What’s on the L.A. Boards for Next Year?

What if you gave a party and nobody came?

Sometimes that’s what it feels like in Los Angeles theater--at least when the actors on stage outnumber the audience. That isn’t the fate of every show, or even a majority of shows, but it is the kind of thing that continues to happen in this town, fatally feeding a New York idea: that theater in Los Angeles is not worth attending.

That’s hardly the case, of course, but it is a persistent misconception that tells us that Los Angeles continues to be a company town and that the company’s name is Hollywood. It also tells us that the sheer numbers of actors trying to “make it” here--about 8,000--paradoxically contribute both to the good and bad work in the trenches.

Theater is rarely one thing or another. It is usually both. In 1988, some of the bigger theaters delivered some very strong shows, while the fringes of Equity Waiver--the random, one-shot forays--misfired with a staggering lack of awareness of their shortcomings.

Certainly what could be called the Waiver “troubles” of ’88 did nothing to help artists who run small theaters keep their minds on their work. They were too busy fighting with their union over the way in which the fate of the 16-year-old Waiver was put to a vote (abruptly and, said some, in a misleading manner).

The Waiver’s rejection in April in favor of a modified plan was followed by attempts to modify the modification. But if the war isn’t over yet, it seems to be wearing down. How this dispute resolves itself remains to be seen. What’s clear is that it will radically change the smaller theaters. For better or worse? Stay tuned.

Two other items will alter the face of things to come: the Center Theatre Group-Ahmanson’s change of venue (from the Ahmanson Theatre to the James A. Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood next May, to accommodate the arrival of the Ahmanson’s long-term tenant: “The Phantom of the Opera”) and the city’s approval of Councilman Joel Wachs’ proposal for a Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts.

The latter is a landmark development that will have far-reaching effects. Properly administered, it could go a long way toward lifting local theater out of its stepchild status. A year or two may roll by before the hoped-for $20 million windfall finds its way into arts organization coffers, but some dollars are expected to start trickling down as early as July. Watch the flowers begin to bloom. . . .

The CTG-Ahmanson’s move to the Doolittle Theatre has several benefits. It will put that excellent Vine Street house to fuller use than it has experienced in some time. It will make room at the Music Center for “The Phantom’s” open-ended run. Steady income minus headaches from the “Phantom” rental should help CTG-Ahmanson get its own act together. And the Doolittle’s intimacy, attractive to “name” actors and hospitable to a wider range of productions, should make charting an Ahmanson season there a good deal easier.

The Mark Taper Forum’s Gordon Davidson will be doing the charting. The Center Theatre Group board has stopped short of offering Davidson the job on a permanent basis, but can one doubt that this is an audition? If he can continue the pattern of Ahmanson recovery that was set in motion by outgoing artistic director Robert Fryer and his interim partner,Marshall W. Mason, Davidson could get what he has said he wants: a crack at running both theaters on the hill--the Ahmanson and the Taper.

Such an arrangement might work to everybody’s advantage. It might get the Taper back to doing more original work, saving imported productions for the bigger theater. “Imports” have dominated the Taper’s last two seasons (“The Immigrant,” “The Colored Museum,” “Lost Highway,” “Frankie & Johnny”). But things may be looking up.

Four locally mounted shows constitute the balance of the Taper’s 1988-89 season: Jon Robin Baitz’s “Dutch Landscape” (Jan. 19), followed by the world premiere of “Sansei,” an original work created and performed with the band Hiroshima (March 23), followed by the American premiere of Manuel Puig’s “The Mystery of the Rose Bouquet” (June 1), followed by a new adaptation of Calderon’s “The Mayor of Zalamea” by Adrian Mitchell (July 13).

At Taper, too, last season’s string of one-person shows is also giving way to productions of multicharacter plays: Jose Ignacio Cabrujas’ “The Day You’ll Love Me” (translated by Eduardo Machado), Robert Holman’s “Making Noise Quietly” and Pierre Corneille’s “L’Illusion Comique.”

Finally, we’ve loved the seven-year presentation of “A Christmas Memory” at the Itchey Foot, but it’s time to give it a rest and cook up something new. How about a nod to Hanukkah? And our Latino rituals?

