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Gordon Davidson Dies at the Age of 83

Gordon Davidson

Gordon Davidson, one of the great leaders of Los Angeles theater — has died at age 83. 

Following a controversial 1966 UCLA production of Rolf Hochhuth’s drama The Deputy about Pope Pius’s attempts to appease the Nazis that he directed, Davidson was tapped by Dorothy Chandler herself to run the yet-to-open Mark Taper Forum, in LA’s re-burgeoning downtown. As the Founding Artistic and Producing Director of the Taper – and then of the Ahmanson Theatre – Davidson directed or oversaw a veritable cornucopia of shows that reads like the history of the West Coast theater scene.  Under Davidson’s aegis, shows from Tony Kushner’s Angels in America to Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit all had early productions at the Taper, before moving on to Broadway and Tony and Pulitzer Prize fame.  In the 1970s, he was the guiding force behind the Tony Award winning productions of Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God; the Taper’s production of Michael Christofer’s The Shadow Box.

Some of his other notable productions included a local staging of “Candide” which so impressed composer Leonard Bernstein that he invited Davidson to direct his “Mass” for the Kennedy Center, as well as, in recent years, the US debut of David Hare’s ferocious anti-Iraq War drama “Stuff Happens.” 

However, the majority of Angelinos will remember him for his years of glittering prizes, in particular the early ‘90s, when, as Taper Artistic Director, he helped develop and oversaw early productions of Angels in America, Anna Devere Smith’s Twilight, and Robert Schenkkan’s The Kentucky Cycle. Angels playwright Kushner, quoted in the LA Times obit, noted, ““When nobody knew what Angels was, Gordon immediately loved it and supported it and maintained this incredible level of excitement and enthusiasm all the way through.”

A look at Davidson’s artistic resume is a true walk through the hallowed history of LA theater, with his involvement in an astonishing range of important drama. When August Wilson’s dramas were first being performed, Davidson provided a space for each of his dramas, providing one of the first homes for the author’s dramatic cycle.

In more recent years, Davidson earned some criticism for seasons at the Taper, and at the Ahmanson, for some less than challenging theatrical choices.  

“One of the things I’ve had to reconcile myself to is no matter how much we like to think we’re on the cutting edge, we’re on the cutting edge of mainstream,” a quotation taken from the LA Times obit, attributed to a 1992 interview Davidson did with the LA Business Daily.  Still, he channeled his desire to create and produce more challenging work into the founding of the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City, which opened in 2004.  

In a 2013 LA Times column by Charles McNulty, producer and then-USC Theater School Dean Madeline Puzo noted, “Fifty years ago there was a handful of visionary leaders — Tyrone Guthrie, Zelda Fichandler, Joe Papp, Bill Ball and Gordon Davidson — who profoundly changed the American theater.”  

Quoted in a 2014 article in @ This Stage, Davidson opined that, at the end of his theater career, “the audience is broader now and there’s a better understanding, not of just racial understandings in America, but global as well. I think we did our work and I was very proud of how popular it was here.”

In the same article, Davidson mused on theater’s ability to frame a life: “Take Chekhov, for instance. The pain and truth of The Cherry Orchard, let’s say, speaks to generations. I always thought about doing that as my last play,” he says through a chuckle, “because it’s about chopping down the old cherry tree. If I could have, I would have done it in repertory with King Lear because one is about giving away the kingdom and the other is about bringing one to an end.”

Frontiers Closes

Excited by the thought of even less theater coverage in the years ahead? No? Well, get ready for it anyway, as Edge Media Group is reporting that LGBT media conglomerate Multimedia Platforms (MMPW) is shutting down several of their papers, most importantly New York City’s Next Magazine and LA’s own Frontiers.

According to the news site, a series of internal management shuffles and the collapse of plans for a loan are behind the company’s financial meltdown. All staff at the company’s papers have been laid off, and none of their papers will print this week.

The loss of Next is bad news for New York – but the loss of Frontiers in Los Angeles may well be worse for the local community. It’s not just that these magazines are central to LGBT culture, which they certainly are; it’s also that these papers happen to be amongst the few print outlets that continue to cover culture, period. In recent years, Frontiers cut back its theater reviews – but they still ran them. Now, even that minimal print outlet will be gone.

