Theater’s little guys think big

Just across the street from the Wishy Wash Laundry and Manila Panaderia, in a south Silver Lake neighborhood that has seen better days, is a nondescript door of the type you might notice but never stop to investigate. The wrought-iron fence that surrounds it is less than inviting and the bright blue Cell2 sign out front gives no clue as to what’s inside. In fact, it doesn’t even look as if you can get inside.

The space was once a clothing store. Now it’s a 40-seat theater -- home to Son of Semele, a tiny, off-the-beaten-path theater ensemble doing tiny, off-the-beaten-path plays.

Two and half years ago, the troupe’s 25 members had no place to call their own. They rehearsed inside a studio apartment, pushing the furniture to the room’s edges and standing the couch on one end to make room. They practiced outdoors in parks. They traded lines in a recording studio, with various rock bands blaring around them.

They did it for months, just so they could perform a handful of shows for often just a handful of people. And they did it without making any money, instead spending a lot of their own.

It’s a scenario played out every day in L.A., theater actors toiling after hours to work on productions that will cost more money than they will ever make. Despite the volume of work -- more than a dozen plays open in small theaters every weekend in L.A. -- these shows often slip under the radar.

But in recent years, the annual Edge of the World Theater Festival, or EdgeFest as it is commonly known, comes along to bring the city’s fringe out of the shadows and into the limelight for 16 days.

“Most Angelenos have no idea how much theater there is here. There’s tons,” said fest executive director Ray Simmons, who readily concedes that even he doesn’t know about all of it.

“[Theaters] come, they go away, they come back,” he said. “That’s just sort of the way it is producing theater. You can’t always manage.”

This year’s fest kicks off Saturday, with 48 participating companies, 48 productions and seven additional events -- each of the them different, many of them challenging. And within the EdgeFest landscape, some companies are clearly trying to push the boundaries of what theater can be.

Whether it’s a one-man show about a modern-day messiah, a group show about a donated egg, a reworking of “Don Quixote” or a story involving spiders, a mime troupe or a dance ensemble, the shows, taken as a whole, display a broad range of content, form, subject, staging, talent and, of course, quality. Linking them together: the spirit of possibility.

It’s Wednesday night. The sun is fading, rush hour’s winding down and the dozen or so members of Son of Semele are fluttering around stage, rehearsing lines and working out music cues for the game show sequence in their production of the high-concept, high-speed and ultra-sensory Richard Foreman play “Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good.”

The stage is bare, the lights are up and the actors, many of whom have already worked a day job, are surprisingly fresh, considering the five hours of rehearsal ahead of them. Matthew McCray, the group’s artistic director, is no exception. The clean-cut 27-year-old works three jobs on top of Son of Semele. By day, he’s a vocal coach, children’s theater director and an administrative assistant. At night he’s on stage, belting out lines.

Like other EdgeFest groups, Son of Semele is taking a gamble with its newest production, its first as a fest participant. Nonlinear and theoretical, the piece was written by a New York playwright who ordinarily directs his own work. Chock-full of sound and lighting cues, the play also includes a movie, which the group had to film on its own. Clearly, there’s potential for a technical nightmare. But there’s also potential for an artistic coup. It’s the latter McCray is hoping for.

“We were looking for a piece that would challenge us to take more risk, and [Foreman’s] work you cannot do without taking huge risks because it is so far away from a traditional approach to theater,” he said during a backstage interview that was repeatedly interrupted by actors peeking through a black curtain. “It’s a Picasso painting in the world of Monet.”

Most of the plays at EdgeFest would be equally out of place in the traditional theater world. L.A.’s version of off-off-Broadway, they’re a far cry from Neil Simon or “Noises Off” or “Hamlet.” Frequently edgy and experimental, they explore niche ideas and tend to draw niche audiences.

“At the maximum, 396 people can see my show,” said Antonio Sacre, who will perform his one-man act, “Eleven Dollar Prophet,” over four nights at this year’s fest. “I’ve worked two years on this show. That’s a ridiculous payoff, but I don’t care. If five people are profoundly affected in some way, if one of them is profoundly affected, then it’s worth it.”

