Revolving Door In; Teatro Cometa Out

The thing about revolving doors is that they let you in--and they also show you the way out.

These days, though, Joel Beers and his partners are thinking of the name of their fledgling theater group--Revolving Door Productions--as meaning only one thing: In, not Out.

When the group started rehearsals at downtown Fullerton’s Teatro Cometa for their current show, “An Evening of One-Acts”, it was just a visitor, subletting the small black box space from the Teatro Cometa company.

The Latino troupe had occupied the space for three years, occasionally producing new and old work with an activist bent in the tradition of Luis Valdez’s El Teatro Campesino.

But even before “One-Acts” begins the second (and final) weekend of its run, Beers and company are settled in as the theater’s main tenants, having signed a yearlong lease. The theater itself will undergo a Spanish-to-English name change on April 1: from Teatro Cometa to the Tribune Theatre, in honor of the Fullerton News-Tribune, whose printing operation was once located at the property.

Some observers might remark that such a change doesn’t mark real progress for theater in Orange County, dominated as it is by Anglo artists--including the Revolving Door company.

The state of underrepresented minority voices on county stages was highlighted when The Times reported recently that the area’s flagship professional theater company, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, has never produced a work by a black American.

With a growing Latino community to draw from for support, Teatro Cometa was the only company exclusively addressing and serving Latinos in the county.

However, Beers noted in a phone interview, Revolving Door will “gladly” welcome Cometa back any time it wishes to produce work. “They leased the space to us at different times,” Beers said, “so we’d be happy to return the favor.”

Bob Mansfield, the property’s landlord, would not confirm reports that Cometa, which relied on grants and ticket sales, was behind in rent and had long been in a precarious financial condition.

Under Cometa, Mansfield said with a chuckle, “the theater turned into more of a party house than I had intended. It seemed as if (Cometa) lost the interest in (producing).” Mansfield added that he hadn’t seen a recent Cometa show.

The Cometa company reportedly is touring in Arizona and Colorado, and no company member could be reached for comment.

Beers may sound apologetic for what he calls the “white, suburban” makeup of Revolving Door’s membership (15 at the core, plus 15 supporters), but the troupe is giving youth a voice, being completely run by people under 30.

Launched in 1992 by a group of Fullerton College graduates--including current company board members Jennifer Bishton, Nick Boicourt Jr., Steven Lamprinos and Bradley Whitfield--the inspiration for the group was a Fullerton-born production of John DiFusco’s Vietnam drama, “Tracers,” which was taken to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland in 1989.

“After it was over, they never lost touch,” said Beers, 27. He wasn’t part of the original group but knew the others while majoring in communications at Fullerton College. “There’s been this desire ever since to do interesting theater, as a group of local artists committed to the community.”

Beers noted numerous Fullerton artists who have gone off to Los Angeles, New York and Europe (including founding members Steve Spehar, who is producing in Prague and England, and Michael Mollo, now in the Bay Area).

“A lot of us,” he said, “have either left and come back or never left and want to stay. We’re aware of being in the confines of Orange County, but this is our home.”

Using the Winged Heart Cafe coffeehouse (just west of the theater) as an initial base, Revolving Door mixed new plays (“Route of Chaos”) with adapted pieces (Beers’ and Mollo’s “Visions: Portrait of a Beat Generation”).

The vagabond troupe also staged work at spaces at the Fullerton Museum Center and Tustin’s Subterranean Blues Cafe and, with ties to the coffeehouse-music-spoken-word scene, arranged benefits involving several Fullerton bands.

Revolving Door board member Lamprinos, in fact, runs Homespun, an amalgam of five bands that will soon be producing a music-and-poetry CD.

“Homespun started at the same time as Revolving Door,” said Beers, “so we’re really part of the same thing. We want to incorporate music, poetry and visual art into the theater, so you can view the work of local artists . . . when you enter the theater. And when we’re not doing a play, we’ll do acoustic music evenings and readings. We’ll mix it up.”

The company’s real concern, not surprisingly, is money.

Revenue sources to pay the $650 monthly rent include nothing more than ticket sales ($5), fund-raisers and out-of-pocket donations.

“We’ll be putting every penny into productions,” Beers said. “Besides, we’ve never spent any more than $100 on any of the 10 pieces we’ve staged. Pretty soon, we’ll apply for status as a nonprofit theater.”

One summer production, Beers noted, may be a revival of Amiri Baraka’s “Dutchman” but “only if we can find the right African American actor for the key role.”

And if Revolving Door’s dream of connecting theater with a bursting local boho sensibility sounds as if it’s bound to go through the Out door, Beers considers SCR’s fledgling days in the ‘60s: “They were all under 30, poor, struggling and didn’t have a roof over their heads at first. We identify with that. And they made it.”