STAGE : His Long Road Led to Pasadena : Artistic director Paul Lazarus promises to bring ‘creative administration’ to the fabled Playhouse

P aul Lazarus, the newly appointed artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse, describes himself as “a military brat” who grew up all over the place. “Half of my life up and down the East Coast,” he said, “half of my life back and forth to Europe--Italy, Germany, France.”

It served him well. He is fluent in French, has done all his own translations of French works and attributes his love of theater to a father who took him to Saturday matinees every chance he got. He was a singer as a child, and music still plays a prominent role in his life and work.

Lazarus attended Dartmouth College, then spent 13 months in England as an apprentice with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has worked with Stephen Sondheim, producing and directing the Grammy-nominated “A Stephen Sondheim Evening” in 1983 for Composers Showcase and RCA Records. He was associate director of the 1985 concert version of “Follies” at Lincoln Center, subbing for director Herbert Ross when he was called away by illness in his family.

Ironically, the 36-year-old Lazarus, who has lived in Los Angeles for the last two years, has never worked in local theater. He received a Drama Desk nomination for his staging of the Off-Broadway musical “Personals” (1985, Minetta Lane). Most recently, he staged premieres of Jon Klein’s “Life Class--The Last Lesson of Thomas Eakins” at the Art Institute of Chicago (1990); David Rappoport’s “Cave Life” (1988, New York’s Circle Repertory Theatre); Stephen Gregg’s “Sex Lives of Superheroes” (1989, Manhattan Punch Line) and Mark St. Germain’s musical, “Johnny Pye and the Foolkiller” (1990, George St. Playhouse, New Brunswick, N.J.).

Lazarus, who has already taken over at the Playhouse, will stage the closing show of the current season: a revival of the 1938 Cole Porter musical “You Never Know” (May 17-June 30), which he previously adapted and directed at Boston’s Huntington Theatre and Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House.

Seemingly unfazed by war in the Persian Gulf, recession at home and predictions of tough times for the arts, Lazarus talked about his work with The Times’ Sylvie Drake.

QUESTION: How did you come to the attention of the Playhouse?

ANSWER: I crossed paths with Lars Hansen (managing director of the Pasadena Playhouse) in Philadelphia in 1983. When I came out here, I met with Susan Dietz (former Playhouse artistic director) about directing at the Playhouse, and when I passed the door to Lars’ office, I wondered if it could be the same Lars Hansen. Of course, it was. That’s how we reconnected.

Q: What brought you to Los Angeles?

A: I had come to a place in my life where I felt change was necessary. I felt a certain dissatisfaction with traveling around the country, doing shows but not having enough opportunities to fulfill some of my personal objectives. I’m also interested in film and television. I’m getting more and more visually oriented in my work.

Q: Have you ever run a theater before?

A: Never. I’ve worked in theaters all over the country and all over New York, certainly, but I have never landed--or had a home. In fact, in discussions about my taking this job, I had to convince myself that that was a place I wanted to be.

I have to trace my whole history to make sense of that. If you’re a free-lance director in New York and you go to a theater that you’ve been in before and say, “I’ve got this wonderful idea, I know how I want to do it,” and they negate that enthusiasm or that passion, you’re left with a terribly frustrated feeling. Somebody has got to nurture that kind of dream, that kind of vision and, as I mentioned before, I didn’t feel that was being nurtured in me.

Q: What about the administrative aspects of running a theater like this?

A: I have produced almost everything I’ve been involved with, sometimes out of a defensive posture, to make sure that it goes well, or simply because my skills are so defined in that area. If you’re asked to produce a tribute to Leonard Bernstein for his 70th birthday and you’re also going to be the director, I would say you begin (by asking), “How do you bring the right creative artists to this job?”

Knowing how to do that is a key part what I’m doing here: bringing the right people to this institution. That’s what creative administration is about--giving everybody something to pursue collectively, then allowing them to impact on that with all the juices and creativity they bring (as individuals).

Q: How much has your career as a child singer influenced your life?

A: The singing aspect is and always will be of prime importance to me. I have a love of music that infiltrates everything I do, whether it’s the most serious drama or the lightest comedy. Something musical is going on with me. I direct musically even when I’m not doing a musical. You can talk about a play in the sense of a score.

Q: You’ve worked with Sondheim?

A: Yes, but if I focus on this I’m in danger of coming off as this guy who just does musicals and I really don’t like that because I’m tremendously eclectic. I’m a sponge. I love to absorb everything that I respond to and translate that energy to the stage.

I’ve thought a lot about what I would answer if someone (asked), “What are you going to do on (the Playhouse) stage?” I realized that everything I was coming up with limited me in some way, the moment I codified it.

I want to do good theater. That’s my easy answer. I want people to walk out of this space having had an exhilarating experience. I’m a big fan of comedy. I think comedy is one of the great healing forces. I like making people laugh. Buster Keaton is one of my heroes.

Q: Some people believe theater is a dinosaur, too labor-intensive and expensive in this technological age. Do you?

A: Those aspects are true, but the other undeniable part of that equation is that it’s the only (art) form that allows one human being to speak to another human being. It will never die. That old phrase, two boards and a passion, it’s the only place it exists.

