Mixing It Up With Peter Sellars

Peter Sellars’ thoughtful and persuasive assertion that our next task is to address multicultural arts eloquently begs the question.

The real question hinges on how to turn our good intentions into fact. How do we create a cultural environment where ordinary people can buy inexpensive tickets and go to the Ahmanson to see a classic production from Spain or Mexico or a new play from Argentina, Iran or India? How do we interest people when soaps and sitcoms in their own language are readily available on videocassette or cable? How do we pour enough money into our indigenous non-white artists to enable them to craft their own points of view? How do we fund schools so that they can regularly bus children to the theater?

Thanks to Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs and others, we now have a new source of funds--$20 million from the L.A. Arts Endowment. If we are serious about creating a uniquely Los Angeles style of art, I feel strongly that we use these funds as the opening wedge to support a new artistic reality for ourselves, moving people--black, white, yellow, green--away from the VCR and back into compelling cultural contact.

SUSAN ALBERT

LOEWENBERG

L.A. Theatre Works