A solo performer for seven years, Sacre doesn’t fit any neat descriptions. Mining his fears for source material, the 34-year-old has done a eulogy for a still-living friend, and a show about things he was scared to tell his mother. A professional storyteller who travels the country reading stories at schools, libraries and museums, he wrote the piece “My Penis, In and Out of Trouble” to confront his feeling that speaking his mind on stage would spell the end of his career. It didn’t. In 1997, it won him two Best in Fest awards at the New York International Fringe, where he has performed nearly every year since.

“Eleven Dollar Prophet,” the show he is performing for this, his second year at EdgeFest, takes religious fanaticism to task. To write it, he read the Bible, the Koran, the Torah and the Bhagavad-Gita. The result is a piece that’s difficult to classify. It is neither a comedy nor an essay nor a sermon.

“The show is not a lot of things,” said the lean and lanky Sacre, who really does look the part with his shaggy dark hair. “The people that know me have told me 20 different things about what this show is. What it is is an open question, essentially. That’s why I need the EdgeFest to do it.”

The seeds for EdgeFest were planted in 1998. Inspired by the Regional Alternative Theater conference that was being held here that year, a few local theaters developed Big Cheap Theater, an online message board that would help them share resources and promote shows.

Log on to BCT any day and see a flurry of requests for audition space and lighting equipment, music stands and stools, costumes, video projectors and stage hands. In recent months, many of the messages have had to do with EdgeFest, which is no surprise since BCT led to the festival’s formation.

“The theater community lives in the shadow of the film and television business here,” said Simmons, who joined the fest as a volunteer four years ago. “The idea behind the festival was to promote the really interesting work that was being done by L.A.-based theater artists.”

A few thousand attended its 1999 debut, at which 40-some productions were staged over eight days. This year, 12,000 are expected for a festival that is twice as long, with half of the 48 participating theater companies new to EdgeFest. Next year is expected to be even bigger.

The idea of a fringe festival tracks back to 1947, when, as a reaction to the formal Edinburgh Theater Festival in Scotland, a breakaway or fringe festival formed on its outskirts. Now the Edinburgh Fringe is one of the largest arts festivals on the planet, offering about 1,500 shows by more than 600 companies that are attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

Edinburgh’s success has spawned fringe fests in most major U.S. cities -- from Seattle to San Francisco to Chicago to New York. EdgeFest is among the newest entries.

“I’m hoping that we’ll be something people fly into town to do,” said Simmons, 45.

If there is any doubt that theater is alive and well in L.A., talk with Kimberly Glann. The 32-year-old artistic director for the Moving Arts theater company received 200 one-act plays for the company’s 10th annual Premiere One-Act Festival, three of which were selected and will be staged along with three commissioned works during EdgeFest.

Whittling down the numerous submissions was daunting but also “great,” said Glann, sitting in Moving Arts’ cluttered third-floor office at the Los Angeles Theatre Center downtown. “It says there’s a lot of writers out there creating plays -- that theater is not a dying art, as some would have you believe.”

To look at her, you’d never guess Glann was logging as many as 80 hours a week to prepare for her group’s “fest within the fest” and that most of those hours are unpaid. The petite brunet is calm and relaxed, a person content with who she is and what she’s doing.

Glann got her master of fine arts degree in theater a decade ago but chose the path of least resistance and better pay after college, working as a film publicist for six years before finding her way back to the stage. She joined Moving Arts as an actor four years ago. Her husband is kind enough to pay their bills.

On a recent Friday night, around 7:30 -- a time when most people are either relaxing in their easy chairs or getting ready to go out -- Moving Arts’ members stream upstairs to the little black box theater on LATC’s fifth floor. Inside its entrance is the usual collection of framed head shots, stills from previous productions and a smattering of Drama-Logue awards. On stage are two actors throwing mock punches as part of a play’s fight sequence.

The scene is part of “Shank 101,” a futuristic drama by local playwright Matt Pelfrey, one of the three writers Moving Arts commissioned to contribute to this year’s one-act festival about “secret lives.”

