Taking a Bow, L.A.-Style

At 2nd Stage Theatre in Hollywood, backstage is claustrophobic. In the dressing room, which is 15 feet by 11, you can imagine what a tight squeeze it might be for a stagehand, a dresser and, say, two actors doing a play like “The Gin Game.”

But these days, this tiny backstage is home every night to 16 people who rub elbows--and much more--in the Blank Theatre Company’s production of “Hello Again,” the Michael John LaChiusa musical about, appropriately enough, intimacy.

Of the 10 actors in the original cast (which has changed since its April opening), at least half have starred on Broadway or on TV. And yet here they were, night after night, making theater in a space so tight that it seems like some kind of social psychology experiment. Meanwhile, the Blank’s artistic director, Daniel Henning, recently boasted about how much he is able to pay his crowded thespians--$14 a performance. That’s $9 more than minimum Equity requirement for his 49-seat house.

Why do they do it? This is one of the great mysteries of Los Angeles. When small theater here is done poorly, one assumes it’s being produced out of vanity. But when small companies consistently make good or great--or even interesting--theater, they do it for little money and in the face of the general indifference of the larger culture.

They do it in the almost complete absence of a farm system like those that exist in New York, London and, to a lesser extent, Chicago and Seattle. In those cities, small theaters that rise to prominence go on to influence the national, and sometimes international, theater scene and fill up their own coffers in the bargain.

In New York, a couple of terrific reviews can turn a formerly obscure company like the New Group or the Drama Dept. into required viewing for the culturally conversant. One musical called “Rent” seriously transformed the fortunes of the 150-seat New York Theatre Workshop. Once “Rent” moved uptown to Broadway, NYTW paid off the mortgage on its East Village theater and on the adjacent building (which it uses for office and rehearsal space) and opened a bank account with which it can produce its own shows.

In Los Angeles, producing small theater is usually its own reward. Theater artists do their work despite the almost monolithic indifference of the reigning culture, a movie industry whose executives resist both funding and attending the theater here, though they will see, and even in some cases produce, theater in New York or London.

No one likes being overlooked. But people continue to make theater here, usually with very few resources, and people do see it. These people form a community that views theater as a primal cultural impulse, an irreplaceable civilized experience, a human event with which even catching the newest $100-million movie at Mann’s Chinese cannot compete.

And seeing beautifully wrought theater in a small space is especially intimate and rewarding.

The following is a thumbnail sketch of five L.A. companies that fight valiantly and sometimes succeed brilliantly in making theater. This is by no means a comprehensive list. Drama-logue, the now-defunct industry weekly, estimated recently that the L.A. area has 140 99-seat-and-smaller theaters (Equity allows actors to be paid a nominal fee in these spaces, making producing theater with virtually no money feasible).

That figure represents physical spaces, whether they are theater companies or stages for rent. Add to that about 70 peripatetic companies that play in these spaces and elsewhere. This list is but a geographically and aesthetically diverse sampling of notable small theaters, each with its own unique producing logic.

Nonprofits all, these theaters all face some of the same problems. Actors frequently drop out in the middle of the rehearsal period to take film and TV jobs--a financial imperative. Grant money, which began drying up in the early ‘90s, is extremely scarce. Because the number of actors in Los Angeles who want to work in theater far outweighs the number of directors and producers who are so inclined, companies are usually formed and run by actors who learn to do the jobs of directors and producers and, in some cases, landlords, renting out their spaces to other companies to help pay bills.

Small theater in L.A. is a world in which actors not only perform for a pittance, they also paint, do the telemarketing and build and strike sets. Marilyn Fox, artistic director of the Pacific Resident Theater, said a friend begged her to stop putting out the trash in full view of subscribers. When I was there in June for the theater’s excellent production of Cocteau’s “Indiscretions,” she was still doing it.

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Actors’ Gang Theatre. 6209 and 6201 Santa Monica Blvd. Hollywood, (323) 465-0566. “Cheese” runs through Saturday; “Steeltown” closes tonight. “The Rover,” presented by Circle X Theatre in the Gang’s larger space, 6209 Santa Monica, runs through Aug. 23. “The Tennessee Williams Project,” Aug. 7 through Sept. 5.

