The Bard on Boards at Santa Monica Pier; Progress Report on Equity-ATLAS Talks

The Santa Monica Pier will become a theater in August. The Pacific Theatre Ensemble will venture out over the Pacific, presenting a Shakespearean comedy in a 200-seat space at the western end of the pier.

Admission will be free. The city is putting up $15,000 for the production, and the ensemble hopes to match that amount in a fund-raising campaign, said artistic director Stephanie Shroyer. This will be the first Actors’ Equity-contract show for the ensemble, which has won acclaim for its smaller-theater productions of such shows as “Slaughterhouse on Tanner’s Close” and “South Central Rain.”

The Pacific Theatre Ensemble won’t be the only theatrical group on the pier. The Aresis Ensemble, formerly based at the Off-Main Street Theatre, plans to present a production of “Wozzeck” in a 49-seat space next to the carrousel in September, said the group’s Charles Duncombe. Aresis has arranged to rent the space from the Pier Restoration Corp. for six months at $10 a month.

CONTRACT APPROVED: The organization of smaller-theater producers, Associated Theatres of Los Angeles (ATLAS), has approved a new Actors’ Equity contract that would allow smaller-theater productions to extend runs beyond the 80 performances allowed under Equity’s 99-seat plan.

While the contract has yet to be endorsed by the Equity board, Equity already has used many of its provisions in an individual contract for “On Tina Tuna Walk,” at the Zephyr. “Tina Tuna” will pass the 80-performance mark Friday. Its producers are not ATLAS members.

The contract calls for a sliding scale of payments per actor per performance, from $20 for one performance each week to $15 for shows that give four or more performances each week. It also provides for payments to Equity’s pension and health funds.

Prospects are much darker for an Equity-ATLAS contract governing smaller-theater shows that move to larger theaters. “We have called a hiatus in the talks,” said ATLAS chairman Laura Zucker, “because I didn’t think we were getting anywhere.” She wants the issues “to percolate in the community” before talks resume.

The major issues, according to Zucker: Should the contract include provisions for part-time performance schedules (ATLAS says yes)? Should it cover theaters with as many as 399 seats (ATLAS’ idea) or only 299 (Equity’s)? And, she continued, “we’re very far apart on money.” She claimed that Equity “wants us to pay as much as 40%-50% of the gross to actors” under contracts “comparable to other cities. But we do not yet have the subsidies here to pay for it.”

Equity Western Regional director Edward Weston declined to respond to Zucker’s specific comments, but he remarked that ATLAS officials “had (earlier) argued that the new 99-seat plan would be the end of small theater. They should reconsider their objections and be a little more realistic.”

Referring to Zucker’s desire to let the issues “percolate,” he said: “I’d rather negotiate than percolate. Let’s keep the lid on the coffeepot.”

DIRECTORS STRIKE?: The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers will strike the League of Resident Theatres if agreement on a new contract isn’t reached by Aug. 8.

The vote to reject the league’s latest offer was taken at five union membership meetings--in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago--but only 18% of the members voted. Of 1,038 members, 114 voted to reject, 74 to accept.

The 67 league theaters include the Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe. Thomas Hall, managing director of the Old Globe and president of the League of Resident Theatres, said Tuesday: “I don’t have anything to offer at this moment that would hold out any hope” for further negotiations.