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Alumni Business Spotlight: William Hector '11

William is founder and festival director of Coconut Grove Theatre Festival, which is returning in 2026. In this Q&A, William reflects on the formative experience he had at Ransom Everglades, including the Senior Directing Workshops, which prepared him to make theatre in the professional world.
Name: 
William Hector

Class Year: 
2011

Business Name: 
Coconut Grove Theatre Festival

Job Title: 
Founder and Festival Director

Where did you go to college/university?
University of Miami

What was your major?
Dual degrees in Politics, Philosophy & Economics, and in Playwriting,

Where did your passion for the arts come from?
I started doing theatre as a kindergartener at St. Stephen’s (a Munchkin in Wizard of Oz and the White Rabbit in Alice and Wonderland) and continued onward at Summer Theatre Camp at the Coconut Grove Playhouse before its closure. Ransom Everglades Drama classes and school plays provided an education that not only furthered the technique and craft of theatre and storytelling, but also taught initiative and creative entrepreneurship with independent projects like the 8th Grade Improv Show and Senior Director Workshop. Both of those projects are in the DNA of the Coconut Grove Theatre Festival.

Tell us about the history of theatre in the Grove:
Theatre has been at the heart of the Grove for generations. Physically and culturally with the central location of the Coconut Grove Playhouse, where leading productions premiered before a vibrant audience, and even before that at the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove, whose history is one of working to advance arts and culture, and especially theatre in Miami and the Grove. Present day, the Grove is growing again as a destination for audiences and theatre artists, as the Festival was able to demonstrate with audiences of 700+ coming to sold-out shows over the four days of the Festival to see original new theatre premiering in the Grove. 

Where do you currently reside?
Coconut Grove! Until the day the rising sea water forces me out. 

What keeps you busy during the week?
Writing, producing, getting the chance to appreciate the work of other artists throughout the Miami theatre scene, and planning for the return of the Coconut Grove Theatre Festival in 2026!

How did Ransom Everglades prepare you for your future?
Looking back, I realize that the projects we were assigned at Ransom Everglades were incredibly ambitious. Asking seniors to direct freshmen, sophomores and juniors in a festival of short plays, asking 8th graders to write and perform sketch comedy – I didn’t fully grasp the scale of that ambition at the time. It was simply what other students had done before and what I was asked to do and would do. 

Those were incredibly valuable lessons: teaching us that we can and should make things independently. That it is, in fact, our responsibility to do so. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of my classmates, in and out of the arts, have started their own businesses and projects, from architectural firms to physical therapy clinics, to theatre festivals. More than anything else, Ransom Everglades teaches initiative, and initiative is what’s needed in the world today.

What’s one of your favorite Ransom Everglades memories?
The Senior Directing Workshops – as a shy freshman actor, a less shy sophomore, a fully unshy junior, and directing as a tyrannical senior (my apologies to my cast!). Getting to work as an actor under the direction of a fellow student, and doing the same as director, was the perfect preparation for how to go out and make theatre in the professional world. (Shout-out especially to Emery Matson and JJ Luria, two of my directors who are in Miami and are active in making or supporting the arts!)

What song/album was on repeat your senior year?
Senior year is when I discovered 2Pac, so my playlists were probably a bit behind the times culturally, but greatness is eternal!

What are some words of wisdom for your fellow alumni?
Many people from my year either stayed in or have made their way back to Miami, so my advice would be to tell anyone still living outside South Florida that Miami is the place to be. 

Learn more:

Company name: The Coconut Grove Theatre Festival
Phone: 305 607 4696

Instagram: @lastwillandtestement and @cgtfest

William's Website
"Theater festival producer sees new dawn for Coconut Grove" Miami Herald
"Take A Bow: Live Theater Returns to the Grove" Coconut Grove Spotlight
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Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.


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