THEATER NOTES : Amblin’s Vanishing Act--or Not

Last summer Mitchell Kohn, development vice president at Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, publicly suggested ways the movie industry might help L.A. theater. He now regrets that he did.

Participating on a panel at the Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theatre’s Mid-Sized Theatre Symposium, Kohn mentioned the theaters on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. The kernel of his remarks, taken from a transcript:

“If they banded together . . . and came to us saying, ‘We need $50,000 to build new marquees . . . Or we need $50,000 to hire a valet parking company . . . Or we need $50,000 to renovate a couple of storefronts (for new cafes) . . . they would have a better chance of getting money from Hollywood.”

He contrasted this approach to pleas for money for productions or seasons. He said the goal of Hollywood support should be “not just helping one theater stay open an extra year, but over five or 10 years to make sure that theater blossoms in L.A. and that we can all share in the profits.”

James Carey, the president of Theatre Row--Hollywood (the group of theaters to which Kohn referred), approached Kohn after the panel, sent him material about Theatre Row and arranged a meeting. Immediately the talk of $50,000 diminished to talk of $5,000 plus names of other movie people who might help, Carey said. Finally, after months of phone calls and additional submissions, Carey got a letter from Amblin public relations: “We regrettably are not able to contribute to every request.”

Theatre LA, the service and advocacy organization for most of the theaters in town, reported a similar experience when a representative contacted Kohn after the conference. Nothing happened. Theatre LA’s appeal culminated in a letter from Kohn in which he defended Spielberg’s “generous and unwavering support” of young playwrights, who are hired by Amblin to write screenplays. He added that he was “deluged with calls and written proposals asking for money” after the conference.

In fact, two of those calls got results, Kohn told The Times. Amblin gave $3,000 to Glorious Repertory Co., an Odyssey Theatre-based group, confirmed Glorious artistic director Debbie Devine. The money will help bring students to an upcoming production about immigration, Devine said. This use is “a little more obviously philanthropic,” Kohn said.

He declined to identify the other group that received money as a result of his conference appearance, though he noted that Amblin did support the late Los Angeles Theatre Center company with an amount reported as $100,000.

Handling the recent theater appeals was “quite nightmarish,” Kohn said. “I tried to give some constructive ideas. . . . I’m sorry if being supportive and taking them seriously was misinterpreted as a promise of money.”

Carey too was upset: “My feeling of anger is not at my wasted time, but at the feeling of having been used once more by movie people.”

SPOLIN REMEMBERED: The Mark Taper Forum was filled almost to capacity Monday at a tribute to Viola Spolin, described as “the mother of improvisational theater and mentor to three generations of American actors and artists.”

Spolin, who died in Los Angeles on Nov. 22 at the age of 88, created the games and wrote the books that planted an entire family tree of theater--a tree (outlined in the program) that included the Compass Players, Second City, the Committee and the Groundlings. Spolin students went into “Saturday Night Live,” the San Francisco Mime Troupe, even the Taper itself, which presented “Story Theatre” and “Metamorphoses” in 1970-71, staged by Spolin’s son and student Paul Sills.

Paul Sand, Valerie Harper, Shelley Berman and Avery Schreiber were among Spolinites who spoke Monday. A group of veteran Spolin improvisers demonstrated classic Spolin games, coached by Sills.

The event was like a giant family reunion, complete with a dash of irreverence. Richard Libertini read a multi-”whereas” citation commemorating Spolin from the Chicago City Council and mayor, only to be followed by emcee Lewis Arquette’s wisecrack: “500 bucks goes a long way in Chicago.”*