A happy medium

Mid-size, please.

No, I’m not renting a car. I’m describing the kind of theatrical venue that strikes an ideal balance between the intimacy of a tiny theater and the wage-paying, talent-sustaining ability of a big theater.

Most of my favorite theatrical spaces seat between 100 and 600 people. The nuances on actors’ faces are visible, and at least in theory, the words are audible without microphones. Yet the cast members are paid more than a token fee.

The mid-sizes are all over the map, geographically and stylistically. In size, they range from the cozy 130-seat Falcon in Burbank to the wide-angled 585-seat Freud Playhouse at UCLA.

Examine just a few of their 2002 productions. Cornerstone Theater’s transcendent “Crossings” transformed the decrepit St. Vibiana’s Cathedral into a vibrant forum for the L.A. immigrant experience. The Colony Theatre’s “Side Show” was a bizarre and beguiling musical about Siamese twins in the ‘30s. Robert Lepage’s “the far side of the moon” at the Freud was an astonishing coup de theatre about two contrasting Canadian brothers and the U.S.-Soviet space race. At South Coast Repertory, “Lobby Hero” analyzed a regular guy’s thorny moral dilemma with trenchant humor.

Actually, most people don’t think of Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory as mid-size, because the company long ago rose into the major leagues in terms of budget and prestige. But its two theaters seat 507 and 336. And I’ve never had the feeling there, as I occasionally have at the somewhat larger Mark Taper Forum and Pasadena Playhouse, that the space dwarfs a production.

In Los Angeles County, mid-size theaters tend to remain under the cultural radar, at least when compared with their bigger or smaller siblings.

At the almost 3,000-seat Pantages or the 2,100-seat Ahmanson or even the 750-seat Taper, the shows attract attention in part because of the prominence of their venues -- and their advertising.

The attractions of the smaller theaters in L.A. County -- according to Actors’ Equity, more than 1,000 sub-100-seat productions open every year -- are mystique and economics. Theatergoers who seek out cutting-edge shows tend to frequent these small theaters, also enjoying the lower prices and great sight lines. These theaters’ devotees sometimes talk as if the makers of most shows in larger spaces have sold out to commercial taste.

Though it’s easy for a small theaters or show to become lost in the crowd, operators of small venues sometimes unite in efforts to raise their profile. Last fall, the annual Edge of the World Theater Festival touted the glories of smaller theaters with 231 performances of 38 productions, plus special events. And in a program called Play7, a group of 15 small theaters is selling a $77 subscription for seven admissions to shows by any of the 15 companies.

Peanuts for pay

In this landscape, mid-size venues sometimes seem to disappear. They receive no special recognition from the Ovation Awards, L.A.’s only peer-judged theater competition. Many of the Ovation categories are divided into awards for achievements in “larger” theaters and those in “intimate” venues, with 99 seats as the dividing line. This use of “intimate” dubiously implies that a theater with 100 or 200 seats is a virtual Staples Center, compared with a 99-seater. The Ovation requirements clearly stress the small-is-significant ethos: Of the minimum of 25 shows that Ovation’s voters are required to attend, 20 must be in “intimate” theaters. There is no requirement to attend shows in mid-size or larger theaters.

Of course, “intimate” sounds better than “impecunious,” which is preferable to another word that sometimes comes to mind: cheap. No law prohibits producers of shows in small venues from paying actors more than what Equity requires -- about $5 to $15 per performance -- but the fact is that most sub-100-seat productions respond to the unending supply of actors in L.A. by paying them peanuts. Very few of these productions ever make money, but economizing on the talent is the easiest way to lose less. Some productions are run by actors who are eager to create their own opportunities to be on stage, whatever the cost.

Ellen Geer, artistic director of the mid-size Theatricum Botanicum, points out that these productions pay the rent, the director and designers but stop short of paying the actors. “Many of these young emerging theaters could graduate to paying the actors if they concentrated on it. It’s hard, but you can build a community that will support you,” she said, citing her own experience in the sparsely populated wilds of Topanga.

