Processed on November 11, 2019

Producer, Director, Writer in Television and Media. Area of Special Competence: Archaeology (Material Culture of the Third Millennium).

For the better part of three decades, Rick Hauser has turned his skills in visual media production to archeological research and fieldwork. He became a senior staff member of an international expedition to a 3rd millennium site in Northern Syria and is author of a new typology for classifying previously unidentifiable artifacts.

Rick Hauser’s media career has been characterized by innovation and the creation of original formats to present arts, culture and social issues in ways that build audiences. His early work was a staple of public television programming and the mainstay of many of the network’s new stations. In Hollywood, for the commercial studios, he directed network drama and was the WGA’s first signatory in the new medium of “home video,” creating best-selling programs that ranged from controversial social issues to Lamb Chop’s pace-setting romps.

He has continued to develop startling and original formats in the arts, most recently using interactive technology to connect communities across America and the globe. Mentorship and coaching across disciplines have remained central to his work.

Rick Hauser’s research and work has been supported by grants from government (NEA, NEH, Department of Commerce, CPB, British Arts Council, Radio Televisione Svizzera), foundations (Rockefeller, Ford, Jerome, Getty Program for Art on Film, Beaumont Foundation, DANA Foundation, Massachusetts Council on the Arts & Humanities, state arts and humanities agencies), service organizations (FORECAST, VSA Arts) and corporate sponsors (Travelers’ Insurance Co., The St. Paul, TARGET, US West).

Major Activities are listed on the following pages in chronological order, recent activities first.

Programs & Projects, indented and listed chronologically, most recent first, were executed under Rick Hauser’s supervision and resulted in products for which he has prime responsibility.

While benefiting from invaluable contributions of collaborators, grants supporting his work were initiated and authored by Rick Hauser.

This listing does not include my earlier published papers on media and education (in ‘TV Quarterly’ and ‘Education Digest’) nor are any broadcast programs included here, although the vast majority contribute to the furtherance of scholarship in a variety of disciplines (as, “The Scarlet Letter” mini-series for the Public Broadcasting Service). Printed materials that I either edited or wrote or for which I supervised the publication accompanied many of these cultural specials.

Projects produced at Hauser’s production company, BB™, all use media in a non-traditional way. Most have an Internet component. All share in-teractivity, where the language of traditional filmmaking is challenged to break down preconceptions in order to enhance the immediacy of the viewing experience. Collectively, BB™ projects have garnered public television’s major awards many times over. Innovation is a by-word at BB™ - the company created Hollywood’s first interactive videodisc, The Entertainment Game.

Funding for projects produced or supervised by Rick Hauser is significant; for example, NEH Production Grant The Scarlet Letter $4.35 million, NEA Challenge Grant Twin Cities Public Television (co-authored with Alive from Off Center staff) $3.2 million, DancePartners©/THE PERFORMANCE LAB™ TOP matching grant $500,000.

Everyday Ethics, with Randy Cohen (IN DEVELOPMENT)
     Radio-TV series based on Cohen’s NY Times column.
7 MEDITATIONS 2005 (EDITING FROM ARCHIVAL DUBS)
     Interactive 5-screen recreation of a classic theatrical ceremony by The Living Theatre.
Tagore’s Children/The Bangladesh Residencies (FUNDING PENDING)
     An international exchange project using interactive technologies (video-conferencing, videophones, web conferencing) to preserve cultural identity while building new audiences (with Jago Art Center/Dhaka).
TPL World Bridge (IN EARLY DEVELOPMENT)
     Interactive exchanges in the performing arts as a tool to combat stereotypes and prejudice (Syria, Egypt, Haîti, USA).
Syrian Renaissance (IN MIDDLE STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT)
     5 promotional films on city, country, nightlife, archaeology and the marketplace for the Syrian Tourist Ministry.
3 Reality Shows for Dubai (PENDING)
     o PICK-UP - on a quest for the best amateur soccer player, fresh from street scrimmages in the Middle East (the prize: a chance to play with Manchester United!)
     o Race to The Race - Count-down to the fabled Dubai World Cup for 6 young jockeys & their horses, training overseen by Saeed bin Suroor himself
     o Obstacle! - Limited water & supplies, limited time - great horses of dif-fering breeds on an obstacle course through tough, uncharted terrain across Arabian deserts, swamps & mountain ranges.

