Most Big Law partners take up golf, sailing or traveling the world when they retire. They might rekindle old passions for self-expression. Chances are they will just dapple in those pursuits.

But Alan Hruska, 82, has gone whole hog on a new career—several, actually—since he retired from Cravath Swaine & Moore as a partner in 2001. Currently, he has a new play out: “Laugh It Up, Stare It Down” at New York’s legendary Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village.