He has trained with the legends of American theatre, directed across three continents, and now chairs one of Turkey’s most respected theatre departments. This week, Jason Hale visits the IAB to lead a workshop with first-year Acting students.
Jason Hale is an American actor, director, and professor whose career spans decades and continents. A graduate of the New Actors Workshop in New York City, he holds an MA in Directing from Antioch University and has taught at some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, including NYU, the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and HB Studios. Since 2014, he has served as Chair of the Theatre Department at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey – one of the country’s leading performing arts programmes. He also represents Turkey at the ITI/UNESCO Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts and is a founding contributor to ITI’s World Audition Platform.
His visit to IAB is part of an ongoing conversation about collaboration between the two institutions, and a chance for IAB’s ACT4 students to work directly with a director whose lineage goes straight back to the heart of American theatre.
A Training Rooted in Two Great Traditions
Jason’s approach to teaching draws directly from the people who shaped him. Paul Sills – son of Viola Spolin and the man who brought her improvisation work to life on stage – was his teacher at the New Actors Workshop. Alongside him, teacher George Morrison introduced Jason to a philosophy that would stay with him for life: the idea of combining improvisation with method-based acting.
“It was that duality that stayed with me,“
he says.
Later, working with John Uecker – assistant to Harold Clurman at the Actors Studio and Tennessee Williams‘ last personal assistant – Jason deepened his grounding in method acting, specifically a synthesis of Strasberg and Meisner technique. The model he uses today at Bilkent University descends directly from that lineage.
From Actor to Director - Almost by Accident
Jason didn’t set out to be a teacher or a director. He started as an actor in New York, and both paths grew out of necessity and instinct.
“I was asked by a friend to come and teach at Stella Adler Studio in their teen programme,” he recalls. “I really wasn’t feeling like I was a teacher. But as soon as I was convinced to teach, I never stopped.“
Directing came similarly. Unable to find enough acting work in New York, he began producing his own plays – mostly Tennessee Williams short works – and hiring directors.
“I realised I could have done a better job directing,” he says simply. “So I started to become a director.“
A Recent Discovery: Arthur Miller
When asked which production has stayed with him most, Jason’s answer is surprising. Not Tennessee Williams, not Sam Shepard, the writers he had always loved, but Arthur Miller.
“Arthur Miller just wasn’t on my radar,” he admits. “I was asked to direct Death of a Salesman. It’s a masterpiece of a play. And I didn’t realise how much I knew that world – that kind of struggle, that kind of family drama.“
He is now a convert. “I look forward to maybe directing All My Sons or some of his other powerful works.“
Why Cross-Cultural Exchange Matters
Having taught in the US, Turkey, Georgia, China, and beyond, Jason has a clear view of what international exchange offers, both to students and to educators.
“Those experiences really informed me how connected we are now and how global our industry is,” he says.
He points to the explosion of international streaming platforms – and specifically to the booming TV and film industry in Turkey – as evidence that the performing arts world is no longer defined by national borders. For him, this changes what good training looks like.
“We have to offer students different approaches for them to be able to find their own approach and their own identity,” he says. “You can’t just use one fruit in a fruit salad. You have to add different ones to make a whole mixture.“
What Students Need Now
The industry has changed, and Jason is direct about what that means for graduating students.
“This generation needs to be more flexible,” he says.
They need to understand devised and collaborative creative work. They need to be comfortable with both interpretive and psychological realism approaches. And they need to be able to move between theatre, film, and TV – not because the core of acting changes, but because the technicality does.
“That needs to be part of their training,” he says. “If that makes sense.” It does.
Jason Hale is Chair of the Theatre Department at Bilkent University in Ankara and representative of Turkey at the ITI/UNESCO Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts. He led a workshop for IAB Barcelona’s fourth-year Acting students during his visit in May 2026.
Interview by Armando Rotondi
Article by Sara Barbieri
