 His 1989 direction of Henrik Ibsen's "The Master Builder" was called "sound and respectful of the text" and led the New York Magazine's John Simon to state "Our theater could use more Hammonds".He subsequently spent 22 years at the PlayMakers Repertory Company at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 14 of which as artistic director.In 1989 at the PRC, he rescripted the framing material in Taming of the Shrew, cutting some speeches, but adding jugglers and clowns and a drastic scene change to signal the play as being Sly's dream and allowing for a doubling of the Sly/Petruchio and Lord/Vincentio characters which "provided a distinctly different perspective".