Finding interesting source material and staff is rarely a problem for most fringe productions. The difficulty is drawing a decent audience, which is part of the reason Moving Arts has been in EdgeFest since it began.

“A lot of times, theater in Los Angeles is friends of the cast, friends of the people involved with the show. That’s the reality,” said Glann. “There are those people who love theater and will seek you out and become your fan and keep coming back, and there are those people that will try something new, but it’s hard to get through.”

In the over-saturated media marketplace that is L.A., it’s sometimes difficult for even established theater companies to draw an audience.

Intimate theaters have an even tougher row to hoe. As member-supported organizations, they have barely enough money to produce plays. If there’s any money for advertising, it’s with low-cost and ultimately low-impact stickers, fliers or postcards.

In bringing like-minded artists together, EdgeFest gives them more visibility than they’d have on their own. The result not only brings some of the region’s most progressive stage work to the fore but also creates a virtually risk-free means of experiencing theater on the cheap. With the purchase of a $15 passport, all shows are $5 -- less than a movie and significantly less than the cost of an average theater ticket, which, even for small theaters, is inching up toward $20.

A crisp Andrew Jackson fresh from the ATM is, for most people, a lot to spend on a show whose description intrigues but is otherwise unknown and unreviewed. But a “passport” and 5 bucks will buy an evening that examines Clive Barker’s take on Frankenstein, as the production by Sacred Fools will do; or a dinner party at the end of the world, like the one offered at the Evidence Room; or the improvised Shakespeare and Chekhov by the Impro Theatre.

“My advice is to try and see whatever draws your fancy for whatever reason,” said Sacre, who plans to do exactly that. “Maybe you only have one night. Go to three shows. One of them is going to really affect you somehow. You may laugh really hard; you may be really moved; there may be some controversy stirred up.

“In many ways it’s not about the actual quality of the thing you’re going to go see,” he added.

“I would just go to watch the spirit of what’s happening.”

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What to see at EdgeFest

The following shows are The Times’ best bets. With the purchase of a $15 EdgeFest passport, the admission price is reduced to $5 per ticket per show. Call the theater for show dates and times.

“BLAK”

What: Marcella Goheen’s one-woman show about encountering a crack-addicted intruder in her apartment, directed by reg e. gaines (“Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk”).

Where: The Lex, 6760 Lexington Ave., L.A.

Info: (323) 463-7310

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“Consanguinity”

What: The MET Theatre’s suburban American tragi-farce about motherly love and devotion.

Where: The MET Theatre,

1089 Oxford St., L.A.

Info: (323) 957-1741

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“Film Is Evil: Radio is Good”

What: Son of Semele Ensemble’s nonlinear theatrical debate about visual versus nonvisual media.

Where: Cell2,

3301 Beverly Blvd., L.A.

Info: (323) 860-9970

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“Kate Crackernuts”

What: 24th Street Theatre’s comedic interpretation of the English fable about two sisters, ugly and pretty.

Where: 24th Street Theatre, 1117 W. 24th St., L.A.

Info: (213) 745-6516

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“Lights”

What: Actors Co-op explores the comedy of family dysfunction.

Where: Crossley Terrace,

1760 N. Gower St., L.A.

Info: (323) 462-8460

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“Messalina”

What: The Evidence Room hosts a dinner party at the end of the world in contemporary New York.

Where: The Evidence Room, 2220 Beverly Blvd., L.A.

Info: (213) 381-7118

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“The Other Shore”

What: The Sons of Beckett Theatre Co.’s drama about Communist China’s conformist ideologies.

Where: Theatre/Theater,

6425 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.

Info: (323) 871-0210

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“Play Things”

What: BLT Digressions’ linked comic vignettes blur the line between sketch comedy and a staged play.

Where: Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A.

Info: (323) 856-4200

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“Secret Lives”

What: Moving Arts’s 10th annual Premiere One-Act Festival centers on the keeping of secrets and its effects.

Where: LATC, 514 S. Spring St., L.A.

Info: (213) 622-8906

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“The Unsinkable Bismarck”

What: Ghostwright Productions/The Eclectic Company Theatre’s comedy about the fateful first voyage of a German battleship.

