County Wants Shakespeare Fest Out, Out of July Spot

Shakespeare Festival LA, which has presented free Shakespeare and collected canned food for the homeless for six summers at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood, is looking for a new home.

The search stems from a scheduling dispute at the county-operated amphitheater. The county’s Music and Performing Arts Commission executive director Laura Zucker asked the festival to move its two weeks of rehearsal and three weeks of performances from its usual July slot to an earlier slot in June. Festival artistic director Ben Donenberg refused.

The county began its own “Summer Nights at the Ford” festival at the venue last summer, but left the Shakespeare Festival’s slot intact, running the “Summer Nights” festival before and after the Shakespeare Festival.

This led to some problems, Zucker said.

More money was spent promoting the second half of “Summer Nights” than would have been spent if the Shakespeare Festival hadn’t interrupted the run, she said. And because two of the Shakespeare Festival’s weeks were used only for rehearsal, the venue was dark for two weeks in “the premium part of the season.” If the Shakespeare Festival were to begin the summer season, followed by “Summer Nights,” two weeks of additional programming time would be available.

Zucker also pointed to what she said were advantages for the Shakespeare Festival if it took the June slot. There would be no conflict with other groups that use the facility on Monday nights in July, as there was last summer, she said. And she said the Shakespeare Festival’s school programs would be easier to coordinate, because most schools are still in session in June, but not in July.

Donenberg replied that he purposely doesn’t want his school programs to be part of classroom assignments; “we want them to come out of their own free will.”

But the main reason he won’t switch is because he wouldn’t have as much money or talent available in April--which is when preparations for a June slot would be required--as he does a month later.

Many of the actors he wants are on hiatus from TV series in May, but not in April--or so their agents tell him, he said. Some of the understudies--who later take over the roles when the show tours--are still in professional training programs at colleges and conservatories in April. His longtime set designer Fred Duer wouldn’t be free of TV commitments in April.

Donenberg’s bottom line: “The board has never had enough money in April to start paying people to do the show.” The bulk of foundation money arrives in June, he said.

So he now is seeking county help in obtaining another base of operations. He’s thinking about a field next to UCLA’s Wadsworth Theater. But he said he has received a number of letters from other sites in the county indicating a desire to host the festival for at least one stop on a summertime tour.

Zucker said she hadn’t received “definitive” word from Donenberg that he won’t be back, and she would “absolutely” like his festival to return--in June. But she also remarked that the Shakespeare Festival is “just one nonprofit out of 14 or 15 who’ll be using the facility.”

INTO THE BREACH: Meanwhile, Donenberg is producing and La Jolla Playhouse’s Des McAnuff is directing a battle scene from Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at the Embassy Theatre in downtown Los Angeles this week. But don’t line up for tickets. It’s being done for a movie--”Renaissance Man,” directed by Penny Marshall. Danny DeVito plays a laid-off Detroit executive teaching English to a bunch of Army recruits. He takes them to “Henry V.”

Besides staging the scene (with the help of some of his design team from his hit musical “Tommy”), McAnuff has been drafted for a cameo bit in the movie, playing a theatergoer seen leaving “Henry V,” complaining about the staging.