We’ll be following this story closely to see what it means, but at this point, it represents once again another spasm in the death knells of old media. Another nail in the journo coffin, as it were.

Ageless Actors

Governor Brown has just signed into law a declaration allowing actors to demand online databases such as IMDB.com to omit their ages, which they traditionally include as part of an actor’s biography. Variety is reporting the story, describing the law as having been strongly pushed by the Screen Actors Guild. It is certainly a positive step against age discrimination in the entertainment business. 

 One of the bill’s sponsors, California legislature Majority Leader Ian Calderon is quoted as saying, “Subscribers should have control over whether their age and date of birth are posted on subscription websites used for employment purposes . . . [this law] provides a necessary clarification in the law that will help prevent age-based discrimination for individuals seeking employment in the entertainment industry.” 

Opponents of the bill express the belief that requiring websites to remove a performer’s age restricts free speech. 

I can see where and how some folks would opine that the government really should not be involved in legislating such a thing. But there needs to be a way to allow performers to control their images. A concrete statement of age leaves the impression that can absolutely undercut a performer’s ability to get work.  It’s bad enough in an industry where a woman actor might find her ability to play the leading lady ended because her IMDB bio says she’s 40-something.  It’s not vanity at all – it’s sheer pragmatism.  Image is truth.  And if databases such as IMDB won’t omit the performer’s age voluntarily, then by all means pass a law to do it. 

Back in the day, of course, it was fairly common for performers and artists to lie about their age when they couldn’t get away with providing no information at all. My own great grandmother, a best selling author back at the turn of the 20^th century, fibbed that she was five years younger than she was, with the truth only coming out after her death when folks looked at her birth certificate. The rage felt by her children, who discovered that they were 21 when they thought they were 17 is the stuff of family legend. 

Scenies Are Announced

Steven Stanley

The Scenies, theater blogger Steven Stanley’s annual awards list, has been announced. If you head over to his site, you’ll find the Scenies basically consist of a fairly non-competitive list of, well, let’s face it, almost all the plays that the illustrious Mr. Stanley has seen and thinks are worthy of being noted. Cynics have pointed out that almost every show in town gets a mention. When I was younger, newer to the field, and perhaps angrier, I used to think that a gazillion awards for a gazillions shows was a bit ridiculous. 

But times have changed, and I admit that my attitude towards awards lists such as The Scenies has become more charitable. Yes, there are plenty of shows in LA that move from the 99 seat theaters to other cities – but there are so many more, perfectly terrific shows that play their four weeks and then vanish into the ether with nothing more than a couple of reviews to paste into a scrapbook.  A notation by Steven Stanley is a coup, or a micro-coup — part of a play’s Cotillion, as it were – one of the rites and rituals of presentation and appreciation that should happen if a theater has presented on a play that is worth attention.  

Back in the day, Drama-Logue had a similar philosophy: Mention as many worthy plays as possible. At the time, those who received a Drama-Logue Award felt validated that they were true theater practitioners – though, those who watched the awards from the outside had a tendency to lightly mock them for being so multitudinous. (An old joke asserted that if you’d been working in LA theater for five years and had not received a Drama-Logue Award, it was time to leave town.) And, yet, darned if the awards weren’t also a sign that a performer or show was doing the right thing at the right time.  

A Scenie, if I may interpret, is a sincere seal of approval — an accreditation, if you will, of having done strong work at the professional level.  So when I read snarky articles on some websites about how there is a lack of intellectual rigor to a system that allows for hundreds of award winners, I reply (to myself, as no one else is listening) that there is really room for all kinds of awards in the larger system of giving credit, and accreditation. 

A Plug for Genoa

A week or two ago, I found myself at the Opening Night for the Mark Taper Forum’s impeccable production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. It was quite the experience to attend August Wilson’s eloquent and powerful tale of black jazz musicians fighting for dignity within an oppressive society. It was also really thrilling to hang out at the foyer of the Mark Taper Forum to watch as the town’s cultural great and good arrived for the show. I am the worst at celebrity spotting, truthfully, but the house was simply top heavy with folks you sort of half recognize from TV and the movies. All you need is a head for names.