Where: Eclectic Company Theatre, 5312 Laurel Canyon Blvd., North Hollywood.

Info: (818) 508-3003

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“Vinegar Tom”

What: Workshop 360’s musical drama about poverty, humiliation and prejudice in 17th century rural England.

Where: The Electric Lodge,

1416 Electric Ave., Venice.

Info: (310) 578-2228

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“You Can’t Take It With You: An American Muslim Remix”

What: Cornerstone Theater’s comedy revolves around the lives of a high-spirited Muslim family in L.A.

Where: LATC, 514 S. Spring St., L.A.

Info: (213) 613-1700, Ext. 33

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ALSO AT EDGEFEST

“As Beauty Does” Attic Theatre centre, 5429 W. Washington Blvd., L.A. (323) 525-0600.

“Bill’s Eye” Cell2, 3301 Beverly Blvd., Silver Lake. (323) 660-0557.

“Bloodbath” Los Angeles Repertory Co., 6560 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. (310) 936-3957.

“Brainchild” Gardner Stages, 1501 N. Gardner St., L.A. (323) 449-7974.

“Chicken City” Actors’ Gang El Centro, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (323) 465-0566.

“Convergence” The Lex, 6760 Lexington Ave., L.A. (323) 957-5782.

“The Dawn of Quixote: Chapter the First” Russell Street SPACE, 4649 Russell St., L.A. (323) 254-6654.

“Dorothy After Oz” Elephant Theatre Lab, 1076 Lillian Way, L.A. (323) 761-6411.

“Dos Dark Delights” Avery Schreiber Theatre, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. (323) 993-6171.

“Eleven Dollar Prophet” Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (323) 856-4200.

“Four Seasons” The Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Avenue, Venice. (310) 306-1854.

“Frankenstein in Love or the Life of Death” Sacred Fools Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, L.A. (310) 281-8337.

” ... wasps” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 Cahuenga Blvd., L.A. (323) 856-8611.

“Holon: Or, What Whole Are You a Part of and What Parts Are You the Whole Of?” Sacred Fools Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, L.A. (310) 281-8337.

“Hollywood Cliche” cell2, 3301 Beverly Blvd., L.A. (323) 769-5084.

“Hypatia” Orbetello Gallery, 679 N. Berendo St., L.A. (323) 692-8108.

“Marked Tree” Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. (818) 761-8829.

“Moments of Thought II” Gascon Center Theatre, 8737 Washington Blvd., Culver City. (310) 204-3126.

“Move Your Meet” @traction, 708 Traction Ave., Los Angeles. (818) 618-4772.

“Mythical Dreams” The Celtic Arts Center, 4843 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Studio City. (323) 878-6962.

“No Justice, No Peace” 2nd Story Theatre, 710 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach. (310) 376-1297.

“One Moment Please” Hudson Guild Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (323) 856-4200.

“The Sandman” Russell Street SPACE, 4649 Russell St., L.A. (818) 294-0196.

“Shakov” The New Space Studio, 4916 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood. (323) 401-6162.

“69 Portraits of Che” Tia Chucha’s Cafe, 12737 1/2 Glenoaks Blvd., No. 22, Sylmar. (818) 445-5197.

“Spare Parts & Cynic (a new musical)” Secret Rose Theatre, 11246 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. (818) 786-2229.

“Stay Sweet Stay Happy” Paul E. Richards Theatre Place, 2902 Rowena Ave., L.A. (323) 401-6585.

“Sus” Hudson Guild Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (323) 254-9328.

“The Taming of the Shrew” The Orpheum Theatre,

842 S. Broadway, L.A. (323) 769-5674.

“3 Acts of Denial” Elephant Theatre Lab, 1076 Lillian Way, L.A. (323) 993-5797.

“Tilt Your Head”The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (818) 503-2004.

“Transformations in Smoke” Hudson Avenue Theatre,

6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (323) 856-4200.

“Voyage Round My Room” The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (310) 927-6046.

Susan Carpenter can be contacted at susan.carpenter@latimes.com.