Jim Hawkins
Established
Literature: Playwriting
Smyrna
"I have been a storyteller throughout my adult life … and I am drawn to stories that inspire people to work to make the world a better place."
Work Samples
Hope Town, last revised August 2024
About the Artist
Written by Gail Obenreder
The first play that Jim Hawkins attended was on a school trip to the Playhouse Theatre in Wilmington with his classmates at Carrcroft Elementary School. There he saw the production of Treasure Island that convinced him “theatre can be magical,” in part because Hawkins and the hero of that play share the same name. But he went on a lifelong journey before becoming a playwright.
Hawkins was born in Wilmington and grew up in Brandywine Hundred, but he’s lived and worked throughout the country. He graduated with a journalism degree from Northwestern University (near Chicago) and went on to work as a newspaper reporter in Calexico, California. He later studied at Washington DC’s Wesley Theological Seminary, then served as a pastor in the small town of Queenstown, Maryland (on the Eastern Shore). He returned to Delaware in 1990, first living in Hockessin and then moving to Smyrna, which has been his home for nearly 30 years.
Early on, Hawkins was inspired by high school friends who “took to the stage,” while he looked on either as part of the pit orchestra or the audience. But he never saw himself working in the theatre until, as a pastor, he began to write skits for worship services. Wondering if he could write a play, Hawkins took a weeklong summer course at the University of Iowa that provided him with the basics and “propelled me to learn more.”
Hawkins enrolled in the graduate theatre program at Villanova University. Villanova both sharpened his playwriting skills and gave him both on- and off-stage theatre experience.
Hawkins finds that his work as a playwright is enriched by his varied life experiences. “As both a reporter and a pastor I have been with people at their best and at their worst,” Hawkins said. As a playwright, he looks for “the positive in an often-negative world.”
His theatrical work was influenced professionally by playwrights James Ijames and Michael Hollinger, two of his professors at Villanova. He’s also inspired by the region’s theatre professionals, including the actors working at Resident Ensemble Players (University of Delaware), Delaware Theatre Company, New Light Theatre, and City Theatre and fellow members of The Foundry, a support organization for emerging Philadelphia-area playwrights.
Hawkins finds that one of his greatest challenges comes from “the contraction of the American theatre world.” Companies are closing, and those that remain are producing fewer works each season. Financial realities are also causing regional theatres to “be wary of producing plays by new playwrights.” But he’s enormously gratified by the impact that his work can have on both actors and audiences: “A gasp of surprise. The roar of laughter. Singing along to a song first heard just moments before. Insightful questions … A note of appreciation.”
Among Hawkins’s recent work is the play Hope Town, a realistic and sympathetic examination of life in a tent city that he hopes will remind audiences that “every human being has a story.”
In 2022 he received the Division’s Emerging Artist Fellowship, “an award that changed my career.” The confidence he gained from it spurred Hawkins to write six-full-length plays in the past four years. He plans to use this current Fellowship to work on a new play, revise several more, and collaborate with other Delaware theatre artists. His previous award “sparked tremendous creativity, and I imagine a similar spark from this Fellowship.”