Playwright Seeks a Second Chance in Hollywood

Thirteen years ago, Jack Heifner was hot.

His play, “Vanities,” was already a huge success Off Broadway, newly mounted at the Mark Taper Forum, and on its way to national companies in San Francisco, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami.

“I was offered all kinds of TV series and movies,” the Texas native recalled in his gentle drawl. “Things like the movie of ‘Grease,’ or a new series Lorimar was developing called ‘Dallas.’ But I turned them all down--and ran off to Europe for six months.”

Fame had come fast and hard. “Vanities” was only his second play; its success had suddenly taken him into the Big Time.

“In one respect, it was a lack of guidance,” Heifner said of his decision to pass on the local offers and return to his New York base. “Sure, a lot of people were giving me advice then--too many people. I mean, I was scared. I had no idea what to do. And since my background had always been in theater, New York seemed the safest place. There was a time, you know, when you could get TV work out of New York, pick up a pilot every couple of years. It’s not like that anymore.”

So now, at age 43, Heifner is back in town, reintroducing himself to the television and movie community. “This is where the money is,” he said unabashedly. “I’m one of those fortunate people who’s really made a living in theater; a day doesn’t go by that ‘Vanities’ isn’t performed somewhere around the country. But I’d rather be here now. I want a house. . . . So last summer, I changed agents. And now I’ve just started making appointments. If I can get new work here, I’ll move.”

One thing Heifner hopes to use as a calling card is a new production of “Vanities,” opening Wednesday at the Tamarind Theatre in Hollywood. “You know, there are a lot of 24- to 27-year-olds in the business who don’t remember a play from 13 years ago,” he said. “Although it’s a staple in college theater departments and acting classes, it’s not a hot new play. So you never know what you’re walking into in an appointment; sometimes there’s no frame of reference. I’ve met people who’ve never been to a play.”

Heifner takes it in stride.

“My career as a playwright came very fast--and then I had to go back and have some plays that weren’t successful,” he said. “I had to learn a lot after the fact.” With such credits as “Patio/Porch,” “Star Treatment” and the books for six musicals (including “Leader of the Pack”), Heifner seems to be on an upswing again; in the coming year, he’ll have two plays mounted in New York: the musical “Beauty Shop Bop” and “Bargains,” which had earlier been purchased by CBS for development as a pilot.

In spite of the enormous popularity of “Vanities,” Heifner’s favorite is his “Running on Empty.”

“I wrote it in 1980 during the big fuel crisis,” he said. “It’s been published for years and years--there was a wonderful production in Houston--but it’s never really caught on. It’s about ambition, greed, conspicuous consumption, how we’ve eaten everything up and used all the fuel, . . . and yet it’s like a Noel Coward cocktail party going on, with pretend cocktails. It’s also about love relationships: using up people, using up things. It’s the only one I’ve written that’s really a political play.”

In fact, “Vanities” initially took flak for not being political enough. “People forget that this was a real controversial play,” he said. The story takes three Southern women in the ‘60s and ‘70s through their high school and college years to adulthood. “It came out around the time of ‘Sticks and Bones,’ and the first few plays about the Vietnam War. Those were about people who cared desperately--about the protests, the soldiers, the fighting.”

He sighed. “I wrote about three people who didn’t give a damn, who were self-involved, who cared about their own vanities. This was also at the height of the feminist movement; women used to come up to me in the lobby and say, ‘How dare you write this play?’ There was a feeling I was making fun of them.

“People also didn’t trust that you could put three women on stage and be interesting. But the universal reason the play works is ‘cause the core is about friendship. We’ve all had friends, all grown apart from friends we were close to.”

Heifner also has a fondness for his first play, “Casserole.”

“Being a typical first play, you try to say everything you’ve ever wanted to say in your life,” he said cheerfully. “It was such a mess. Actually, it was the funniest thing I’ve probably ever written--and the most irreverent. It’s about funerals, how no one gets around to burying the body because the neighbors keep bringing food.”

On opening night at Playwrights Horizons, Heifner said, “I was terrified . . . but when people started laughing, I thought, ‘Maybe I can write.’ So I went home, stayed up all night, and wrote ‘Vanities.’ ”

The path to playwriting had not been without detours.

At Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Heifner was a business major--then an art major, then a theater major. In 1969, he landed his first post-college job assisting costume designer Theoni Aldredge at the New York Shakespeare Festival; when the dresses he’d made came apart at the seams on stage, he beat a hasty retreat out the stage door.

He also spent time as a stage manager, market researcher and actor. “I wanted to go to New York and be in a Broadway show,” he said. “Within a year, I had my Equity card. I thought, ‘Well, that was easy.’ ”

When “Vanities” hit, that seemed awfully easy, too.

“Then you learn about the business, how rotten show business can be,” he said dryly of the subsequent come-down. “But ‘Vanities’ had the advantage of running for five years in New York. So for five years I was still very visible. And I guess I never thought it would close. I always had this play running down the street I could drop in on. So that was probably the hardest thing--when suddenly it wasn’t there anymore.”

One thing he’s secure about is how “Vanities” should be done. “About five years ago I directed it for a summer theater in Hyde Park, N.Y.,” Heifner recalled. “We went back to it and said, ‘Is there anything we missed?’ And because we were older, we probably took the play a lot deeper. So when I talk to these actresses about it now, I think I might not be of much help to them--because I know the play so well. Still, I don’t want to go in and tell them how to do it. It’s better to let them surprise me.”