This company began with a burst of collegiate energy in 1981 by staging a production of “Ubu the King.” Founded by actor Tim Robbins and fellow UCLA students, the Gang for many years enjoyed an artistic director who was also a movie star and who contributed money accordingly. Robbins left the theater in 1997, though he’s on the board and still bears the title of founding artistic director. Now the 40-member company is retrenching financially while still carrying on the group’s original vision--to create theater in a bracing, high-energy style, part commedia, part Thea^tre du Soleil. Managing director Mark Seldis calls the style “a common language,” one that is exemplified today by outrageously funny, risk-taking actors like Jack Black and Jason Reed.

This once-peripatetic theater found a home in 1994, in a barn-like 7,500-square-foot structure that is transfigured anew for each play, suiting the athletic, unexpected quality of the company’s work. The Gang is fortunate to have roomy costume storage, rehearsal space in an adjacent building, a scene shop and a costume shop. Though it has been known to rent out its larger theater, the Gang strictly reserves the smaller space for company members.

A four-person committee keeps the books and approves projects (which must be pitched by a company member), directors and casting. The Gang spends about $200,000 yearly on rent and production costs. According to Seldis, the company throws one hell of a fund-raiser. Though it’s not a dues-paying company, members have to contribute labor.

Generally, says Seldis, “we choose to do a show when we feel we can’t not do it.” Making theater is, he says, “a Sisyphean endeavor. It wouldn’t be worth doing if we were just hired guns, going from company to company. But no one’s telling us to tone it down, or to work out with a trainer, or to have a happy ending. This is a place you can work and really get better.”

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Blank Theatre Company. 2nd Stage Theater, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 660-8587. “Hello Again” continues through Sunday.

Despite its name, the Blank is more a one-man show than a company; it doesn’t have actor-members. Artistic director Daniel Henning, 32, started the Blank in 1990 with money he collected from workman’s comp after an on-the-job mugging. He has a gift for casting--both for luring well-known actors and for spotting talented fledglings.

In 1991, Henning cast an actor named Noah Wyle in David Mamet’s “Sexual Perversity in Chicago.” For the Blank, that choice turned out to mean Economic Stability in Los Angeles.

After Wyle’s success in the television show “ER,” the actor secured a corporate donation from a Maalox promotion campaign large enough to enable Henning to purchase a three-year lease on the 2nd Stage and to pay for sophisticated lighting equipment and a redecoration of the theater that is still underway.

Henning decides what shows he will do based mostly on a gut sense. He fixed on LaChiusa’s “Hello Again,” the current production, after hearing only a couple of notes on the CD.

He likes to re-envision shows. He decided, for instance, that the reason the musical “Chess” flopped on Broadway was because it had been grossly overproduced. Henning cut out the centerpiece of the show, a flashy number called “One Night in Bangkok,” and turned “Chess” into an intimate chamber piece about a love triangle that was surprisingly good.

In person, Henning is boyish and sweet, but one senses the powerful ambition of a budding impresario lurking behind his geniality. Henning’s directorial voice gets clearer with every production. He produces only one show a year, in addition to a Young Playwrights Festival in which writers 19 and younger can see their works in workshop productions directed by the likes of Robert Egan, Wyle, Stuart Ross and Henning.

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Pacific Resident Theatre. 703 and 705 1/2 Venice Blvd., Venice, (323) 660-8587. “Indiscretions” continues through Sept. 6.

In most cities, you wouldn’t be surprised if a theater situated three blocks from the ocean offered plays like “The Odd Couple” or “The Female Odd Couple.” This one does Chekhov, Anouilh, Cocteau--and with intelligence, intimacy and authority. PRT has a pleasant neighborhood aura.

Under Marilyn Fox, the ethereal artistic director, PRT produces new plays but favors obscure work from well-known writers, such as its recent “Ivanov,” Chekhov’s first and rarely done play. It has two small theaters and a tiny “second stage” for members to workshop plays that interest them.

“This is almost as Zen as it gets,” says Fox about making theater here, “in a converted market. If you’re a theater person, it should be enough to make theater, but it’s painful for me to go to New York and see the importance that theater is given. Lincoln Center’s ‘Ivanov’ had as many previews as we did performances.”

The company has 450 subscribers and 100 company members who, in addition to paying $35 a month, must contribute five hours of monthly labor. Everyone gets paid the minimum Equity requirement--$5 a performance. “People who come to this theater, they are pure theatergoers,” Fox says. “They don’t get stars. They come because they love the theater.”

