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This Week’s Roundup
Acrimony, Celebration, AEA and Yet More on Diversity
By Paul Birchall
The Old Guard
Halloween came and went, the veil that supposedly separates our world from the world of the dead is firm again, and we can put away the jack o’lanterns and set up the mantelpiece for Thanksgiving.
Except, this year, for the LA theater community, Halloween is every day. I mean, it never ends, and the one thing that has emerged this week in the absence of actual stories is the fact that there is plenty of sniping. Was there ever a time when civility among the writers and journalists in our community was at quite this low an ebb? Not in the last 20 years that I’ve been doing this, anyway: Diversity versus status quo, Union versus intimate theater, Embittered Old Guard theater journalists versus Embittered young Turk jerk theater journalists. Everyone is so angry! Anger is exhausting. Isn’t it better just to bide your time and smile?
I think we have seen that some areas of the journo community are trumpeting the advent of a sort of war between a mythical Old Guard and a band of ferocious newbies. I don’t buy it. There is no Old Guard: Really, Los Angeles would be lucky if there were an Old Guard; it would suggest that there had been a system in place over the last decades. The so-called Old Guard has always just been dedicated writers working to cover the community in the best way they were able to, given the technology of the time.
Celebration Theatre opens shop in its new digs
Congratulations are in store for the Celebration Theatre, which has reopened in their new location at the Lex Theater on McCadden Place. Although many of us were sorry when the Celebration had to leave their former LaBrea Ave. and Santa Monica Blvd. home, now a fine pot shop, the new location (just up the street from the Geffen GLBT Center) is a great fit for the company’s work. Although the two spaces are unrelated, synchronicity between the two is inevitable and will promote only the best work for both companies.
The Celebration just opened Rober O’Hara’s Booty Candy, its baptismal production in the new space, and now, on his Facebook page, artistic director Michael Sheppard has announced an open call for company members. “That doesn’t mean you get automatically cast or your play instantly produced, but it does mean that you can be part of a cutting edge queer theater company,” Sheppard notes.
Even for ridiculous theater critics, the temptation to apply for company membership is really strong, and I can’t think of anything more delightful. Just the offer to audition sends me into fantasy land, despite my entire lack of acting credits or talent. What if?! So I heartily advise everyone to consider auditioning for the Celebration. Why not?
Incidentally, I also think we’re going to see more and more of these calls for company members in the months ahead, as the impact of Actor’s Equity new rules on the formation of non-Equity companies start to come into play. What Sheppard, and other theater artistic directors who hold open calls for members right now, are doing is hedging their bets – creating rosters of performers who can be grandfathered into their companies even when AEA tries to shut them down.
Yet More Updates on the AEA Lawsuit
We are hearing multiple reports of news that the AEA is actually meeting with the plaintiffs who filed the Pro-99 seat lawsuit against their own Union. Neither side is being especially forthcoming about the negotiations, if negotiations they are. On Sunday night, Jason Alexander referred to a “rumor” of talks at last weekend’s party celebrating the career and 86th birthday of plaintiff, union man, and TV/ stage legend Ed Asner at the Skylight Theatre. (Alexander also referred to L.A.’s intimate theater scene under the 99-seat-plan as doing just fine for decades, “Then Equity decides to roll in and ‘improve’ it,” he quipped. Until the lawsuit filing, AEA refused to negotiate much of anything concerning its proposed changes to the Plan, and the result of that, along with alleged breaches of a 1989 Settlement Agreement, good faith, and fair representation, was the long-awaited filing of a lawsuit by AEA members against their own Union – or “Association” as some have been quick to point out.
So in the wake of the lawsuit, there appear to be talks, and talking is good! I feel confident that the plaintiffs are unlikely to cave in, given how far they’ve taken this, but some compromise agreements, to preserve the health of the intimate theater scene, could be in the offing, we hope.
Frankly, I consider the lack of concrete information about these talks to be healthy. They can’t really negotiate in a climate of free-floating chatter. It is only when the ship starts leaking that the ship starts sinking. One way or another, when the time is ripe, we’re going to be learning more about this story over the next week or so.
There’s No Business Like No Business
Meanwhile, in the propaganda department, AEA will be hosting a sort of seminar on how to produce small theater. The class, entitled “The Business Behind the Show: Producing for Non-Profit Theatre,” is “specifically designed for AEA members,” and will provide an analysis of the economics of strategies for producing small shows. The class is a webinar, and will contains segments on obtaining grants, creating subscription series, and, yes, “the changing scene,” which, one suspects will refer to the minimum wage requirements that AEA is trying to push through, and which instigated the aforementioned lawsuit.
The speakers will include marketing and production executives from the New 42nd Street Theater and the Manhattan Theatre Club, all lovely New York companies to be sure, but of marginal Los Angeles involvement – and their involvement only underscores the fact that AEA seeks to impose a One Size Fits All scenario.
Jubilee, Chapter 17 . . .
The national fracas continues over the idea proposed by Howlround regarding the “Jubilee Year,” in which a group of organizers have asked theater companies to set aside the year 2020 to be a year in which plays will be produced only by women playwrights, or by playwrights of color, non-Caucasion ethnicity, or of LGBT orientation – anything but works by white male writers. The proposal has had some traction in the media, and, as unlikely as the actual results are likely to be, it is spurring an interesting debate on the lack of diversity in the contemporary theater scene.
Howlround has now released a follow-up editorial about the Jubilee plan, entitled “You Don’t Have to be an Ally, But Don’t Be An Enemy,” which actually underscores the idea that the Jubilee is less an actual plan than a state of mind – a desire to find a way to boost diversity in the theater scene.
The author, Catherine Castellani, a playwright who’d qualify for the Jubilee proposal, notes that it’s fine to object to the plan, but suggests that there are ways to enhance a greater variety of theater.
“What does the alternate creative and positive response look like?” she asks. “I only know what I’d do. I’d network like mad. Go to every show I could manage. Volunteer. Get out there, be visible, be a supporter, use the opportunity to discover new potential collaborators. Frankly, do it in the hopes of becoming a known quantity, someone an artistic director might take a chance on down the road,” Castillani writes.
I can’t say that I agree with the idea of excluding anyone – if the Jubilee were to say “for this year, no women’s plays will be considered,” there would be a rightful outcry.
How about, instead, a proposal in which the season of 2020-21 will resemble the gender-ethnic-sexual-preference make-up of the population – something more along the lines of a manifestation of what we aspire to?
However, the more I think of it, the more the extremism of the premise is actually being used as a wedge to get us to examine the general way theater companies do business. Many articles are being written discussing the subject, from Ezra Buzzington’s pieces online to playwright Marsha Norman (“Women have lived half of the experience of the world, but only 20 percent of it is recorded in our theatres.” ) It is a sad fact that the stages simply do not resemble our culture and if the debate on the discrepancy is made with some urgency, perhaps that isn’t a bad thing after all.
