PROFILE OF CTG/TAPER DRAMATURGE

Some people have midlife crises. Others make career moves. At 36, Jack Viertel isn’t into midlife yet, but the current theater critic and arts editor of the Herald Examiner (and past president of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle) is not just leaving his job but moving to the other side of the fence.

He leaves the paper Aug. 23 to assume a position as dramaturge for the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum starting Sept. 3. Viertel replaces Russell Vandenbroucke who left the Taper in June. How did it come about?

“Casually,” Viertel said Monday. “I was interviewing Gordon (Davidson, artistic director of the Taper) about the repertory on the day that The Times printed the story about Russell Vandenbroucke resigning. That developed into a series of informal conversations that ended, a couple of months later, in a serious job offer.”

But it wasn’t the offer alone that pried Viertel loose: “I have to say that I had also begun to experience some burnout as a critic. I was becoming cynical and, for about a year now, I’ve had some itch to produce. Everyone in Hollywood wants to direct. I want to produce.”

In film or theater?

“In theater. I really have very little interest in film. And, of course, there’s no such thing as an independent theater producer any more. The Kermit Bloomgarden days are over. The only place to do it is in the resident theaters.

“This offer puts me in a situation where I can foresee doing some production. Russell (Vandenbroucke) did it at the Itchey Foot. There’s New Theatre for Now, though not this year. But there will be other years. And another thing Gordon and I have talked about, though very casually, is the upstairs lobby at the Doolittle. It’s a fascinating space and maybe something can be done with that.”

What really cinched it for Viertel and the Taper is that he was hired also as consultant and adviser on musical theater by the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson. His duties there will be to come up with ideas for the summer musical slot.

“The Ahmanson gets no production money but Bobby (Fryer, artistic director of the Ahmanson) would like to begin developing musicals. There are spaces that can be used for this, such as the Taper, Too and there’s no need to separate the theaters. Personalities are not standing in the way (for this kind of crossover). Scheduling is. These are the things I will be looking at.”

Does he bring ideas to the job?

“None at the moment. What is rattling around in my head is too unformulated to discuss. But I’m happy--at least temporarily. Having really slammed these theaters around quite a bit in the last five years, it shows a good deal of open-mindedness on their part to have hired me.”

Or exceptional shrewdness?

AWARDS: The CBS/Dramatists Guild award for 1985 turned out to be a tie and one winner, Bakersfieldian Tom Strelich, received his prize money in a brief ceremony Tuesday at Theatre West.

Strelich won for his play “Neon Psalms” which, the Dramatists Guild’s David LeVine describes as “a play about people, basically,” and Strelich as “examining the nature of love.” It was done in one of the hangars on the docks at Fort Mason by the Magic Theatre in April.

“CBS very graciously came up with double the money,” LeVine said early Wednesday, “so the winning playwrights didn’t have to split their award.” In fact, the $10,000 each received is split equally between writer and theater. (Lynn Alvarez was the other winner. Her play, “The Wonderful Tower of Humbert Lavoignet,” was done at the Capitol Rep in Albany, N.Y.)

Making the selections was a jury consisting of Terrence McNally, Mary Rodgers, Ted Talley, Wendy Wasserstein and LeVine.

MORE AWARDS: Winner of the 1985 Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Julie Harris playwright award this year is Carol Mack for her play “American Dreamer.” This one gets away from family torment. It deals with the experience of a captive American businesswoman in an unnamed Latin-American country. Mack received her prize of $3,000 in June. “Dreamer” was read Tuesday at First Stage.

TAMARA AND TAMARA AND TAMARA: Or so it seems. Even Mayor Tom Bradley is getting into the act. He has declared Tuesday to be “Tamara” day in honor of the melodrama ‘ s 500th performance.

THE RUMOR MILL: “Jeeves Takes Charge,” rumored as a possibility for the Westwoond Playhouse, has been confirmed for a Sept. 18 opening and a limited six-week run. Larry Dykun’s producing (he’s the general manager for the phenomenal “Tamara”).

LATE CUE: It took a former Angeleno (and Times staffer), John Rockwell, to concede the importance of last year’s Olympic Arts Festival in the New York Times. The dateline was July 14, 1985--only a year after the event.