Malibu Stage ousts artistic director

The surf looks rough at Malibu Stage Company.

Charles Marowitz, a director and critic who created the small oceanside company 12 years ago, has been asked to resign as the group’s artistic director. He said he is planning to take legal action against the group’s board of directors.

The board voted 9-0 to oust Marowitz, said Chairman Geoff Ortiz, citing “ongoing problems related to his behavior and his inability to run the theater.” He said Marowitz had received “verbal and written admonishments,” including one from Ortiz that warned Marowitz he would not be invited to board meetings “if he didn’t stop insulting board members.”

“Maybe I don’t suffer fools gladly,” Marowitz said. “But there was nothing in my contract that I had to be a sweet fellow.”

Marowitz said that the leader of the campaign against him was Jackie Bridgeman, board president emeritus. He had compiled a list of what he called Bridgeman’s “infractions” in what he described as her unofficial management of the company and said that he “intended to submit the catalog at the next board meeting.” But he added that he was not informed of the Nov. 6 meeting. “I was never allowed to defend myself,” he said.

Bridgeman denied that she was the anti-Marowitz ringleader. But, she said, “you can’t have a discussion with him. He just yells.”

Marowitz had prepared a 2003 season including a Martin Sheen production of a play about Cesar Chavez. Ortiz said a search for a new artistic director has not yet begun.

-- Don Shirley