Before the show, I sighted a pair of my very favorite long time theater practitioners, the awesome creative powerhouse of director Bart DeLorenzo and playwright Michael Sargent. The former is founder of the legendary Evidence Room Theater Company; while Sargent, whose plays, such as The Projectionist (which played at the Kirk Douglas) and my personal favorite, the meditation on Kenneth Anger called Hollywood Burning, have made him one of Los Angeles’s writing treasures.  

I swaggered on up to them and they were both really very pleasant, as theater folks inevitably are when they meet a critic. I mentioned that I was writing a little column and that the two of them should just get together and do another show with Center Theare Group, as The Projectionist was so successful.  With just a bit of a smirk, both men advised me to write about it and work up some excitement for the idea.  

DeLorenzo quipped that there was indeed a play that they have been trying to get done at the Taper, but it is hard to get the interest going.  Perking up my ears, I asked just what show this might be.  Sargent pleasantly told me the show’s name, something intriguingly called Genoa. But my attempts to get more info about the show from the pair came up bupkis: “It’s a really strange and challenging play – you’ll never have seen anything like it!” Sargent explained. Thanks, that helps a lot.

“You should write about it, though!” DeLorenzo smiled, hinting that my power of the press might convince the Taper to eventually put the show on. Good luck with that!  But, a bit of searching on the net shows that Sargent wrote a play called Genoa that had an intriguing reading at Manhattan’s Private Theatre a couple of years back with Tony-winner Kathleen Chalfant in a major role.  

According to the play’s Facebook page (yes, there is one), the show is described thusly:  “An alcoholic actor loses everything and ends up living back with his family in Genoa, Ohio, where he dreams and schemes of a return to California. But the American Dream gets stuck in reverse in this devastating and hilarious tragi-comedy.”  

Oh, I would so see this show. Will somebody please do it in LA!? 

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The Latest Local Assaults on Dissent and Discussion: By AEA and CSULB

By Paul Birchall

The Phantom Meeting

So, I’ll just ask: Can you tell what they’re up to?

If you have been following the minutiae of the conflict between Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and the representatives of the 99-seat theater community, you’ll have become aware of a few setbacks to “communication” and “transparency” in recent days.

On August 30^th (as reported by the LA STAGE Alliance website This Stage), the Pro99 Plaintiffs complaint to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging unfair practices by the union, was dismissed without explanation at the regional level. This isn’t the best news for the Pro99 side, though the decision has already been appealed at the national level, where the complainants believe it will receive a fairer hearing. It does, however, suggest that both sides of this issue have a long, protracted war on their hands, with the feud being measured battle by battle. The NLRB filing is also a complaint with a different authority from that of the lawsuit (Asner, et al Vs. Actors’ Equity Association) — filed by actors (and others) against the stage actors’ union. The NLRB filing is related to the lawsuit, of course, but concentrates on more specific alleged breaches. Meanwhile, the lawsuit goes on.

And then, as reported by Footlights, on September 2, the union filed its rebuttal to the Pro-99 Plaintiffs, through a Motion to Dismiss. It’s a very long document, with more than a couple of pages dedicated to referencing prior labor lawsuits. It makes for quite a slogging read, at least for non-attorney-types, but it is useful in telling us the thought processes underlying AEA’s case against the 99-Seat Plan, which AEA is trying to formulate as an internal union matter that requires no outside adjudication.

Meanwhile, in early September, AEA announced plans for a huge national meeting to take place on September 12 at the Sportsman Lodge in Studio City (Los Angeles), California. This meeting was required as part of the union’s constitution and bylaws. In short, union member Leo Marks had proposed amendments to bylaws that would potentially improve communication among members and transparency by the union. The union’s National Council vetoed Marks’s proposals, which is where the constitution and by-laws kicked in, i.e. the requirement of a national meeting to discuss the amendments with the entire membership, and in which the membership could vote to overturn the Council veto, and thereby adopt Marks’s amendments.

The Pro99 and LA Theater Network Facebook pages had been replete with calls to galvanize the membership and to show up at the meeting en masse so as to make their opinion known. Across social media, there were accounts of folks planning to cancel or “book out” of professional auditions so they could attend the meeting.

