How to Succeed in Putting on a Show

In the old Mickey and Judy movies, creating new musicals looked as easy as saying, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show” and finding a barn. Other screen depictions of the musical-making process made it look a little harder, but the protagonists usually found eventual fame on Broadway.

Most real-life musicals never get that far. But that doesn’t prevent would-be musical creators from slaving away for years over their stories and their songs, eventually taping a homemade demo, then searching for producers or others who can assist their quest. About 350 such souls showed up Saturday and Sunday at the West Coast Musical Theatre Conference, sponsored by Broadway on Sunset, at Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Panels full of the musical theater’s “haves” spoke about their careers and their art in front of audiences that were made up, for the most part, of musical theater’s “have-nots.”

“Lion King” director Julie Taymor, delivering the keynote address (and presenting a video of excerpts from her work) Sunday, spoke glowingly of the four years she spent in Indonesia in her early 20s, observing indigenous theater and then touring with a company she co-founded. Indonesia was not one of the avenues to Broadway that most of the audience members had previously considered; perhaps her speech will inspire a wave of demo-carrying composers and librettists to head for Sumatra.

Comments on Saturday from representatives of the biggest L.A.-based commercial theater producers--Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal--were considered by many in the audience to be so discouraging that Indonesia might look even more inviting.

Disney, whose greatest stage successes have been projects based on its own movies (“The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast”) might listen to original ideas for musicals “in early stages,” said Stuart Oken, senior vice president of Disney’s Buena Vista Theatrical Group. But “we don’t invest in anyone’s show. . . . The idea that we would give you the money and not keep the control is not in the cards. We can’t do 30 musicals a year.”

The conference’s producer, Gail Wager Stayden, did, indeed, bring a project to Disney: “Hoopz,” which it is developing as a musical. But that process might have been halted if the company’s first musical that wasn’t based on a Disney film, “Aida,” had bombed, Oken said. If “Aida”--based on source material with a proven record even if it hadn’t been filmed by Disney--had failed, “we’d be talking about 100% Disney-branded products.” Even Taymor “is best served with our branded material.”

Oken acknowledged that Taymor might be the rare artist who could get money out of Disney for an original project--but in that case, “we wouldn’t pretend we were producing it.”

If Disney seems a remote possibility for unknowns with ideas for musicals, Warner Bros. and Universal sounded even less likely. They are only now reviving long-dormant theatrical divisions. Warner senior vice president Gregg Maday, who is developing “Batman” as a musical, said “vertical integration” with existing Warner products such as “Batman” is essential. Such musicals cost $20 million to $25 million, Maday said--only to hear Oken label that cost level “highly inflated” for the projects Disney is doing.

If conference participants hoped the big producers might stick around to hear excerpts from their work that were presented in several arenas at the conference, they were largely disappointed. However, Center Theatre Group’s artistic director and producer Gordon Davidson was in the audience on Saturday evening during a revue that included a song or two from each of eight finalists in a competition sponsored by Broadway on Sunset.

Conference organizers knew Davidson would be there because they presented him with their first Theatrical Visionary Award just before the revue began. Although speculation occasionally arises that Davidson may be nearing retirement, his remarks sounded designed to quench any such talk: Los Angeles, he said, is “a city of the possible. The possible is still there. That’s what makes me want to continue and do the work. . . . I’ll keep doing it until I get it right.”

Mark Edelman, whose Theater League produces musical series in Thousand Oaks and Long Beach, was one of the few producers who was on hand for most of the conference. He noted that a competing event in New York, an annual festival of readings of new musicals sponsored by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, had attracted many of his colleagues. But he said he found the panels at the L.A. conference more interesting.

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The panels did offer some stellar musical theater talent. They generated few clashes of opinion. At a directors’ panel moderated by TV host Larry King, “Cabaret” co-director Rob Marshall ventured his opinion that the recent competing musicals based on “The Wild Party” were good examples of “how the big idea can be wrong.” No one was there from “The Wild Party” to respond. One of the “Wild Party” composers, Michael John LaChiusa, was on a panel the following day, but the subject didn’t come up again.

Likewise, no one challenged “Scarlet Pimpernel” star Douglas Sills’ contention that “there is a lot of very bad acting in New York, in high-end Broadway shows.”

Unknown Southland-based musical creators could take some hope from some of the panelists’ comments. LaChiusa noted that “there is a great opportunity to experiment” in Los Angeles because of the preponderance of nonprofit theaters, compared to the commercial giants that dominate the New York scene.

And “Reefer Madness!” director Andy Fickman, whose show rose from the 99-seat ranks to a deal with the Nederlander Organization for a New York production, urged the audience to seek similar 99-seat venues for their shows: “There are so many small theaters here who would love to have a piece of your show.”

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L.A.’s Best: * Deaf West Theatre’s “Oliver!” leads nominations for Ovation Awards. F4