Shakespeare for Everyone

 


Deborah Wright Houston, Artistic Director

Vicki Hirsch
1951-2010

Vicki was a greatly respected artist with the Kings County Shakespeare Company. As an actress, director, teacher, coach and casting director, Vicki's contribution was invaluable.  A critically acclaimed actress, she was loved by colleagues and audiences alike. Her interpretations of such characters as the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet, Baptista, Trincula, Mrs. Malaprop, Malvolio, Emelia, and so many others are still fondly remembered by all of us who had the privilege of working with her. Every former KCSC member I have managed so far to call with this heartbreaking news sends their love and condolences. Renée Bucciarelli, Joseph Small, Lucie Chin and I will always remember Vicki the gifted artist and regret the loss of Vicki the friend.

 — Deborah Wright Houston

Photo by Jonathan Slaff

Vicki Hirsch, age 59, of Manhattan, NY, passed away on September 11, 2010, in Roosevelt Hospital, NY.

Vicki received her Master's Degree in Theatre from Villanova University. She also studied at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in Moscow. Vicki was a professional actress for over 30 years working in theatre regionally and in New York City as well as in film, television, industrials, print and commercials.

She taught at the Piero Dusa Acting Conservatory, the Ward Acting Studio, Actors Creative Experience and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Vicki was a casting director and an artistic associate for Kings County Shakespeare Company. She won an OBIE award for her work in Josephine the Mouse Singer. Vicki also appeared at the Lincoln Center and with Dick Cavett on One Life to Live among many other accomplishments. Vicki was a brilliant coach and an inspiration to her students. Most importantly she was kind thoughtful and generous to family, friends and even strangers. Vicki will be dearly missed by her family, friends and students.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Fred and Ruth Hirsch. Vicki is survived by her sister, Nancy Rich; her beloved closest aunt, Esther V. McDowell and her dearest friend, Linda Kirk.

Burial will be in St. James Cemetery, Newport, DE.

  

Making  Baptista a woman, not a man, in this version is inspired since the part goes to Vicki Hirsch, who has wondrous ways of making a character ridiculous but not silly.

 — D.J.R. Bruckner, The New York Times on The Taming of the Shrew

 

Sparkle and fizz  were effortlessly supplied by Vicki Hirsch as Mrs. Malaprop.  Hirsch, looking like a Bo-Peep who never quite recovered from the loss of her sheep, made a fabulously formidable she-dragon, swooping around the stage as if it were her own personal property. Which of course it was, every single time she opened her mouth to pontificate with that hilariously infamous vocabulary that coined a phrase.

— Doug DeVita, the Off-Off-Broadway Review (OOBR) on The Rivals

 
The four-square character invented by Vicki Hirsch for the female equivalent of Malvolio was a masterwork.
— Clark Gesner, Brooklyn Heights Press on Twelfth Night
 

To the Editor:

Bravo!  Bravo.  I've just returned from this afternoon's production by the Kings County Shakespeare Festival of After the Lions, a dramatic venue, for a deeply compelling segment of Sarah Bernhardt's life.  The performance by Vicki Hirsch in the title role was nothing less than astonishing.

— Jonathan Fey in a letter to the Brooklyn Heights Press
 

He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom.  'A made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child.  'A parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o'th' tide.  For after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play wi'th' flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields.
— Mistress Quickly, Henry V, Act II, Scene 3
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