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Odyssey Theatre Ensemble. 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. (310) 477-2055. “A Perfect Ganesh” through Aug. 30. “Good Woman of Setzuan” through Aug. 2. “Little Murders” Aug. 15 through Oct. 4.

Founded in 1969 by Ron Sossi, the Odyssey is a granddaddy of Los Angeles theater. It lived through hippiedom; the prosperous, grant-happy ‘80s; and the starker, more politically correct ‘90s. The theater is still defined by Sossi’s taste, which he says hasn’t changed much over the years, though he does fewer “nonlinear plays and less cross-casting.” He favors Brecht and international writers and tends to avoid realism and domestic dramas.

The theater has developed plays that went on to win national prominence, most notably “Tracers” (1980) and “The Chicago Conspiracy Trial” (1979). Sossi imports theater from all over the world; last year saw a visit from Poland’s alternative Theatre Kana. This year, the theater’s co-production of Mike Leigh’s “Ecstasy,” with Chicago’s Roadworks Company, offered some of the best ensemble work seen anywhere in the country.

Sossi oversees the three-theater complex on the Westside, which has 4,000 subscribers. He believes in open casting: “You get better actors,” Sossi says, “though they may not be as committed as company members. I get a kick out of making theater happen in a place where it’s not supposed to happen.”

He adds that his struggles are constant; he often has trouble getting rights to plays because other L.A. theaters will sit on them or agents won’t sell them in hopes of snagging a larger Los Angeles venue.

Sossi’s $1-a-year lease, which the city granted in 1989, is the envy of many a small theater. But his costs are still substantial. The overhead for running three theaters, paying utilities, taxes and maintaining a staff comes to $650,000 a year.

The Odyssey still attracts grants, though Sossi says they’ve taken a major nose dive in the 1990s. He once received around $30,000 annually from the National Endowment for the Arts, but he now receives nothing. California once bestowed $25,000 annually; it now gives the Odyssey about $8,000.

Sossi admits he needs to improve fund-raising techniques. He’s had to cut out the position of managing director and raise prices at the concession stand and parking lot.

He likens running a theater to maintaining an orchestra dedicated to the work of an obscure but great composer. “If you run a chamber orchestra that plays Hindemith, you don’t have to have a huge audience. You just have to have one that loves Hindemith.”

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Interact Theatre. 11855 Hart St., North Hollywood. (818) 773-7862. Next production will be in October.

This theater’s home was once a cattle auction house. “It keeps us humble,” says Stacy Ray, president of the artistic committee. Founded in 1990 by a group of actors new to L.A., most of them theater-based actors from New York, this company is a true collective. There is no artistic director. (“We tried that once,” Ray says with a grimace.)

Ray sits in the women’s dressing room, with the sounds of rehearsals wafting in (“Your mother hates me.” “She hates everyone!”). She has a thoughtful manner, and she uses the careful phrasing of a person speaking for a group. “We work on musicals, on new plays, on Greek plays, on Shakespeare, and all of our choices are made jointly. We found a power in that, in our ability to distribute responsibility rationally.”

That focus on community-building can result in impressive, sweeping, large canvas work (as it did for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre with its breakout 1980 production of “Balm in Gilead”).

Interact’s breakout play, Elmer Rice’s “Counsellor-at-Law,” opened in 1994, a 23-character drama that impressively spanned the complex social strata surrounding a hot-shot Manhattan lawyer, including a gum-cracking receptionist, an ex-con, a socialist and a socialite.

Fifty dues-paying actors (at $25 a month) belong to the company. Any company member can mount a play reading. In order for a project to be approved for production, it must be voted on by the artistic committee (seven people) and then the board (seven people). Productions sometimes come out of a yearly marathon of readings and workshops called Interactivity.

Interact finances productions out of its coffers; it has no major donors. The company has yard sales and sells cookbooks and, of course, tickets to plays. Its next step, says Ray, president of the artistic committee, is to solicit subscribers and announce a formal season.

Interact also is hoping to buy its own home. For now, the group has a nice wide stage and comfortable backstage area, complete with dressing rooms for both men and women, a green room with a small backyard and a kitchenette. It does indeed look like a clubhouse, which is how Ray describes it. “We all have a key to the door.”