The Americanization of the Taper Season

The upcoming Mark Taper Forum season, officially announced last week, is more American than it might have been.

Added in the final burst of planning were Robert Schenkkan’s “The Kentucky Cycle,” an Appalachian historical saga by a writer from Van Nuys, and Holly Near’s “Fire in the Rain . . . Singer in the Storm,” an autobiographical work written and performed by the California-bred folk singer.

They join George C. Wolfe’s “Spunk,” Alan Ayckbourn’s “Henceforward . . . ,” Shakespeare’s “Richard II” and Sybille Pearson’s “Unfinished Stories.”

Schenkkan’s two-part epic, covering 200 years over the course of nine short plays, dislodged David Edgar’s “The Shape of the Table,” a British play about events in Eastern Europe. Subscribers had been told that the Edgar play would definitely be part of the season. Taper Artistic Director Gordon Davidson, who had planned to stage “Shape” himself, said he hopes the play’s American premiere will still be at the Taper. But “I don’t believe in sitting on plays,” he said; he’ll release the rights if he and Edgar can’t find an acceptable alternative time slot.

Subscribers also had been told of three possibilities “under consideration” for the season’s two final slots. Of the three, only “Unfinished Stories” made the final cut--while “Fire in the Rain,” which had not been previously mentioned to subscribers, took the last slot.

“Unfinished Stories,” a play about three generations in a New York Jewish family, will be directed by Davidson. The one-woman, one-pianist “Fire in the Rain” will be directed by Near’s sister Timothy Near, artistic director of San Jose Repertory Theatre, which premiered the piece in May.

The two also-rans from the “under consideration” list were the American premiere of Christopher Hampton’s “The White Chameleon,” a British play about events in Egypt, and a musical about a bisexual man in the age of AIDS, “Falsettoland.”

The next Taper season will not be quite as “politically correct” as the season that’s now ending. The 1990-91 list included plays that focused on gay men, Japanese-Americans, a black jazz pioneer and victims of Chilean oppression. Although this year’s list opens with an African-American entry and concludes with social activist Holly Near--who describes herself as “one of the most well-known ‘out’ lesbians in the world”--the multiculturalism isn’t quite as obvious as it was this past season.

However, next spring’s “Richard II” sounds as if it will follow in the path of last spring’s controversial “Julius Caesar.” Director Robert Egan “plans a culturally diverse cast that will reflect the growing changes in our society and sweep (the play) into a contemporary arena where a deeply entrenched bourgeoisie comes face to face with those who have been excluded too long from positions of power,” according to a Taper statement.

Two of the season’s entries--”The Kentucky Cycle” and “Unfinished Stories”--were developed in the Taper Lab New Work festival, and a third, “Spunk,” was developed in the Taper literary cabaret. However, “Kentucky” officially premiered in May at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, which will co-produce the Taper staging. Davidson said he lacked the mid-size theater to do “Kentucky” in its second stage of life, but he saw the Seattle production and believes enough progress has been made in the script since its Taper Lab days to warrant the mainstage booking.

Since “Spunk” played the Taper’s literary cabaret in 1989, it has been produced in New Jersey, New York and London, and several blues songs by Chic Street Man have been added.

PIECES OF NEA PIE: Southern California didn’t do badly in the recent round of National Endowment for the Arts grants to professional theaters. Because the total allotment of theater program money was reduced by $600,000 this year, all theaters took an automatic 12% cut before deliberations began on this year’s applications. But in a relatively few cases, the money was restored or even increased. Three of those cases were prominent local theaters.

Los Angeles Theatre Center won the largest increase among California theaters, up $10,000 from last year’s $65,000. NEA’s theater program director, Ben Cameron, said panelists noted LATC’s “very adventurous and eclectic repertoire,” its “significant commitment to cultural diversity” and its “artistic energy.” South Coast Repertory and La Jolla Playhouse won smaller increases.

Padua Hills Playwrights Workshop/Festival won a $5,000 grant after several years without any NEA money. But Padua Artistic Director Murray Mednick said that the federal money can’t compensate for Padua’s recent loss of funding from Los Angeles’ arts endowment. Last year, Padua got $10,000 from the city.

The denial from the city “was a big shock,” said Mednick, who has appealed the decision. Panelists objected to Padua on grounds of not enough “community support” or “multiculturalism,” he said. In response, he pointed to Spanish-language Padua productions of Nicaraguan writer Alan Bolt’s works and said that “our audiences come from everywhere. . . . There is some sort of agenda on the (city) panel I don’t understand.”

GRANTS TOMB, WEST: Only two of the 14 winners of NEA playwrights fellowships this year are from west of Washington, D.C. Eight are from New York City. There are no Californians on the list; the two who aren’t from the East are John O’Neal of Austin, Tex., and William Yellow Robe of Seattle. Last year, the list included four Californians, two of them from L.A.

An endowment spokeswoman said that there is some consideration of geographic diversity in awarding grants, but that the primary criteria are “theatrical and literary quality” of submitted scripts, the applicants’ professional background and their “potential for future excellence.”

Of the seven panelists who recommended the winners, only one--David Kranes of Salt Lake City--is a Westerner.