Well, now, after several weeks during which members rearranged their schedules to attend, the union abruptly postponed the meeting. According to a letter, posted on the AEA website, from Executive Director Mary McColl, the cancellation is due to members in different cities not receiving in time the e-mails about the meeting (the national meeting was to be webcast from locations around the country).

It seems truly passive-aggressive, after so many performers adjusted their schedules to attend a long-announced meeting, to then jerk the carpet out from under them. It smacks of fear: Is the Union so afraid of dissent that they want to reschedule a national meeting to a time when it will probably be more difficult for local members to attend? Is there credence to the union’s “We didn’t follow procedure to the letter” argument? Maybe so, but evidently, they never did. So why the concern here? Why now? If you haven’t already noticed, these are rhetorical questions. 

I also can’t help but find it unprofessional — sloppy, not inclusive – and makes it even more obvious that the union is once again trying to stack the deck to suppress dissent. This dovetails with the union’s overall campaign to wage a war of attrition, or call it a war of exhaustion – a series of baits and switches aimed to compel the Pro99 side to simply surrender.

Censorship at Cal Stage, Long Beach

At Cal State Long Beach, Michele Roberge, artistic director of the campus-administered Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts, has resigned from the university system following a conflict with the administration over the cancelling of performances by a visiting comedy group. The story, detailed here at O.C Weekly, almost reads like a parody of the discussion of on-campus “trigger warnings” and “safe places” that have been simmering about the media lately.

The show itself, a satirical work entitled N*gger, W*tback, Ch*ink, was actually performed at the same campus venue last year. It attempts to indict and explode ethnic stereotypes through mockery, until all that’s left of them is rubble. The cast features three performers, one an African-American, one a Latino, and one an Asian – and during their visit last year, their residency included master classes as well as meetings with students and faculty to discuss diversity and stereotypes.

During their previous residency, though, some groups, most notably the NAACP, protested the show’s title. At the time, University President Jane Close Conoley put out a message stating that the “school’s mission included presenting works like this.”  

This year, however, Conoley opted to shut down the show’s remount. A University spokesperson noted, “Members of the campus community [this year] voiced concerns that the performance wasn’t achieving the goal of constructing a dialogue about racial relations… Not to disparage the performers, but there were questions of the educational value of the performance, so the president asked the Carpenter team to withdraw the performance.”

The performers will be compensated, and audience members will have their tickets to the show refunded. About her decision to resign, Roberge, a 14 year veteran of the Carpenter Center, noted, “I just couldn’t come to work every day to work at a place that condones censorship. The show is targeted for university audiences and it has won awards for the work it has done in (promoting) positive race relations, which is something I think we need a little more of these days.”

A statement from the show’s producers offers words of praise for Roberge. “We know that giving a platform to strong voices is what drove Executive Director Michelle Roberge to book us for a return engagement at the Carpenter Center, and were devastated to hear of her decision to leave the position following our show cancellation,” the producers wrote. “We cannot ignore, however, that this occurrence also stands as critical juncture in the path of free speech on the campus of a public educational institution in perhaps our most liberal state. The same act of censorship that today may seem to protect a community may be used next time as justification to silence a community in desperate need of a voice.”

This controversy comes at an interesting time, as the concept of censorship on campus and the maintenance of “safe places” versus the creation of opportunities to debate and discuss topics, is suddenly everywhere.

There is talk of the show’s remounting at Cerritos College, where perhaps, unlike at CSULB, the administration appreciates the value of satire as a means to challenge long-held precepts – which is also among the purposes of higher education, or used to be.

Load ‘Em In!

On a lighter note, a week or two ago, I attended a lovely performance of Laurel Wetzork’s fascinating drama, Blueprint for Paradise at the Hudson Theatre. It was set in Los Angeles during the year leading up to the bombing of Pear Harbor, and it concerned a deluded family (apparently based on a true story) who started to construct a gigantic compound for the Nazis on their property. The show provided a clever dramatization of a fascinating historical footnote: Who knew that Hitler nearly had a mansion not far from Griffith Park?

