Two More Ethnic Workshops at LATC; Celebrity Doodles for Back Alley Theatre

We have always been able to paint the Los Angeles Theatre Center’s face in all kinds of colors, starting from its former perch on Hollywood’s Oxford Avenue.

Now the Theatre Center, which already has a Latino Theatre Lab under the direction of Jose Luis Valenzuela, has just put in place two more ethnic workshops: a Black Theatre Artists Workshop, to be spearheaded by actor Shabaka, and an Asian-American Theatre Project, under the guidance of actor Dom Magwili.

All three labs will function under the supervision of LATC associate director of new play development Mame Hunt, who had more than a little to do with setting them up.

According to Hunt, the black theater workshop will serve as contact point for black writers, directors and actors and as a forum for the development of new plays.

The Asian-American project will serve “as a resource in Asian-American art” and to provide access to the Theatre Center for Asian-American artists.

“We want to train actors and pull in playwrights,” Hunt said. “With people of this caliber on staff (Shabaka and Magwili), we feel it’ll be easier to go into the community and pull in the artists.”

Funding for these new labs? There isn’t any.

“We haven’t found the money,” Hunt said. “This is another one of these projects where we start out with almost no money and offer support to Shabaka and Dom in terms of giving them space, clerical support and my services as dramaturge. The Latino Lab started out without a budget too, and it has proved one of the most fundable projects in the building.”

The Latino Lab received a Ford Foundation grant of $50,000 for fiscal 1987 and has sent off a proposal for $200,000 over the next three years. (No response from Ford yet.) “We’re eventually looking for all of these labs to move into a production situation--we hope in (the 99-seat) Theater 4--as well as continuing productions on the other three stages.”

Less well known because Hunt wanted to keep it low-key is the Theatre Center’s Women’s Project, a 3-year-old in-process lab for women writers.

“This one’s entirely cross-cultural,” Hunt said. “It has minimal funding, but I’m very pleased with it. We’ve had plays that have moved on from here. Women who have come and gone: Wakako Yamauchi, Susan Champagne.

“They all write in very different forms and don’t try to rewrite each other’s plays,” she said.

Down the line Hunt foresees a possible melding of the work. “We’re looking at these three ethnic labs to come together in some sense,” she said, “and create a collective piece that can cross barriers and come up with (universal) themes.”

Long-range plans include training in acting skills, such as voice, movement and speech. But first things first. Interested actors, directors, writers may contact Vernon Takeshita at (213) 627-6500.

BENEFITS: Measure them bigger, biggest, better and best.

For mega events it will be hard to beat the Neil Simon/Robert Fryer benefit scheduled as a black-tie dinner and tribute at the Century Plaza Hotel Sept. 9. Playwright Simon and Ahmanson artistic director Fryer will be honored to the tune of $350 per person, the proceeds earmarked for the Music Center and the Ahmanson Theatre. Information: (213) 972-7567 . . . .

Last year’s Celebrity Doodle Auction netted the Back Alley Theatre close to $30,000, and a doodle by Vice President George Bush pulled in $500. This year’s auction for the Back Alley features a doodle of the White House (caption: “Not a Bad Place to Live”) by Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. How’s that for a chance to “evaluate” the candidates?

‘Tis the season.

If you’re not politically inclined, there will also be doodles by John Gielgud, Alistair Cooke, Michael J. Fox, Jane Russell, Wayne Gretzky and Quincy Jones among many others. The hammer comes down Sept 10, 4:15 p.m., at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Marc Friedman.

Admission: $35. For directions and tickets, call Kip Meyers at (818) 780-2240 . . . .

PIECES & BITS: Entertainer Michael Feinstein, who sold out two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in July and is the first attraction on the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera season beginning in November (dates yet to be announced), returns to the Bowl on Monday as part of “Broadway at the Bowl.” He joins Bea Arthur, Diahann Carroll, Carol Channing, Vic Damone, Dolores Gray, Patty LuPone, Mary Martin, Julia Migenes, Melba Moore, Anita Morris, Chita Rivera, Elaine Stritch and Tommy Tune--as well as Placido Domingo and Gloria Estefan in pre-Broadway samplings of Maury Yeaston’s new musical “Goya.”

Actress-teacher-guru Stella Adler will host a reception and book-signing at the Studio City Samuel French Bookstore (11963 Ventura Blvd.) on Tuesday, 7-9 p.m., to celebrate publication of her book, “The Technique of Acting”. . . .

Finally, for trivia collectors: Yes, Jamie Baker’s two plays--”Don’t Go Back to Rockville,” a Victory Theater production opening Sept. 22, and “South Central Rain,” a workshop production opening tonight at the Pacific Theatre Ensemble--have the same titles as songs by R.E.M., the rock quartet from Georgia.