Gripes Mar Taper Fest for L.A. Artists : Stage: Performers and writers say they, not an acclaimed out-of-town playwright, should deal with the L.A. riots.

It’s either the best of times or the worst of times for the rocky relationship between the Mark Taper Forum and local performance artists.

Just as the Taper is preparing this week’s four-day festival showcasing local artists, it also has come under fire for commissioning an out-of-town artist to do next season’s much longer examination of last April’s riots.

The protests have left Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson “very upset,” he said recently.

The commission in question went to Anna Deavere Smith, acclaimed for her New York production of “Fires in the Mirror,” about a racial confrontation that occurred in the Crown Heights district of Brooklyn.

Since August, Smith has been interviewing Los Angeles residents about last spring’s riots, preparing an as yet untitled show that is slated to open in May in the 1992-93 Taper subscription season. Smith lived in Los Angeles for three years in the late ‘80s, prior to her success as a performance artist, but she now lives in Northern California, where she teaches at Stanford University.

The dispute over her commission emerged publicly with an essay by Los Angeles actor-director-writer Tony Abatemarco, published by The Times last month. While acknowledging Smith’s reputation, Abatemarco urged the Taper to “look first to the people who walked through the flames.”

Independently of Abatemarco, two contributors to a special issue of High Performance magazine that explored the riots from an artists’ perspective also protested in letters to Davidson and The Times.

“If the Taper had realistically and sincerely fostered the development of the talent languishing here in Southern California, it might have a wealth of resources to draw upon, in addition to such talented persons (as Smith),” wrote poet and essayist Wanda Coleman, guest editor of High Performance’s “The Verdict and the Violence.”

Coleman and poet Meri Nana-Ama Danquah urged that the Taper present a local artist’s interpretation of last April’s events alongside Smith’s.

“The message being sent here,” wrote Danquah (who moved to Washington last month after living in Los Angeles five years), “is that the artists who reside in L.A. are only good as a) sources of information, b) names to be used on . . . applications for grant monies, c) participants in eternal workshops which never make the mainstage.”

Since the letters were written, the Taper announced that a number of local performers will appear on the mainstage in the “Out in Front” festival Thursday through Sunday. The Latino comedy trio Culture Clash and American Indian singer-songwriter John Trudell will perform nightly. A range of other performers appearing at one show only includes Shishir Kurup, Rose Portillo, the Hittite Empire, Amy Hill and Roger Guenveur Smith.

The festival was planned as the concluding event of Center Theatre Group’s 25th anniversary long before the Smith commission, said Davidson. Although some of the invitations to performers were extended after the controversy over the Smith commission erupted, he denied that there was any connection.

But Danquah said the “Out in Front” festival was “like putting a Band-Aid on a cancer.” The local artists who will appear there are the “appetizers,” she said, while Smith is “the main course.”

One of those artists is Keith Antar Mason, whose Hittite Empire will present an excerpt from his “49 blues songs for a jealous vampire,” a work commissioned by Lincoln Center for its Serious Fun! Festival this summer. Mason was developing the piece when the riots occurred, and he adapted the work to reference the unrest. It has since played four performances in Atlanta.

Mason said he resented the tone of the Taper’s initial approaches to him in the wake of his New York appearance (“like it was an ultimatum”). But now his feelings are mixed about the festival and its requirement that he reduce his two-hour piece to 17 minutes: “One day it’s a token, one day it’s an opportunity.”

Regarding the commission, Davidson said Smith is “a great artist with a particular skill” in the kind of piece that she’s doing. He noted that she doesn’t live in Crown Heights, the setting of “Fires in the Mirror,” either.

Smith declined to comment, saying through a Taper spokeswoman that she would prefer to speak directly with the protesting artists.

“Everybody wants on the mainstage,” added Davidson. “It’s a judgment call” in which “quality” is the first criterion. But another important criterion is “what will fill this (760-seat) theater” and “sustain an eight-week run . . . and the less known you are, the harder that is.”

So he tries to develop unknown artists at smaller venues, such as the sub-100-seat Taper, Too. But budget cutbacks forced the cancellation of the subscription season there last season and probably will next spring as well, although the venue is still expected to host individual performances and the New Work Festival.