Enemy of the People' when I was 9 years old, and I had an agent when I was 15, "said Mr. Alexander, now 25 years old, who is in and out of a dog suit as Citizen Poochkov in the Classic Stage Company's production of "Heart of a Dog," based on a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Mr. Alexander arrived in New York in 1981 and on the whole has, he said "done a lot of work." But there were also barren stretches, sometimes up to nine months. During one of them he co-founded a theater group called Naked Angels, whose home is on West 17th Street. It puts on three or four full-length plays a year and an evening of one-acts, and his involvement ranges from acting to directing, although he is now concentrating on the latter.
"At 17 or 18, 1 would have said I wanted to act the rest of my life," he said, "I don't know whether it's the struggles and difficulties I've had to go through in the last nine years, but I've found that I can be just as creative as a director."
And perhaps one of the most important reasons, for the somewhat changed attitude is, he said, "I'm a control freak. I can see myself much more in a directorial capacity as the years go by."
©1990 by The New York Times