But, aside from the play itself, an element that intrigued me was that when we checked in at the box office, as tickets, we were given cardboard passes with a number on it. And, when the time came to head into the theater, we were called by group number – just like we were boarding an airplane. It was an entire re-envisioning of the seating system.

I had never seen a system set up like it, and, although I can understand why folks would find it irritating to be grouped in sections, I also note that there was no rush to the door – it made sense to “load in” the audience in the front sections first, and then settle the others in the rear sections. The ushers were able to offer discrete seating service, since everyone in their group was in the same area.

I am not suggesting that all theaters switch to boarding us like we are boarding an airplane – and Lord help us if they start replacing theater chairs with economy class airplane seats. But if this is an eye towards crowd control, how optimistic it is that a theater imagines there’s going to be crowd to control.

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The Rollout of a New Idea for Fixing L.A.’s AEA/99-Seat Theater Dispute

By Paul Birchall

Left to right: Steven Leigh Morris, Gary Grossman, Armina LaManna, Larry Poindexter, Vanessa Stewart, Rebecca Metz, Tom Buderwitz and Michael Shepperd
Photo by John Lacey

Talk about Community: Essentially all of Los Angeles’ small theater scene turned out Monday for the LA STAGE Alliance-hosted town hall at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, moderated by that organization’s Executive Director Steven Leigh Morris (also the Publisher of Stage Raw). In a nutshell, this was the heart and soul of LA theater, right here.  Almost every intimate theater in the County was represented – and at the highest levels, too. 

UPDATE: Click here for a video of the entire town hall, as well as supporting documents for all information presented in it.

The subject was the major issue that has swept almost all others off the local map: The new contract by Actors’ Equity Association (Equity or AEA) to require 99-seat theaters pay its members a minimum wage for rehearsals and performances (with three internal rule exceptions), the threat it presents to the local ecosystem of small theaters, and the lawsuit filed by activists in the Pro99-seat movement against their own acting union.

It was delightful to see such the wide expanse of thespians in that steeply raked LATC theater:  Frederique Michel of City Garage rubbed shoulders with Jack Stehlin of the New American Theatre. Across the room, Simon Levy of The Fountain was seen in close proximity to luminaries like Janet Miller of Greenway Arts Alliance.  Just about everywhere you looked, there was someone vital and creative.

And, yet, who was missing from the event?  That answer came quick and easy:  Of course, it was any representative from the union, which declined all offers to serve on the panel.  That absence made a true impartial addressing of the city’s issues almost impossible.

Morris opened the event by presenting the AEA’s new contract, with its “carve-outs,” then a brief data PowerPoint (statistics provided by the Skylight theater company) anticipating the bona fide net effects if the AEA plan were to go into effect: Under the 99-Seat Plan, The Fountain Theatre would budget $42k for a five actor cast for 20 performances, paying a $25 dollar-per-performance fee plus rehearsal payments) – the Fountain has been exceeding the minimum payment requirements mandated by the Plan. This was contrasted against the union’s new mandatory minimum wage requirement for that theater. Even with the Fountain exceeding required payments under the Plan, the estimated production budget cost would more than double, from $9,000 to almost $19,000, for the performers alone. Other issues included the fact that the so-called “carve outs” (exceptions to the rules created to win over local theater companies in an unconvincing attempt to suggest that the changes would be minimal) either remove former health and safety protections or are onerously restrictive.

Morris read a letter from Rogue Machine Artistic Director John Flynn, who directly addressed the “carve out” exception that would allow producers of shows with 50 seats or less to stage no more than 16 performances, and no more than three shows per season, on a budget capped at $20,000 per show. Aside from suggesting that $20,000 would barely even cover a theater company’s rent for the run of a show, Flynn also noted that Equity’s ability to change the rules at their whim makes it impossible to trust the stability of any internal code.

The so-called “carve outs” allowed by Equity were also addressed at several points by panelists, with many noting their arbitrary nature: Panelist Vanessa Stewart, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Equity, noted that the exception supposedly allowing members of certain membership companies to continue as they have done could not be trusted. “AEA says membership can have a ‘carve out’, but we don’t know for how long,” she mused.

Also, said The Skylight Theatre’s artistic director Gary Grossman, also a panelist and a plaintiff in the current litigation, “If you believe the carve outs will last more than a couple of years before it’s all over, then I gotta bridge to sell you.”  

