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Faculty Profile
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Q:
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Which faculty member made frequent appearances on TV’s “Law and Order” series?
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A:
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Bob Boles, director of the UNH Theatre
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From Arkansas to Broadway to “Law and Order,”
Actor, Playwright and Director Bob Boles Has Landed at UNH
A mother who dreamed of an opera career but accepted life as an Arkansas piano teacher. A father who grew up on a farm. From these beginnings, UNH Theatre Director Bob Boles took a screeching turn out of Arkansas and into life in a fleabag motel in New York’s Times Square, fly-by-night bartending jobs and days spent auditioning – and auditioning some more – for jobs on the Broadway stage.
Broadway is the world’s proving ground for actors. TV is different, film is different: for one, there are no audiences except for the curious who gather at street corners or studios to catch a glimpse of a celebrated face. Broadway is pressure, every minute of every performance. For Boles, pierced by the power of acting when he first watched James Dean perform on film in “East of Eden,” it was compelling, and it was fun.
“If I could make people feel what James Dean made me feel, I thought that would be a great thing to do,” he said. “I still do.”
He moved to New York to study at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, more popularly known as AMDA. Shortly afterward, he moved back to Arkansas to become part of a theater company. After six years and about 50 plays, he moved back to New York and worked wherever he could. “I did a lot of jobs to make money,” he said. “I waited tables and bartended and took temp jobs, and lived the typical actor’s life of sneaking out from the job to go on auditions.”
He has worked in theater, TV and film, including numerous appearances on the various “Law and Order” franchises. He played an assistant to Assistant District Attorney Sam Waterston, a police officer in an SUV, a doctor, a victim – so many parts he has trouble remembering them all. But theater is his life’s love, and has provided the majority of his work.
“The theater at its best draws you in,” he said. “You’re in the same room with what’s happening.”
His love of theater translated into a desire to write plays, so he went back to school. Upon earning his master’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College, he received a call from UNH, and is now the full-time director of an ambitious and thriving theatre at the University.
“For me, it’s a chance to build something,” he said. “Working with these students has been enormously gratifying. On a personal and professional level, this has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”
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