1995-1991: Twin Cities Public Television [KTCA]

     Senior Executive Producer, Arts & Cultural Programs: Hauser supervised creative production staff and all other aspects of production, including program concept and execution, budget, graphic design and post-production, including editing, marketing and distribution. His tenure at the station was framed as a mentorship in production.
     While at KTCA, Hauser’s efforts created national models for arts activism and community involvement. Programs produced under his aegis received a score of national and regional awards. ARTS on 2, a flashy and controversial magazine show he created, was the most-awarded program ever produced at KTCA and brought Hauser his 3rd CPB Award. The program was screened at INPUT, the invitational international festival of innovative and experimental film.
     As producer for Act Against Violence, Hauser created emotionally-charged spots and features about violence and its roots in each of us. Hauser used an NEA Challenge Grant he co-wrote to produce films about the region’s craftsmakers and to help kids make alternative video journals to resolve urban conflict and rural isolation, to defuse racial distrust and to document the growth of self-esteem. With the American Composers Forum, he created a free cleared music library of compositions by local composers.
     The Jerome Foundation funded national conferences on crafts and murder. The St. Paul Companies underwrote a multi-part MINNESOTA CENTURIES history series Hauser was an advocate of ancillary product development at KTCA and popular programming at reasonable cost. DONNA’S DAY, a series he developed about good times for parents and kids together, was syndicated nationally. Local programs devised by Hauser and the staff are the most-watched programs ever produced by KTCA. They include “Tape’s Rolling!” [“…a community treasure”, said the Star TRIBUNE] and specials on subjects as varied as Noh drama and rock-&-roll.

Educated in the United States [Yale College, with thesis honors] and France [the Sorbonne], Hauser received the United States/United Kingdom Bicentennial Artists’ Exchange Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the British Arts Council.

He holds an MFA in radio/television and film from Ohio University.

French: fluent. Spanish: conversant. Arabic: reading, writing, conversation. German: reading.

Hauser designed the format for all language courses of the Council on Student Travel & wrote the French language booklet.

Hauser was dialect/language coach at the Syndicat Français des Acteurs. He has taught drama, French language and literature at Staten Island Academy (1963) and French language at the Blake School (2005). He taught the core curriculum for middle and high school students incarcer-ated by the L.A. County Correctional System. He designed a curriculum to teach production techniques & visual literacy for language students in Minnesota High Schools as part of a project on Mississippi River cities.

THE PERFORMANCE LAB™ interactive residencies are structured around mentored coaching activities in arts education for teachers (professional development) & students. Prime design collaborators have been the Perpich Center for Arts Education and the New Jersey State Department of Education (Office of Standards & Professional Development). Hauser has coached scene work interactively over several years for THE PERFORMANCE LAB™ and the Southern New Jersey Academy of Performing Arts. He has lectured on media and interactivity at national/international conferences.

• Founding Member, Paris Theatre Workshop;
• Founding Member, Ensemble Studio Theatre/West;
• Media Consultant, KCET/Los Angeles;
• Member, DGA, WGA, PGA, AFTRA/SAG;
• Many juries and peer panels on arts education and media.

• 2454 Como Avenue - Saint Paul, MN 55108–1458;
• VOICE: 001.651.795.1134;
• FAX: 001.651.224.1486;
• e-mail: beyond.broadcast@mindspring.com;
• TPL website http://www.theperformancelab.org.

A page in memoriam of Rick Hauser can be found here.