Sour Notes

As co-founder of the Musical Theatre Guild, I was thrilled to see Don Shirley’s article on the company (“Musicals Mushroom at This Co-op,” Sept. 22).

While I am no longer involved with the company, it was great to see an unknown entity like this finally get some well-deserved publicity. I only wish it could have happened seven years ago when we were struggling with no money and begging to be recognized. It’s interesting how the only two times the guild has received any notice from The Times was when it produced a Stephen Sondheim show, first with “Passion” and now with “Saturday Night.”

I need to clear up some misconceptions in the article. First and most important, my partner Jeff Rizzo and I did not “leave” the company. We were strong-armed out. A membership meeting was convened (that we were told not to attend) where a faction of disgruntled members succeeded in getting us voted out of our own company. I say “our own company” because not only were we the founders, but we did 99% of the work (outside of the actual performing) necessary to get the company off the ground and run successfully for 4 1/2 years.

We took it from a group of actors sitting around with no money in the bank and less than 40 attendees at our first show to having over $10,000 in the bank and a sold-out house for our final show, all in just three short seasons. For most of that time we worked for little to no salary, no health benefits, and donated more than $10,000 of our own money and services to the company.

We designed and perfected the staged reading series that they continue with today and to which we have not been welcomed since our departure. We begged every day of our tenure for the membership to equally share the workload, and it was at my insistence that the group have a say in everything, even though I was warned by many that it wouldn’t work.

It was like pulling teeth to get anyone to participate in anything other than actually performing. It wasn’t until we were gone that the members started to do the work (out of necessity), but now we’re being blamed for being “too powerful.”

Our dismissal was one of the most extremely painful events of our lives.

ERIC ANDRIST

Valley Village

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Marcia Seligson of Reprise! claims her company’s “Westside audience” isn’t the same as the Musical Theatre Guild’s “Pasadena audience,” so she doesn’t care that Reprise!’s production of Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” conflicted with MTG’s “Saturday Night,” depriving many people of the chance to see both shows.

If she checked the subscriber lists, Seligson might be surprised. We live in the Valley and have been longtime Reprise! subscribers and, largely because of “Saturday Night,” we’ve joined MTG. We know another Valley family also distressed at the scheduling. We can’t be the only ones.

This is Southern California. We all have cars and we don’t mind driving for good musical theater, especially when it’s Sondheim.

We find Seligson’s dismissive attitude even more infuriating than missing “Merrily,” and hope that similar conflicts won’t occur in the future.

LAURA FRANKOS

Chatsworth

Frankos writes the weekly Broadway musical trivia contest for fynsworthalley.com, a Web site devoted to show tunes.