COVER STORY : Staging the Debate

The fact of the matter: Los Angeles is an industry town, and theater is not its industry. This fact affects the life and work of all who choose to make theater here. To assess the general state of the theater in Los Angeles today, Times Theater Critic Laurie Winer brought together a round-table discussion with five people whose experiences are utterly diverse but who are tied together by their passion for making theater.

Gordon Davidson has been artistic director of the Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum since 1967 and, since 1989, artistic director/producer of CTG’s Ahmanson Theatre as well. He is in the planning stages of opening a new mid-size theater amid a cluster of art galleries in Bergamot Station, on the city’s Westside. Joan Stein is a commercial producer with a string of successes here, including “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” “Ruthless!” and “Love Letters.” She is the co-executive director of the Canon Theater in Beverly Hills (whose future is in doubt thanks to a plan by Bloomingdale’s to build a retail complex). Jose Rivera is a playwright of national importance who lives and writes here but chooses to produce most of his work in other cities. Shabaka Barry Henley (known as Shabaka) is an actor and director who created the Black Theater Artists Workshop in 1988 and who has acted in plays from Shakespeare to Fugard to Beckett. David Schweizer is a director whose innovative work has appeared all over the world.

Despite individual triumphs, Los Angeles has never been perceived nationally as a theater town. And yet, in its way, theater is very much a part of the fabric of this city. Los Angeles is home to a huge number of theaters (about 120 99-and-under-seat theaters, for instance--more than in any other city). But how does one understand the jumble of contradictions that make up theater in this vast, wide-ranging entertainment town? This discussion offers an overview of the mood and character at this post-earthquake, post-riot, anti-NEA moment in time.

Laurie Winer: Let’s start with the obvious: How is theater in Los Angeles defined or not defined by its proximity to the film and TV industries?

Shabaka: It makes rehearsals difficult sometimes. Actors have to leave. Actors get jobs. When Stein Winge [artistic director of Oslo’s National Theatre] came over to direct a play at LATC, he had to replace his lead actor three times in two weeks.

But, on the other hand, the only reason that I’m able to really continue to work in the theater is because of the work I do in the film industry. It used to be that my work in the theater infused life in me. After a while the work wasn’t enough; it also took some money.

Joan Stein: In L.A. we are confronted with enormous wealth all of the time. Here, you live in what in New York would be a palace. And then you drive up the street and there’s a real palace. And people think, “If I get a series and it goes into syndication then I can get a better palace.” It’s all about this aspiration toward a better lifestyle.

All of the publications give first dibs to film and TV. Denying that is like being in Washington and thinking that politics is not going to dominate the town. There’s not a general consensus that theater is an important art form. There are a lot of 99-seat theaters, but people can’t make a living working in them on an ongoing basis.

Jose Rivera: If I imagine New York without its theater, I imagine a city I can’t recognize. L.A. without its theater would be almost what it is today.

Winer: Your play “Cloud Tectonics,” which was produced in La Jolla, is set in L.A. The city has such a presence in the play as to almost be a character. Why didn’t you want to see “Cloud Tectonics” done in Los Angeles?

Rivera: La Jolla commissioned the play. I have built up relationships with certain regional theaters, like the Actors Theater of Louisville and like the La Jolla Playhouse, and they tend to be the first places where the plays are done. If I didn’t have any commissions I would take a new play to the little theater company I’m involved with, the Wilton Project. And I would work on it there, but I wouldn’t ultimately produce it there.