Panelist Michael Shepperd, artistic director of the Celebration Theater (and also a plaintiff), opined that singling out certain companies for “carve outs” will actually make work more difficult for actors of color. “It’s going to be harder to produce the 16 shows (the maximum allowed by the ‘under 50’ production carve out),” Shepperd noted. “It really disturbs me: There are already so few opportunities already. I’m not saying that anyone is racist, but there’s a status quo – and I’m saying that it’s going to be even harder to be involved in the theater community [for an actor of color].”

An interesting counterpoint was provided by director-producer Armina LaManna, sole supporter of the Equity plan on the panel. LaManna suggested that the protesters were missing the entire point of the campaign. “No one needs a union to be an artist. The union is for artists who want to work and get paid,” she insisted. “As long as we are willing to work for free, we can’t complain there isn’t enough funding.”

A particularly interesting aspect of the town hall was the surprising lack of venom and animosity towards Equity (and indeed LaManna’s dissident apologia was greeted with polite applause). The sentiment voiced again and again was that the conflict with the union is not about the concept of actors being paid more, but is about, as Flynn noted, “methodology.”

As panelist Rebecca Metz, who for some time has represented the Pro99 movement as Facebook page administrator, claimed, “I believe in unions. I’m not going anywhere! My problems are a matter of policy.” Grossman echoed, “This is not about actors being paid – or one group not wanting to pay actors. This is about methodology: It’s about how to do it.”

Panelist Larry Poindexter underscored this theme with the presentation of a proposal, which, was created with input from Metz and a variety of community groups and interests, and is intended as a template to meet AEA’s main objectives – actors getting paid – while still growing holistically from the community. Many of AEA’s ideas are present, but tweaked: Amongst other ideas, Poindexter hypothesizes a 24 performance run at the present agreement, but then moving to minimum wage if the show extends. (For one show per season, that 24-performance minimum can be extended to 40 performances, after which the show must go to full contract.

A single production would have a maximum budget of $40 thousand ($50 thousand for a musical) in this agreement. Performers would be classified as volunteers, and compensation be paid as reimbursement for expenses, until these shows proved their viability (26 performances or, once a year, 40 performances) before moving to contract. “We want more contract work,” Poindexter assured the crowd.

Poindexter’s proposal was greeted with polite interest from the audience – and even LaManna, who didn’t support the idea, noted, “Two or three years ago, it would have been a great step forward, but now, after all this time . . . ?”

Ultimately, the Town Hall was a wonderful occasion to prove that the Los Angeles theater community can come together in unity and respect, even with divergent opinions. And while Poindexter’s proposal has some merits, you almost see LaManna’s point: Why should Equity accept it at this time? If Equity refuses to consider alternatives that might lead to the contract work they say they want, while preserving the intimate theater ecology, the story of this feud is ultimately going to be dealt with in the courtroom.

Judge Terry J. Hatter presided over a similar lawsuit filed by Equity members against the union in 1988. At that time, he threw up his hands and essentially said, “You guys figure it out.” This is what led to the out-of-court settlement that became the basis of the 99-Seat Plan. If the case proceeds to trial, Judge Hatter could well do the same thing again, which underscores the importance of alternative plans, and why they should be considered by everybody.

Clarification: An earlier version of this article implied that the new, alternative template was created by Larry Poindexter with input from Rebecca Metz. It was actually developed with input from a wide variety of individuals and interest groups: specifically Alex Fernandez, Rebecca Metz, Leo Marks and Larry Poindexter, in consultation with James Babbin, Curt Bonnem, Ginna Carter, Roslyn Cohn. Mel England, Richard Fancy, Peter Finlayson, Julia Fletcher, Lisa Glass, Mike Lorre, Margaret McCarley, Kevin Meoak, Roses Pritchard, William Lewis Salyers, Vanessa Stewart, and Joel Swetow.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that under the new, alternative template, for the first 24 performances before a show moved to contract (a 40-performance cap might be utilized once per season), actors would be independent contractors. During this time, they would actually be volunteers, compensated via expense reimbursements.

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What Now?