For the most inclusive nods to L.A.’s ethnic diversity, the Los Angeles Theatre Center remains unparalleled. The pattern there continues to be bold, busy, brash and full of beans. Shows are as likely to be misses as they are to be hits, but artistic producing director Bill Bushnell remains fearless.

He takes the greatest risks, delivers densely packed, eclectic mini-seasons several times a year in which he involves the widest mix of multiracial, local and international artists, making LATC indispensable to Los Angeles.

A sampler of its upcoming schedule includes Eduardo Machado’s “A Burning Beach”; Casey Kurtti’s “Three Ways Home”; Thomas Babe’s “Demon Wine”; August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”; Reza Abdoh and Marlane Meyer’s “Burning Bridges: What to Do When the Egg Won’t Stick”; a revival of Steve Carter’s “Eden”; Steven Dietz’s “Ten November,” and Howard Korder’s “Boys’ Life.” This just takes us through July.

Only one other mainstream theater is making as dedicated an effort to develop Latino talent, and that is South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa which harbors an annual Hispanic Playwrights Project. But the project is not the body and soul of SCR, which, as Orange County’s flagship theater, presents a smart mix of new work, New York hits and stylish revivals of ancient and modern classics. It launches 1989 with Athol Fugard’s “The Road to Mecca” (Jan. 13), followed by Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sondheim/Lapine musical “Sunday in the Park With George.”

Perhaps the most rewarding local resurrection has been that of the 62-year-old Pasadena Playhouse, which, in two eventful seasons under the imaginative artistic directorship of Susan Dietz, has reclaimed its place in Los Angeles theater. It moves into 1989 with the world premiere of “Accomplice” by Rupert Holmes (Feb. 4); Richard Harris’ “Stepping Out” (March 19), and a production of Tom Griffin’s “The Boys Next Door” (May 14).

Dietz reserves the Playhouse’s smaller Balcony Theatre for more offbeat material and the rate of success there has been chancier. In ‘89, look for “Liliane Montevecchi on the Boulevard,” a reprise of “Steven Banks’ Home Entertainment Center” and the return of Rita McKenzie as Merman in “Call Me Ethel,” seen in November at the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill. Look also for a series of play readings in the main theater and, in line with Playhouse history, the start-up of a theater school.

The other organization that has been gaining in stature is the Long Beach Civic Light Opera, which has grown steadily more prepossessing under Martin Wiviott’s leadership. For 1989, this once-derided organization will deliver a “Student Prince” (Feb. 23); Debbie Reynolds as Molly in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.”

It is, however, the only musical theater success story in town.

The Los Angeles Civic Light Opera is all but moribund. It has even resorted to scheduling a nonmusical play (“Driving Miss Daisy” with Julie Harris at the Henry Fonda in April) and is unsure if it will bring the troubled road company of “Anything Goes” to the Pantages in June.

As for the California Music Theatre, it’s long on ambition but short on ability. Despite glitzy joint efforts with the Music Center Operating Co. and the Orange County Center for the Performing Arts, it has had a dismaying year. It is forging ahead at the Pasadena Civic with “Kiss Me Kate,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “Pajama Game” and “Iolanthe.” But will it cut the mustard?

The midsize houses (the Coronet, Canon, Las Palmas, Westwood and Hollywood Playhouses) continue their struggle for survival. One of them--the New Mayfair--may have solved its problems with the arrival of a West Coast contingent of Chicago’s Second City as a permanent tenant beginning Jan. 24. But that still leaves the other five. Both “Hurlyburly” at the Westwood (through Jan. 22) and “Lies and Legends: the Musical Stories of Harry Chapin” at the Canon (through Sunday) prove the difficulty of staying alive in these houses without benefit of subscription audiences.

And there it is. A lot will ride in 1989 on how well Actors’ Equity Assn., the union of stage actors, and the operators of smaller theaters work out their differences. Those theaters are the lifeblood of the art. No one wants to go back to the way things were before Equity Waiver allowed actors some freedom to practice their craft. It’s time to get rid of acrimony and mistrust.

If there must be surprises in 1989, let them be conciliatory ones.