Everyone’s Getting Into the Act

Is it a trend? Just this month, there have been two announcements that movie/TV companies are putting big bucks into developing plays and playwrights. Now there is still more news from that quarter.

This week’s developments won’t be as immediately beneficial to the Los Angeles theater scene as the $340,000 DreamWorks SKG is giving to the Mark Taper Forum, or the purchase of the Coronet Theatre by Dee Gee Entertainment (in part so that Playwrights’ Kitchen Ensemble can develop plays there).

In commissioning new works from 20 playwrights, Wind Dancer Production Group Inc. chose New York, not L.A., as its theatrical base--despite the fact that Wind Dancer’s best-known product, the TV series “Home Improvement,” is produced here, and its L.A. office is currently developing four other TV projects and 25 films.

Matt Williams, the playwright-turned-TV-producer who is one of three partners in Wind Dancer, applauds the “amazing growth” of L.A. theater, but says he believes that New York is “still the home base of theater in America. Theater is taken a little more seriously in New York.” He cited the oft-told complaint about L.A. actors who leave theater commitments without much warning because they’ve just “got a pilot.” Williams also said that he prefers working out of New York since he moved there a year ago.

Wind Dancer plans not only to commission plays but also to produce them. The first step will be a small workshop space the company plans to open in midtown Manhattan, to be followed by seasons of three or four productions of new plays in off-Broadway digs, Williams said.

“We’re not dabbling--we’re putting out substantial money,” he said. He couldn’t offer even “a ballpark figure” as to how much money that might be, but he acknowledged that the cost of the project is in six figures. The commissions are “a touch higher than the usual range”--which he said is $10,000 to $15,000.

He also emphasized that the goal is plays, not “movie ideas”--although if screenplays develop “as a byproduct, that’s fine. It’s extra money for the writer.”

Although not all of the initial commissions have been announced, the list of playwrights includes Cheryl West (“Play On!”), Doug Wright (“Quills”), Jane Anderson (“The Baby Dance”), Charles Fuller (“A Soldier’s Story”), Eduardo Machado (“Floating Islands”), Mark St. Germain (“Camping With Henry and Tom”) and Leslie Ayvazian (“Nine Armenians”).

Williams himself may be known to L.A. theatergoers for his “Between Daylight and Boonville” and “Bruce Lee Is Dead and I’m Not Feeling Too Good Either,” which played at 99-seat venues in the ‘80s. His Wind Dancer partner David McFadzean is known in San Diego as the Lamb’s Players alumnus-playwright who endowed Lamb’s with $350,000 last year.

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MARSHALL PLAN: Another Hollywood bigwig who’s looking more closely at the stage is Garry Marshall, the movie-TV director and playwright (“Wrong Turn at Lungfish,” co-written with Lowell Ganz). He’s building a new 120-seat theater, as well as offices for his production company, on the southeast corner of Riverside Drive and Rose Street in Burbank.

“The intent is for Garry to workshop and produce new writers and actors and directors,” said his daughter Kathleen Marshall, an actress who’s a project manager during construction, which is expected to take a little less than a year. “We’re not going to be the Tiffany. It’s much more of a workshopping space. But definitely our intent is to be open to the public.”

Because of Actors’ Equity’s 99-Seat Theater Plan, professional productions become much more expensive if they play to more than 99 seats in L.A.--yet 120 seats wouldn’t bring in all that much more revenue. Due to parking regulations, however, 120 seats was the maximum allowed at this site, Kathleen Marshall said.