Leave His List Alone!

Dan Sullivan has hit a new low in his Humbug Awards (“ . . . And a Humbug in a Pear Tree,” Jan. 8) and I can’t begin to tell you how angry I am. He’s now reviewing my wish list? Come on, guys. What is this?

Your reporter pursues me to be a part of your Dec. 24 “Dear Santa” article. I respond with expressing a dream of making non-traditional casting a reality, both for the Taper and Los Angeles, a statement I feel sincerely and passionately about, which acknowledges the idea that no matter what we’ve already done, there’s an imperative to do more--and this is what I get?

And just how short and how arbitrary is Dan’s memory? When he first “came to town in 1969,” did he miss seeing the non-traditional casting in our production of “The Metamorphosis” or “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine” or the repertory of “The Mahagonny Songplay” and “The Measures Taken” or “Mass” or “Three Sisters” or “Where She Stops Nobody Knows” or all 17 years of the Improvisational Theatre Project? Or what about, more recently, “Green Card,” “The Game of Love and Chance” (at Taper, Too) and “Nothing Sacred”?

And where’s Dan’s sense of history when it comes to non-traditional programming at the Taper? When Dan arrived, we had already been a home for the National Theatre for the Deaf and El Teatro Campesino. And has he forgotten “Zoot Suit,” “Children of a Lesser God,” “The Hands of Its Enemy,” “For Colored Girls . . . ,” “The Wash,” “A Song for a Nisei Fisherman,” “Woza Albert!,” “Asinamali!”?

Dan is such a “non-traditionalist” himself that he chose to attack Kate Mulgrew for being too Irish to be the Norwegian Hedda Gabler, so clearly he’s not ready for a black, Latino, Asian or even male performer in that role. Producers beware!

Get off my back!

GORDON DAVIDSON

Artistic Director/Producer

Center Theater Group/Mark

Taper Forum