STAGE : Sometimes There’s Good News

Sometimes it all seems to be falling apart; sometimes it all seems to be falling into place. Even the bad news on the theater front these days has a grain of comfort in it. And the good news has been been very good indeed. For example:

The California Theatre at 8th and Main is going to come down. This is not good news to people who care anything about theater architecture. It’s painful to think of a wrecking ball smashing into that exquisite Palladian facade, maybe the most beautiful theater front in Los Angeles.

What you had behind that facade, however, was a 1917 movie house with only a shelf of a stage. Preservationists aren’t necessarily demanding that the building be kept intact, but are urging that it not be summarily trashed. Perhaps the facade can be preserved or moved to another location.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation is making the California a rallying point in its campaign to preserve and defend such indisputable downtown treasures as the Los Angeles, the Orpheum, the Palace and the Belasco.

That explains the motto on the California’s marquee: NEVER AGAIN. Those who would like to join LAHTF on the barricades should drop a line to Hillsman Wright, P.O. Box 65031, Los Angeles 90065. Or call (213) 746-9868.

As of this month, the Music Center theaters have stopped charging for “Performing Arts” magazine. This is not a major breakthrough in reducing the costs of a night at the theater. But it has never been clear why Music Center audiences should have to pay 50 cents to find out who was in the show, while the patrons of the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco got their edition of “Performing Arts” for nothing.

It’s also good news there the September issue of “Performing Arts” carries four articles about theater and none about shared-time condominiums in Puerto Rico.

Marsha Norman’s “Getting Out” will be moving from the Burbage Theatre to the Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Theatre 4 on Sept. 29. This looks like better news than it is. It’s fine that a well-reviewed Equity Waiver show is moving into a major downtown theater complex.

But it turns out that “Getting Out” is only renting Theatre 4. It remains a Waiver show. Its actors won’t get paid until the show goes into the black. And the cost of the transfer, according to producer Joel Asher, puts the turn-around point farther off than if the show had stayed at the Burbage.

What price visibility?

Speaking of Waiver theater, the battle between Actors’ Equity and the small-theater producers moved to the courts last week. The first round went the union, with a federal court judge refusing, for the time being, to table Equity’s 99-seat Theatre Plan, which is supposed to begin Oct. 3. The second round begins Thursday.

Lawsuits aren’t good news to anybody but lawyers. The best news here would be an announcement that the producers had agreed to call off their suit and the actors’ union had agreed to re-poll its membership on the Waiver issue, now that it was clearer what the terms of the issue are.

But in general the Waiver Wars of ’88 have been healthy, bringing attention to problem areas in Los Angeles theater that desperately needed to be addressed. It couldn’t be theater-on-the-cuff forever.

“A four-year survey released in January of 1986 revealed that nearly 90% of the plays produced professionally in the United States were produced with all-white casts. Many of these productions were presented in cities--including San Francisco and Los Angeles--where at least half of the population is composed of people of color--Blacks, Asians and Latinos.”

An estimate, only; but it’s not far off the mark. This isn’t just bad news, it’s a scandal. But at least the theater is starting to address it. Several conferences on what is euphemistically called “Non-Traditional Casting” have been held around the country, and now the California Theatre Council is sponsoring one Oct. 11 at the Japan America Theatre.

This is designed for the film-TV industry as well as for the theater, and it won’t be just talk. There’ll be scenes to demonstrate how well a minority actor can fill a role that would traditionally to go to majority actor. “Minority” here doesn’t just apply to racial minorities: it includes women and physically disadvantaged people.

For more information, call Teresa Gregory of the Council at (213) 874-3163.

Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson is moving its operation to the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood next spring, to allow “The Phantom of the Opera” to play the Ahmanson for an open-ended run.

This is one of the best things that’s happened to Los Angeles theater in 20 years. The 2,100-seat Ahmanson works perfectly well for shows that need to have some space around them: big musicals like “Phantom,” spectacles like “Nicholas Nickleby.”

But this is not a theater for the spoken word. Sure, you can get by with plays at the Ahmanson--it’s not the Shrine Auditorium.

But the actors have to be miked. A funny line doesn’t get the instant response that it gets in a Broadway-sized house (1,500 seats or fewer.) It’s harder for an actor to take a pause and know that he’s got them in the palm of his hand.

Neil Simon has been generous about trying out his shows at the Ahmanson (he was honored for that last week), but you will notice that he’s doing his new one, “Rumors,” at the Old Globe in San Diego. What’s wanted for a Simon-sized play is a house like the 1,000-seat Doolittle, where an actor pours a drink and you can hear the ice cubes tinkle from the last row of the balcony.

And now it becomes available, not just for Simon’s next one, but for Tom Stoppard’s next one, or David Mamet’s next one. Plays that wouldn’t work for the Ahmanson will work at the Doolittle, which will get in return the one thing it has always needed--a tenant which can deliver a reliable season, not one smash-hit and three to-be-announceds.

Meanwhile the Music Center gets the kind of big glitzy musical that Civic Light Opera used to deliver there. (No need to dwell on what has happened to Civic Light Opera under the Nederlander regime: we’re concentrating on the good news today.) Everybody wins.

Let’s hope that “Phantom” runs for about five years on the Hill, followed by “Starlight Express,” if necessary. Anything to keep CTG/ Ahmanson at the Doolittle. It is a playhouse with only one problem: The unfortunate post-modern face-lift that it underwent four years ago.

Take the facade of the California Theater and move it to Vine Street and we’d really be in business.