AEA intends to implement its “promulgated” agreement on December 14. Town Hall tomorrow, August 22, at LATC.

By Paul Birchall

Photo: Illthud Dude by Creative Commons license 2.0

Los Angeles theater lovers can expect even more drama this week than usual, as this Monday LA STAGE Alliance will host their long-awaited “LA Theater Town Hall” on the Actors Equity-Pro99 case.

The panel, slated to take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles Theater Center (514. S. Spring Street, downtown LA), will be moderated by LA Stage Alliance Executive Director (and Stage Raw founding publisher) Steven Leigh Morris, and will include representatives from the plaintiffs of the Pro99 Seat side, as well as folks who support the AEA position – though the management of AEA itself has declined to participate.  RSVP at https://lastagealliance.com/calendar.

The press release notes, “Community members will be leading this town hall (including Tom Buderwitz, Gary Grossman, Armina LaManna, Rebecca Metz, Larry Poindexter, Michael Shepperd and Vanessa Stewart) and will be presenting attendees with an alternative proposal to Equity’s plan for consideration by the rest of the community.” 

LA STAGE Alliance is neither endorsing nor opposing this presentation, but is offering this forum as a platform for discussing it. 

Before the event, it behooves us to look at some of the recent developments in the AEA-Pro99 feud, just so we can get our miserable ducks into the appropriate rows.  Back in July, after the back-channel talks between the union and the plaintiffs broke down, AEA was served with a lawsuit (Asner, et al versus Equity) seeking an injunction against the union’s new Agreement, among other remedies.  AEA quickly submitted a Motion to Dismiss, which attempted to frame the suit as being merely an internal matter.  

The Pro-99 plaintiffs replied last week with a 34 page response, claiming, among other things, that AEA has violated its duty of fair representation by acting arbitrarily and in bad faith toward actors.  Kevin Delin’s thoughtful article for Footlights suggests that “the lawsuit will focus on the methodology that Equity used to change the system and whether that method followed the out-of-court 1989 Settlement Agreement that provided the basis for the 99-Seat Theater Plan, in operation until last year.

Meanwhile, a few days ago, inestimable Stage Raw theater critic (and former attorney) Myron Meisel wrote one of the most cogent and insightful summaries and analyses of the entire debacle, focusing particularly on AEA’s motives.  The article is a must read for any layman trying to discern Equity’s strategy, which at first seems merely tone deaf in terms of its membership’s needs, but then actually turns out to have an intent more malign.  

Among many other compelling observations found in the article, Meisel notes that the desire to establish a so-called “minimum wage” for small theaters is “merely a straw argument to figleaf its intention to scorch the earth so no professional theater will exist in Los Angeles except for those that can afford to offer contract pay.” 

And then, just last Friday on August 19^th, Equity launched a slick new website offering its point of view of the desire for minimum wage for 99 seat theaters.  On their private Facebook page, members of the Pro99 seat movement have already been most piquant in their ridicule of the site (in the site’s early iteration, it utilized a stock photo of Singapore as a stand-in for a shot of Los Angeles), but a cursory read of the union’s calculatedly folksy prose style suggests an attempt to define participants in the Pro99 scene as sleazy producers milking fortunes off the backs of actors, while speciously claiming that the changes proposed are so incremental as to make those who oppose it seem evil and greedy. 

The website’s disingenuous and assumed geniality are terrifying – it reminds us of the morale corroding World War II propaganda broadcasts by Lord Ha Ha or Tokyo Lily.  But there’s a malice in there as well:  By utilizing false equivalences and a mysteriously arrived at set of statistics, Union’s statements, such as “Only 26 companies are affected by the elimination of the availability of the 99-Seat Theatre Plan. That is about 14% of the organizations that our records show ever used the old 99-seat plan!” are almost baffling, given the scale of new restrictions and changes the new Agreement will impose. 

At the Town Hall coming up, I think I am most interested to hear how Pro99 will respond to the new Equity Website, in particular its sweeping claims that the minimum wage demand will not affect the bottom line of any of the local theater companies, or that the notion of being “allowed” to work three weeks at some under-50-seat stage is somehow equivalent to the fecund cultural scene that is at risk here.  I am also highly intrigued by the “alternative proposal” the plaintiffs mention.   One thing is for sure, though: We will be dining out on the conversation that takes place at this meeting for some time to come.

