Cross-Town Move for ‘If They Come Back’; Waging War Over 99-Seat Theater Plan

On Sept. 9, Eric Monte’s “If They Come Back” opened in a 99-seat theater at the Inner City Cultural Center for a three-weekend run. Reviews were not encouraging.

Next week, the same play--a saga of two brothers during the early days of the civil rights movement--will open at the 863-seat Henry Fonda Theater for an engagement that’s planned to run through Nov. 20. The company will include 23 actors, none of them stars whose names might attract crowds. According to Monte, he will personally finance the entire production.

“I don’t have one shred of doubt” about the move, Monte said.

Critics? “They gave bad reviews to all of Sylvester Stallone’s movies. Lord knows I hope I’m as big a failure as he is.” Besides, Monte continued, “I watched the response of the audience (at Inner City), and it was phenomenal. That’s why I’m not nervous.”

Not nervous, maybe, but Monte is not entirely satisfied, either. While he has brought most of his Inner City cast across town, he has not been able to bring along his Inner City crew of carpenters and stagehands, most of whom were recruited as volunteers.

The Fonda is a union house. Local 33 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has a contract with the theater’s owner, the Nederlander Organization, that mandates a union crew.

Monte appealed to Local 33 to allow his original crew to join the union so they could work the show at the Fonda, or (to quote from Monte’s letter to the union) to grant a “special dispensation that will allow these people to keep the jobs they created.”

Local 33 officials replied to Monte, and confirmed to The Times, that his crew members could apply for membership. But if they were accepted, they would still be at the bottom of the seniority list that determines specific assignments--and probably wouldn’t be able to work Monte’s show.

Furthermore, Local 33 recording secretary Joe Doucette said that he could not recall the granting of any special dispensations such as that requested by Monte.

Doucette added that he told Monte that nothing in the contract prevented Monte “from being generous” to his original crew with his own money. “Instead, he wants us to be generous. We live up to our contracts. He should live up to his.”

In fact, noted an associate of Monte’s, Monte has hired four “road company” crew members--the maximum allowed by the union--from the original production to supplement the union crew.

But Monte also noted the races of the respective crews. His original crew was almost all-black, he said, while the union crews so far have been almost all-white. “I see it as racism,” said Monte.

“We are not an all-white union,” responded Doucette. “More than likely, some blacks will be on the job.” Monte acknowledged that one black union member worked on the crew on moving day, while another has been one of the six backstage crew members since previews began last Thursday.

Doucette could not say how many of Local 33’s 1,200 members are black, but “I can say that we have been in compliance with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission).”

Monte wrote “If They Come Back” 20 years ago, and the Mark Taper Forum staged it as part of the New Theater for Now series in 1972 under the title “Revolution.” “I didn’t know about budgets then,” Monte said. “I will never write another play for 23 actors.”

Since that staging, Monte made some money by writing the movie “Cooley High,” co-creating TV’s “Good Times” and creating “What’s Happening.”

“I made everybody else millions of dollars,” he said. “Now I think I can make myself a few.”

WAIVER WARS: Actors’ Equity has begun to enforce its controversial 99-Seat Theater Plan.

The union sent cease-and-desist letters Friday to the two Equity members, Chris DeCarlo and Evelyn Rudie, who are in an unsanctioned production at the Santa Monica Playhouse. No response had been received by Wednesday.

Equity also contacted Shashin Desai, the artistic director of International City Theatre in Long Beach, regarding Desai’s comments (published in The Times last Thursday) that he hoped to avoid registering his production of “Vanishing Points” under the plan. The production is now registered.

However, most producers of upcoming shows in Waiver spaces are still postponing the decision on whether to register under the plan. Equity’s Michael Van Duzer said Wednesday that no 99-Seat Plan-sanctioned productions are scheduled to open in the next week. And at least two productions plan to open this weekend with Equity actors and without Equity’s blessing--including one, “Duck Dancing,” that features Greg Mullavey, one of the actors who sued Equity for its imposition of the plan.

Most of the producers hope that a compromise will be reached Tuesday, when Equity executive secretary Alan Eisenberg will meet with opponents of the plan. But a dispute has flared over whether attorneys should attend that meeting--Equity doesn’t want them there, the opponents do.

Meanwhile, Associated Theatres of Los Angeles (ATLAS), the organization of producers who are opposed to the plan, began holding mass auditions this week in an attempt to gauge how many union members might be willing to continue working at their theaters, if no settlement is reached, and how many non-union members are capable enough to do so. ATLAS’ Maria Gobetti reported that nearly 300 actors auditioned during the first two days, and that union members outnumbered non-union members 2-to-1. “But it was also nice to see that there is non-union talent that’s fabulous,” she added.