I think we have to recognize that that is theater’s virtue. Theater that competes with TV and film is dying and I don’t mind that so much. Theater is about great ideas, great humor, great music expressed in human terms to human beings sitting there. Or it’s a simple act of story-telling.

Q: To what extent is that limited or enhanced by the availability of funds?

A: Funds give you the tools to make it happen. I don’t support indulgence. It’s not about giving somebody endless funds. That can make the work get bad. It’s about giving people appropriate funds. You have a big space here. A certain amount of money has to be spent to support the activity. The fact that it is such a labor-intensive form, so costly, means we’ve got to get smart about that side of it.

I’m a responsible, sane kind of artist, I think. I’m grateful to the Jerry Zakses of the world who’ve proven that sane directors can succeed, because Jerry’s one of these guys who comes in and gets the job done.

He might even agree with me that he’s a craftsman more than an artist, much as I see myself. I find artist a difficult word sometimes to describe what I do. A lot of times I simply solve problems and in the act of solving problems, amazing things happen.

But they don’t come through divine inspiration. I’m grateful for those rare moments, though, when you just get that idea.

What I really like to rely on is a sense of craft and hard work. That’s what got me here. I think. The eclecticism is what leads me a lot. My career extends from a production of Anouilh’s ‘Antigone’ on a 30-foot piece of white paper to Cole Porter’s romantic farce (“You Never Know”) to Cindy Lou Johnson’s new drama about a very wounded woman entitled “Blesse” to Steven Gregg’s black comedy “Sex Lives of Superheroes,” which I dug out of a pile of thrown-away scripts and said, “Whoa! What’s this? This is a fresh voice. . . !”

Q: How can you tell a good script when you see one?

A: All I know is that everything I’ve agreed to do, where I read the script and was enthusiastic, has worked out. Not necessarily without controversy. I did a play at La Mama years ago with Harris Yulin called “Barnum’s Last Life.” The (New York) Times loved it and Clive Barnes called it “P.T. Barnum Bummer.” Same day.

It’s knowing how to see the possibilities in a raw first draft--the ability to see in the script the play you’re going to end up doing, if you can get it there through the writer. I did that with 30 scripts. That’s what allows me to read a script and know (if) it’s worth putting on this stage.

Q: Are you saying new plays will be a part of your new season?

A: Absolutely. I want to attract first-rate talent so that the public that’s taking a chance on this new play can rest assured they’ll get a top (production).

Q: Isn’t that where money talks?

A: Sure. But I’m getting told by the people who brought me here, “Dream your dreams; we want to do it, to the best of our ability.” I feel supported. We’ll see.

Q: I’m told you have a budget of about $2 million. Is that enough?

A: It’s the kind of budget that a theater of this size has, with the kind of subscription audience it has. Not any more or less. It’s more than adequate to do good work.

Q: I’m also told you may do two seasons a year of three plays each.

A: It makes a lot of sense. Actors are being wooed away from the theater to film and television (at a rate) that’s out of control. Some actors won’t even audition for plays now during pilot season. One of the ways to defeat that is to reduce the amount of lead time to commitment. Then you can go after your dream actor for a role and say, “Just give us this.” It’s also just a way of managing the 12 months of the year.

Q: In what way is what you’ll be doing different from what Suzie Dietz has already done?

A: I don’t think it’s a matter of different. I want to build on what Suzie started. A lot of good was done here. She took a lot of interesting risks. I like to think that she has gotten (the theater) on to first base and I will hopefully take it to second. Everyone brings a personal style to a job. One of the positive things of my coming here is 15 years of working with talented artists I can draw on.

Q: What have you done lately?

A: I was in Chicago. Jon Klein was commissioned by the Chicago Art Institute to do a play about Thomas Eakins, who absolutely was the 1860s’ version of Robert Mapplethorpe. Klein came up with a brilliant play to evoke these issues and deal with them. He basically has put Eakins in his last class, having been fired, talking to his students.

I think it’s going to end up going to every art institute in the country. It’s already going to Denver. I desperately want it to go to Cincinnati, to the Corcoran and all those places, because it’s such an intelligent piece and raises (complicated) questions. It tweaks both sides. Makes both sides think. I like plays that ask questions that are not necessarily answerable.

Q: Who are some of your favorite playwrights?

A: Is this a cliche? I’m a big fan of Shakespeare. At the Royal Shakespeare I learned to love that writing like nothing else. I want to do my productions of those plays. It may be down the road apiece but I like to think it’s going to happen.

I’ve always been a fan of (Tennessee) Williams. One of my earliest favorite plays was “The Glass Menagerie.” I’ve had a daring (concept) that I’ve wanted to do, maybe more of an exercise than a production, but that’s to take Williams at his word and make it a true memory play, measured by Tom’s experience. No one’s gone all the way with that. It would become boldly stylized--not a bittersweet memory, but glass that cuts.

Q: Can we talk about your new season?

A: In about a month. When I figure out what it is.

Q: Can we expect Sondheim to try out his next show at the Pasadena Playhouse?

A: I would very much like to see that happen. I’m going to try to make it happen.

Q: Do you have a contract?

A: I have a contract. There are no established time limits. We want to grow together. This is not about time or rules. They didn’t need rules from me, I didn’t need rules from them. We know that if it’s working, (the partnership) will stay aboard. Both sides want it to work out.