What’s New for Taper? Simplification and One Show Less

The Mark Taper Forum’s annual renewal brochure, mailed to subscribers last week, didn’t mention the fact that the Taper will offer one fewer show next season than it did in 1991-92.

The subscription package will include four instead of five plays, extending from Jan. 10 to Sept. 19 of next year. But first an optional bonus will be offered--the two-part “Angels in America,” from Oct. 18 to Nov. 29 of this year (officially opening Nov. 1).

The price range for the basic package, not including “Angels,” has been lowered from the current season’s $85-$176 to $80-$128 (prices vary depending on day of the week and location of the seat).

Yet on a per-play basis, subscribers will pay a little more next season--the only exceptions being Saturday nights, which will cost the same, and press and opening nights, which will now cost no more than the price of the best seats at regular Saturday night performances.

The changes are “an attempt to simplify the renewal process and to put less of a strain on the pocketbook” of both the subscribers and the Taper itself, said Taper boss Gordon Davidson.

Simplification was in order because “we’ve been throwing a lot” at the subscribers, including the late addition of the two-part “Kentucky Cycle” last year. And recessionary pressures call for relief, he added.

So next season there will be no “split slot”--in which two productions are scheduled for shorter-than-usual runs, with half of the subscribers siphoned to one and half to the other (this year’s “split slot” shows were “Spunk” and the upcoming “Unfinished Stories”).

Split slots are valuable ways to present shows of more limited appeal or to use performers with limited schedules, noted Davidson, but they’re expensive, necessitating the costs of two separate productions but decreasing the revenue earned by each.

Unlike the rules for “The Kentucky Cycle,” tickets will be available for just part one of “Angels in America,” as well as for the two-part package. An acclaimed London production earlier this year of part one, “Millennium Approaches,” proved that it could stand alone, “or at least (audience members) don’t know what they’re missing,” said Davidson. Part one has been scheduled for eight more performances than part two, “Perestroika,” but more performances of “Perestroika” could be added if demand warrants it.

Aside from “Angels,” Jon Robin Baitz’s “The Substance of Fire” and Terrence McNally’s “Lips Together, Teeth Apart,” specific titles aren’t set yet for the remaining two slots. But alumni of the New York-based Acting Company will do a classic comedy--either “Love’s Labour’s Lost” or “The School for Scandal.” Kevin Kline, who is spearheading the reunion, will probably appear in the play, said Davidson.

What about the Antaeus Project, a classical company that has been developing in-house at the Taper and just presented its first public readings last weekend?

“They want a slot as soon as they’re ready,” said Davidson. When he made room for the Kline group months ago, Antaeus wasn’t ready. “They might be, now.”

The remaining slot in the season will be taken by a play developed in last year’s New Work Festival at the Taper, Too. Candidates include:

* A boxing drama by Oliver Mayer, “Tears Will Tell It All.”

* Kathleen McGhee Anderson’s “Mothers,” with two title characters--a Japanese-American and an Anglo--who are raising teen-age daughters of absent African-American husbands.

* David Lee Lindsey’s “The Dream Gone Wild,” about a black Republican professional who’s jolted into a midlife crisis.

* Eduardo Machado’s “In the Eye of the Hurricane,” a comedy set in Cuba in 1959.

A mainstage holiday show may be added in December.

QUOTABLE: John Iacovelli described some of the theaters where he has worked with a few choice strokes, while accepting an award for his scenic design of South Coast Repertory’s “Heartbreak House” at the recent Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards luncheon.

The Taper? “A church or a temple.” South Coast is “my well-to-do uncles with really nice furniture.” Los Angeles Theatre Center was “the crazy cousins.”

Though “the crazy cousins” have gone, the leadership of the late LATC did show up at the LADCC affair to accept a special award. Former LATC artistic director Bill Bushnell even took the opportunity to plug Jerry Brown’s presidential campaign, complete with the famous 800 number.

Gordon Davidson, accepting a production award for “The Most Happy Fella,” reacted to Iacovelli’s description of the Taper as “a temple”: “I take it to mean a place of introspection, and not the architecture.” And he told Bushnell he’d donate $100 to Brown, “but he doesn’t have my vote yet.”

Eileen Atkins, who had been quoted vowing that she wouldn’t do any more theater in Los Angeles because of the disappointing turnout for her “A Room of One’s Own,” couldn’t be there to accept the award for her performance. But in a message read by director John Tillinger, she said that what she meant was that she would never act in L.A. theater again “without a good publicist.” L.A. audiences, she said, were “terrific.”