Mednick Takes Helm of Roving Festival; Will Cease-and-Desist Orders Cease?

It’s back to the future for the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival.

Padua Hills founder Murray Mednick has resumed command of the festival, one of the Southland’s principal playwright development outposts, following 16 months in which Roxanne Rogers was the artistic director.

And the festival has again joined the ranks of the homeless, in what has become virtually an annual predicament since the festival left its original Padua Hills venue in 1983.

Last summer’s festival was held at the Pacific Design Center. “It was very noisy,” Rogers said. “It limited what we could do. We had to push so much for volume, we almost had to use mikes.”

Three sites, including two schools, are being considered for next summer’s festival. “We want to go where we have housing as well as space,” Mednick said. “It’s important for (festival participants) to stay together.” He expects an agreement on a new home to be reached within a month.

Rogers resigned because “several board members wanted to expand (the number of public performances),” she said. “My feeling was that we don’t have the experience as producers or the financial resources to do that, and that the strength of Padua Hills is in the workshops and teaching.” She also felt that running Padua Hills next year would be “a double-time job”--a commitment she wasn’t prepared to make.

This doesn’t mean that Rogers likes the festival just as it is. She believes Padua Hills “isn’t screening its plays well enough. Our standard writers could just submit anything and we’d do it. I think they should bring a question instead of just a play. They should say ‘This is what I want to explore’ instead of ‘I’ve written 28 plays, and here’s one more.’ ”

Mednick agreed that the playwrights should think of themes, and he said that he may establish a theme for each year’s festival and ask the playwrights to address it in their writing. However, he rejected the suggestion of more rigorous play screening; he doesn’t even read the plays.

“We invite people, not plays,” he said. “It’s optional whether people even do a play.” Rogers expressed hope that new voices could be heard at Padua Hills, but Mednick cautioned that “Padua is more like a school than like a showcase--and you don’t just turn over the faculty every year.”

Mednick left the job in 1987 “because I was burned out,” he said. Last summer, he was on tour in Yugoslavia and didn’t even attend the festival. “I’m still not interested in the administrative side of it,” he said, “but I am interested in the exchange of ideas. I want Padua to survive. I’m not taking it over permanently--just during this period of reinforcement.”

Meanwhile, the festival’s first off-season production, John O’Keefe’s one-man “Shimmer,” will open Feb. 16 and run through March 12 at the New Playwrights Foundation Theatre, 6111 W. Olympic Blvd.

CEASE-FIRE: In the four months since Actors’ Equity put its 99-Seat Theater Plan into effect, a number of Equity members (Equity won’t reveal how many) received cease-and-desist letters from the union, instructing them to stop performing in productions that weren’t sanctioned by the plan.

“Most of the actors did cease and desist, or else the producers signed on (with the plan),” said Equity’s Western Regional Director Edward Weston. Other actors submitted proof that their productions had actually opened to a paying public before Oct. 3, when the plan went into effect, and therefore they could take advantage of the plan’s grandfather clause.

The first actors to receive cease- and-desist letters, Santa Monica Playhouse’s Chris DeCarlo and Evelyn Rudie, last week submitted proof that their show actually opened on Oct. 1, said DeCarlo, despite earlier claims that it opened Oct. 7.

Weston acknowledged that in at least one case, the union took disciplinary action beyond the initial letter, but he declined to reveal what action was taken.

Last week, the theater operators who belong to Associated Theatres of Los Angeles (ATLAS) finally agreed to play by union rules. Will the cease-and-desist letters cease?

“I would hope so,” Weston said. “It just depends on whether the producers actually do sign the agreement (as individual productions arise).”

At least one actor received cease-and-desist letters from Equity’s sister unions, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (supporting Equity in accordance with an inter-union agreement) late last week--after the agreement between Equity and ATLAS was announced, but before the theater in question submitted the necessary documents to Equity. Speedy delivery of those documents resolved the matter, however, and the actor was able to continue performing.

Another Equity member last week berated Weston from his other flank. In a letter to Weston (a copy was sent to The Times), Jim Piddock chided Equity officials for making 33 revisions of the original plan after talks with ATLAS last fall and for allowing individual “concessions” to producers who plead special circumstances, such as large casts or small budgets.

“I and a majority of our union voted the plan into effect,” Piddock wrote. “Now, without my consultation, a lot of what I voted for has been rolled back. . . . I question whether it is constitutional for a union to amend its majority-elected laws to the whims of a self-interested minority without consulting the membership.”

Weston responded that Equity’s national council “has the right to amend or modify any internal rules. Equity policy is to treat each producer individually and equitably.”

A representative of the Mark Taper Forum has indicated the Los Angeles theater is considering changing its advertisement for its currently running “Dutch Landscape.” The ad, which ran in last Sunday’s Calendar, credits Time magazine as giving the play a “Critics’ Choice.” “Critics’ Choice” is the title of a Time feature listing plays and other cultural events across the country and is not a critical evaluation.