Beverly Hills Troupe Fights for ‘Existence’

The Beverly Hills theater wars have resumed.

The skirmishing began in the fall, when Theatre 40, the award-winning professional company that has operated out of a 99-seat space at Beverly Hills High School for nearly three decades, received an eviction notice.

After some public outcry, the notice was withdrawn, and the company’s two-part production of “Nicholas Nickleby” opened one week late. By the end of October, an apparent cease-fire was declared. The school board agreed to let Theatre 40 finish its season, while it continued to consider the troupe’s long-term residency.

That truce fell apart last month. The school district removed many of the company’s sets, supplies, props and records from a campus storage area on Jan. 10, and soon thereafter changed the locks on a nearby prop storage room. Theatre 40 officials said they received no warning; the school district’s attorney said the district tried to advise the company by telephone, but calls weren’t returned. The action was necessary to accommodate an ongoing modernization of the building, according to the district.

The district then tossed back its own complaint--that Theatre 40 was late in delivering paperwork for the continuing review of the company’s residency. Theatre 40 acknowledged a delay, but attributed it in part to an inability to gain access to records that the district had moved.

The renewed acrimony surfaced at a Feb. 1 meeting of the Beverly Hills City Council. Two Theatre 40 members appealed to the council for emergency funds and for help in locating alternative spaces.

The “crushing events” of recent months have put Theatre 40 “in a position where our very existence is at stake,” said David Stafford. Without the material that was moved into storage outside the building, “we have no way to produce the next four shows.”

Council members responded that they have no jurisdiction over school property, but they said they would study the dispute and help Theatre 40 find another space if necessary. The company is currently presenting “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and hopes to open two more productions in late March.

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ON A ROLL: Last week was a big one for the producers of “Reefer Madness!”

They stayed up into the wee hours of Tuesday morning, working on what co-writer and co-producer Kevin Murphy described as “an elephantine proposal” to Actors’ Equity. The next day, they learned that their musical won more Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nominations than any other show.

The Equity proposal was necessary because the hit at the Hudson Backstage passed 80 performances in October. That’s the point at which a show in a sub-100-seat venue must bid goodbye to Equity’s 99-Seat Theater Plan, with its token fees to actors, and move up to an Equity contract.

“Reefer” raised its Equity members’ wages to $45 per performance in October, but the contract proposal was delayed by discussion over which contract to use. The show wants to use the union’s Small Professional Theatre contract, but with “a ton of concessions,” Murphy said.

“Doing the show here is a speculative venture to get it to the next level,” he said. “We’re never going to get rich at the 99-seat level.”

That next level probably won’t be in Los Angeles. Co-producer Stephanie Steele said that there have been discussions with several L.A. producers about moving the show to a mid-size theater here, but they didn’t “put their money where their mouth is.”

For now the group’s goal for a commercial run is off-Broadway, perhaps by next fall, perhaps after a stop in one other city first.