An unscripted drama

When the Colony Theatre left the ranks of L.A.’s many small companies and emerged as one of the most prominent theaters in the area, it looked like a shiny success story.

Yet recently, the troupe has been involved in a bitter power struggle between many veteran company members and artistic director Barbara Beckley, contributing to the departures of more than half the actors in the group.

The Colony moved to a new 276-seat Burbank venue in 2000 and began working on a fully professional basis in 2002. But since the move, about 60% of the 90 or so actors who belonged to the company have left. Newcomers have brought the total membership up to 46.

Kathryn Kates was, like Beckley, a Colony founder in 1975. Beckley, she says, “betrayed each one of us. I believe that she rode to Burbank on our backs, that she made all decisions with only her own interests in mind.” Kates left the company this year.

Beckley, who has never been named artistic director by the organization’s board but has operated with the title since the beginning of 2004, says she initially failed to see changes that would be required as the Colony evolved. But after the need became apparent to her, she acted. “I haven’t put 30 years of my life into this theater to watch it go under,” she says.

For partisans on both sides, the problems represent a cautionary tale for small, actor-driven companies that start thinking big.

In the late ‘90s, the Colony looked like one big happy family in its smaller theater in east Silver Lake. Actors paid dues of $15 a month and helped behind the scenes. In return, they received preferential treatment in casting. Large casts provided plenty of opportunities. Beckley held the title of producing director.

The actors weren’t paid beyond the paltry fees required in small theaters by Actors’ Equity, so they were excited by the move to larger Burbank quarters. That would eventually mean wage-paying and benefits-providing contracts -- and no more dues.

In 2002, the eight actors in the Colony’s first full-fledged contract production, “The Laramie Project,” were all Colony members. But since then, use of Colonists has dwindled.

Beginning with “Toys in the Attic” in mid-2003, outsiders have outnumbered Colony members 63-18 in Colony casts. Only twice have women from the company appeared in Colony shows in the last two years: Beckley in “Accomplice” and Lisa Beezley in “Sherlock’s Last Case.”

The divide deepens

Bigger issues arose in March, when Beckley issued a new membership agreement. Some members, viewing it as a consolidation of Beckley’s power, refused to sign. A few who did sign were rejected by Beckley.

Tim O’Hare, one of those who refused to sign, contends that Beckley would “be happy if none of the company was left.”

Beckley denies it. “I like having people around who are part of a community of artists, who are comfortable here, who know and trust each other,” she says. “God knows no one’s making much money, so it’s got to be fun.” (Beckley’s salary is about $35,000).

“I was naive,” she says, recalling the days before the move to Burbank. “I had this idealistic vision that we could just lift up our entire operation and drop it down in Burbank in our mid-size theater and continue. It gradually became clear that economic and artistic demands meant that things had to change.”

Since its change in status, the theater’s overall budget has grown from $380,000 to $1.2 million. Costs have ballooned as well. Payments per actor, per week in the former venue were $56 -- and only for performances, not rehearsals. Now, on top of $240 per week paid to each actor for 10 weeks of rehearsals and performances, the Colony pays $182 per actor per week for union benefits and government-mandated employment costs. There are about 175 more tickets to try to sell for each performance. The full-time staff has grown from three to seven.

Colony members still get benefits in the casting process -- extra preparation time for longer auditions. And Beckley’s foes say they realized they would face new competition -- union contracts require open auditions for all Equity actors. But the predisposition of the outside directors who increasingly work at the Colony is toward actors they already know, they say, and Beckley should lobby more aggressively for members.

“If I believed a company member was as good or better than an outsider, I would go to bat for that company member,” Beckley says, “and I have done that.” Jessica Kubzansky, who staged “Toys in the Attic,” vouched that Beckley had encouraged her to consider company members.

“The Laramie Project,” with its all-Colony cast, was the most awarded production since the move. But Beckley says its casting requirements were not as specific as those of most shows, because each actor in the ensemble played several roles.

Beckley auditioned for it but wasn’t cast by director Nick DeGruccio, a Colony member who has since left. He said in a statement: “Due to the actions of management at the Colony, I have had to remove myself as a director and actor. It is most unfortunate that for close to 18 years I had built a strong family with the company and also with its subscribers and donors and that many of us cannot participate in the rewards of having helped to build an Equity theater.”

Squeezed out

A sore point among many of the exiting company members is the lack of a smaller “second stage,” an upstairs spot for member-generated productions that was included in early architectural plans. It was eliminated to cut costs for the city of Burbank, which owns the facility and paid for its renovation. That room is now a low-ceilinged site for rehearsals, auditions by other companies who rent it, and a church that pays $36,000 a year in rent to the Colony.

Some of the ex-Colonists say the room still could be used as a rudimentary second stage. But Beckley says that without costly renovations, lobby noise would intrude on performances. The productions couldn’t bring in as much revenue as rentals -- “and whatever we do right now has to result in revenue.”

The main stage in Burbank was initially used for a few second-stage productions before the Equity contract went into effect. John Holly, Equity’s western regional director, says the union frowns on a company’s use of the same stage for both contract and non-contract shows.

In a letter accompanying her revised membership agreement this year, Beckley wrote that any second stage “will not be for exclusive use by company members; and it will be subject to financial, scheduling and quality control by management.”

Morals and morale

For many members, that letter was the final straw. Besides quashing their hopes to produce their own shows, it contained language that some found objectionable.

“Having been a founding member, I thought it was very presumptuous,” says Carol Newell, who was among those who refused to sign the new agreement, citing the document’s warnings that members could be disciplined or dismissed by Beckley for “moral turpitude that could subject the Colony to public ridicule,” for behavior “grossly disruptive or detrimental to the Colony” or for “chronic problems interacting with fellow members, management or staff.”

In a letter, Beckley said that while Newell’s “contributions over the years are tremendously appreciated,” she was out.

Beckley acknowledges she rejected a few company members who had signed the agreement, saying “it was highly unlikely they would be cast, or I knew they were really unhappy, or they have so alienated the rest of the company that there was a pervasive lack of trust.”

Beckley works without a contract, although recently revised bylaws require one.

Board chairman David Rose, the only Colony member who continues to direct there, says Beckley is recognized as the “de facto artistic director” -- and a contract will be drawn up.

A 2002 addition to the company, Tony Maggio, sympathizes with Beckley’s attempt “to please the members, cast everyone, make them happy.” The former president of the small theater troupe Company of Angels joined the Colony’s Artistic Advisory Board “to try to get the warring factions to work together.” He admits it didn’t happen.

Today, the publicly unhappy Colony members are gone, their pictures removed from the wall of glossy photos in the theater’s lobby. Beckley and Michael Wadler are the only remaining founding members.

“Now we start anew with a resident company built on a foundation of mutual trust and respect,” wrote Beckley in a letter to the remaining members.

“The rug was pulled out from under us,” says ex-member Linden Waddell. “We’re not a company any more.”