Play Explores Writers’ Pursuit of Dreams

There was a joke going around Hollywood a few years ago about the starlet who was so dumb she was having an affair with a writer. In real life, it’s no joke. Writers are far from the top of the food chain.

At any given time, there are hundreds of new writers toiling away at their typewriters or computers, between day and/or night jobs. But there also have been plenty of famous writers lured to Hollywood with the promise of finding big bucks and fame, and though some have succeeded, others have found themselves out of work and out of pocket.

Thomas Mann and Scott Fitzgerald came here, along with such playwrights as Maxwell Anderson and humorists such as Robert Benchley. The saddest of the lot was probably William Faulkner, said to have earned $500 a week at MGM and, later, $300 a week from Jack Warner.

Some of the movies he worked on retained only one or two of his lines, and he wound up with just two screen credits, “To Have and Have Not” and “The Big Sleep,” both films directed by his drinking buddy Howard Hawks.

Some writers have spent their time here only to return home to write about the sleaze in Tinseltown. Some have continued toiling in the industry, but still find the need to write about the eternal problem of dealing with Hollywood.

One of the latter is Peter Lefcourt. Among his writer-producer credits are “Cagney & Lacey,” for which he won an Emmy; “Scarecrow and Mrs. King”; as well as such movies of the week as “The Women of Windsor.” He’s also a novelist, maybe best known for his darkly comic book, “The Deal,” which is about Hollywood writers.

Lefcourt’s fantasy-drama, “Only the Dead Know Burbank,” is at Actors Alley, and not surprisingly, also deals with Hollywood writers.

A hotshot writer, a television scenarist, has just moved into a small office on the Warner back lot. Next to him, in an even tinier office, he discovers that saddest of Hollywood misfits, William Faulkner. It has been five decades and the novelist is still writing inept screenplays because he owes Jack Warner a bundle.

Writing for films and television, Lefcourt explained, “is always going to be a battle between art and commerce.”

Which is why he thinks the play has meaning, “not only for writers, but for anybody who goes to the movies,” he said. It makes you understand the process a little bit more: how films get made, how scripts get written, how writers attempt to tell stories and what pressures are on them to try and make their work palatable to the people who buy it.”

Actors Alley’s artistic director, Jeremiah Morris, who directs the production, says the play is about redemption, the redemption of the young writer, who is put on a better path by the Faulkner figure.

“I love plays about redemption,” Morris said. “If you don’t buy redemption, the whole thing isn’t worth anything. It’s a testimony to the human spirit, to what people are and can be.”

But Joe Garcia, who plays Faulkner, thinks it is also about the pursuit of dreams, “and not letting people steal your dreams,” he said. “If you’ve got something you’re going for, go for it 100%; 10% will never get you there.”

But it’s not just about the dream, it’s about the pursuit, added Morris. “If you’re willing to invest yourself in it, and break your butt, you can have it. But just to dream it--not necessarily.”

That, Morris said, is the point of the play, and it’s a forceful point, especially in a town full of dreamers.

* “Only the Dead Know Burbank,” Actors Alley at the El Portal, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m.; Fridays-Saturdays; 2 & 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 17. $14-$16. (818) 508-4200.

Rockin’ the Record Biz:

It’s also easy to lose your way in other areas of show business, including pop music. The leader of a band called Player makes a wrong decision and finds that lesson the hard way in Sherman Woods’ “One Motive,” opening Tuesday at North Hollywood’s Raven Playhouse.

Woods, a Minneapolis native, began his career at that city’s acclaimed Penumbra Theatre, the same venue that gave a start to playwright August Wilson.

His latest play, a drama, is not concerned with the Midwest but with the blues--rhythm and blues to be more precise.

“R&B; music,” the playwright said, “is music that grows out of the heart, soul and passion of a committed artist.”

The band in the play is forced to choose between two new managers. One represents quality music; the other represents fast money.

“The leader makes a poor choice,” Woods said, “and they wind up having to correct that choice. Unfortunately there are individuals in the music business whose intentions are not 100% in favor of the artist. Sometimes their motives are selfish. My play chronicles one particular story.”

* “One Motive,” Raven Playhouse, 5233 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays. Ends Nov. 14. $12. (818) 953-9993 or (213) 466-1767.

Ada’s Back in Town: The nominations for this year’s Artistic Director Achievement awards, presented by the Valley Theatre League, were announced at a ceremony at the Lankershim Arts Center on Sept. 24.

Prominent among the nominees are Bernie Kopell, for “Rumors” at the Whitefire Theatre, Len Lesser for “Marvin and Mel” at Actors Alley, Ilene Graff (of “Mr. Belvedere”) for the musical “You and Me” at the Ventura Court, John La Motta (“Alf”) for “My Lady Vaudeville” at Theatre East.

Nominees for direction include Brooke Adams for “Two Faced” at Actors Workout Studio, Walter Koenig for “Three by Tenn” at Actors Alley, and Richard Kline for “Rumors.”

This year the League’s ADA Awards will be presented at a ceremony Oct. 21 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.