The audience ultimately benefits from better pay for the artists. Actors generally take their jobs more seriously if they’re real jobs. And they’re less likely to abandon the show to cash in on a Hollywood offer -- a phenomenon that often occurs in the generally contract-free world of sub-100-seat theater.

Perhaps that has an effect on the work coming out of the better-paying mid-size theaters. The mid-size Colony Theatre received more Ovation nominations this year than any company other than Center Theatre Group (the Taper and Ahmanson).

The mid-sizes are counted as “larger” in the Ovations, but many are closer in budget and even capacity to the more successful sub-100-seat theaters than they are to Center Theatre Group, which has an annual budget of $38 million. The 90-seat, heavily subsidized Deaf West Theatre’s budget is $1.3 million, and the 350-seat Theatricum Botanicum’s is $500,000.

Shashin Desai of International City Theatre (budget: $1.7 million) advocates mid-size-only categories in the Ovations. His designers resent competing in the big leagues, considering their budgets, he says.

But Lee Wochner, president of Theatre LA, which presents the Ovation Awards, notes the Colony’s triumphs and responds: “If you have an opportunity to play with the big boys, why would you want to form a farm team?”

A “mid-size can’t be edgy” bias is evident in the LA Weekly theater awards, in which productions in theaters with more than 99 seats aren’t eligible. This is in contrast to the New York prototype for the awards -- the Obies, sponsored by the Weekly’s sibling publication the Village Voice. For the Obies, off-Broadway theaters -- New York’s mid-size category -- are as eligible as off-off-Broadway theaters, which correspond to L.A.’s sub-100-seaters.

The Weekly editorially champions “living wage” ordinances. But its theater awards enshrine a theatrical arena in which living wages are rare -- and ignore theaters that try to pay actors something closer to a living wage.

Maybe it’s time to take another look at the way the theater scene has changed -- and at how common mid-size theaters are becoming.

A glance at the map shows the Geffen Playhouse and Reprise! thriving in Westwood, Hermosa Beach Playhouse in the South Bay, A Noise Within in Glendale, Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, East West Players in Little Tokyo, Theatre West in Cahuenga Pass and West Valley Playhouse in Canoga Park. To the northwest, Rubicon Theatre is Ventura County’s first ongoing mid-size.

Cooperative ventures eyed

A number of other L.A. companies sometimes produce shows in mid-size spaces. Shakespeare Festival/LA travels to two such spaces each year. The Center for New Theater at CalArts produced “King Lear” last summer and will continue its efforts in the REDCAT building at Disney Hall. Recently the Latino Theatre Company returned to the scene with “Dementia” at Los Angeles Theatre Center. A Gay & Lesbian Center space seats from 144 to 225.

Even the little guys are talking mid-size: At one of the special events at the 2001 EdgeFest, a round-table discussion focused on the idea that several smaller theaters might join forces to present a season of their hits at a mid-size theater, so the actors could finally receive real wages.

Not all of the programming at mid-size theaters is conservative and safe -- despite the doubts of smaller theater aficionados who assume that the increased costs of larger theaters would stymie adventurous spirits.

Mid-size doesn’t mean financially secure. In L.A., for-profit mid-size productions are rare, usually consisting of solos (“Late Nite Catechism”), readings (“The Vagina Monologues”) or novelty acts (“Puppetry of the Penis”). Like most L.A. theaters, most mid-sizes are labor-intensive nonprofits that need contributions as well as ticket sales.

And there’s an ever-present competition for funding. When the Taper’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, a 325-seat space in Culver City, opens in 2004, backed by the Taper’s formidable resources, it should add a jolt of excitement to L.A. theater -- but it could siphon off attention and support from existing groups.

So it’s time to rally around the mid-size venues. Angelenos deserve a sturdy and sophisticated theater scene -- one that isn’t dominated by only one company, one that’s an eclectic brew of styles and tastes, one that doesn’t rely slavishly on actors who do theater only until they hit it big in Hollywood -- or burn out. The best way to achieve this is to support the mid-size companies. Encourage them to take even more risks.

They’re the most important building blocks of L.A.’s theatrical future.