Filling a Void

When the Los Angeles Theatre Center on Spring Street folded last year, at least one of its components survived.

The Black Theatre Artist Workshop, one of several ethnic labs begun at the center, launched its first independent effort this month with a Monday night series of play readings.

“It’s good to have activity here again,” said Shabaka, an actor-director who created the workshop in 1988. “It’s a great feeling. There’s a void in black theater that still needs to be filled.”

The workshop was able to continue with a grant from the California Arts Council. Though the group rehearses and performs readings at the former LATC site, Shabaka said he wants to take the logical next step: mount full-scale productions. “It takes just as much time and energy to do readings as regular shows,” he said.

A San Francisco native who has acted for 20 years and directed for 13, Shabaka was a resident artist at LATC for the six years it was open. “I started the Black Theatre Artist Workshop when it became clear to me, and to (former LATC director) Bill Bushnell that I had other talents I could use,” said Shabaka. “I had this desire to develop new material that was issue-oriented, not the same old, stereotypical black stuff that gets laughs with lowest-common denominators. I believe you can write heavy material that’s also entertaining.”

The workshop, consisting of a few playwrights and a pool of 20 actors, aims to stage pieces that depict the “vastness of the black experience.” A recent reading of Robert Alexander’s “Servant of the People” examined the life of Black Panther leader Huey Newton; the last work in the series, “Mother Gospel,” features Della Reese as an old-time gospel music queen struggling to embrace a less soulful sound than the one she grew up with. Reese’s husband, Franklin Lett, wrote the piece, described by Shabaka as a “play with music.”

Though Shabaka plans to schedule more readings, he said he must devote more time to fund raising so pieces can be turned into productions. “There’s really no profit in this--it’s a community service,” he said. “But we have to keep on. There’s a new African-American aesthetic in theater, and we’re a part of that.”

Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St. “Mother Gospel” begins at 8 p.m Monday. Admission is $5. Information: (213) 934-7023 or (310) 399-9193.