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James Houghton, the founder and, until recently, the artistic director of the Signature Theater Company, one of Off Broadway’s essential nonprofit theaters and perhaps the nation’s leading safe house for playwrights, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 57. ….

From 2006 until his death, he was director of the drama division at the Juilliard School, which was founded in 1968 … by John Houseman. Like Professor Kingsfield, the Harvard law scholar famously played by Houseman in the 1973 film “The Paper Chase,” the drama division was long known for its emphasis on discipline and for upholding rigorous standards that kept the pressure on the small number of students who were admitted after auditions. (In 2016 there 2,000 applicants for 18 spots.)

Mr. Houghton altered the Juilliard audition process and is credited with relaxing the atmosphere of the program. ….

“I don’t think there was anyone in the theater community more beloved than Jim,” the playwright Tony Kushner… wrote in an email ….

— Bruce Weber