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Equity Ends Discussion with Pro-99 Plaintiffs; Michael Seel leaves Boston Court; Fringe Awards; and CTG’s Festival of Local Companies

By Paul Birchall

Clashing Symbols

NOTE 6/29/ 11 a.m.: The Plaintiffs’ Side in the AEA lawsuit is expected to release a statement today.

UPDATE: 6/29/ 7:40 p.m.: The Plaintiffs’ Statement follows this article.

Unpleasant news emerged Tuesday from the offices of Actors’ Equity Association, as the union unilaterally announced that they are exiting negotiations which had been aimed at preserving the basic constructs of the Los Angeles 99-seat system.

The union’s statement, which may be found here, is short on detail but suggests that the lawsuit filed against AEA by plaintiffs Ed Asner, French Stewart, Amy Madigan, and Ed Harris (amongst others) is likely to proceed to court — a potentially expensive endeavor for both the union and the Pro99 community.

The announcement defers any discussion of why the talks have broken off, instead stating: “Actors’ Equity Association and the plaintiffs in the Asner vs. Actors’ Equity litigation announced today that they were unable to resolve their dispute. Due to previously agreed upon ground rules, both parties are unable to comment on the actual discussions.”

However, the release also notes that “The 99-Seat Transitional Code, which was created to give theaters and producers time to make the transition to one of the contractual agreements or membership rules and was extended while the facilitated discussions with the plaintiffs were underway, will no longer be available, effective December 14, 2016.”

It is interesting — indeed, startling — that the union and Pro99 could not come to some agreement over months of negotiation and discreet discussion, particularly given that the plaintiffs clearly went the extra mile in not serving the suit. It’s fascinating to contemplate what must have been going on behind doors during the talks — and whether it was the union’s intransigence or some other issue that prevented a calm and rational settlement.

The statement goes on to say: “While we are disappointed that this dispute will enter the courtroom, Equity intends to vigorously defend itself against the meritless lawsuit and will file an immediate motion to dismiss. We are fully prepared to defend both the process and the substance of Council’s actions.”

Stay tuned: Stage Raw will be covering updates, including the inevitable release of the Plaintiffs’ response to Equity’s withdrawal from the negotiations.  

UPDATE:

Plaintiffs in Actors vs. Actors Equity Association
respond to AEA statement

Dear Equity Member and Los Angeles Theatre Community –

By now you have seen Equity’s Press Release and letter to their members attacking actors for their efforts to preserve intimate theatre in Los Angeles. Equity’s letter is malicious and false.

The Plaintiffs filed this suit on behalf of the entire Los Angeles Theatre Community after Equity ignored a referendum in which the Equity members of this community defeated Equity’s proposed changes by one of the widest margins in Equity’s voting history. We filed our lawsuit because Equity seeks to unilaterally abolish the 99-seat plan that was in place since 1989 by annulling the 1989 settlement agreement and dismantling the Review Committee – the major protection members have from destructive maneuvers by Equity to end intimate theatre.

Over six months we had a series of facilitated discussions with Equity. We hoped to forge a path for financially successful theaters to grow, step-by-step, stage-by-stage, to minimum wage contracts. We agree that theaters should pay artists more when they can. But they should not be closed down if they can’t. We want to see theatre thrive in Los Angeles. We want to see more contract work here. We will continue to urge Equity to reconsider; to gain an appreciation for the importance of small theatre to our City.

We are not New York. We are not Chicago. Models used in those cities, however successful they may be, should not be foisted on us here.

The talks were supposed to be confidential, but Equity, distorting the facts, now discloses that its true “intent,” never before disclosed publicly, was to target only 14% of the small theatres in Los Angeles. But Equity’s final goal is to do much more than that. It intends to destroy volunteer intimate theatre in Los Angeles and force almost all non-membership theatres to a minimum wage regime. We expect Equity, ultimately, to end all special status for membership companies.

If Equity enacts its new rules on December 14th as threatened, Equity members’ ability to work in 99-seat theaters will be almost entirely eviscerated, and many small theatres will be forced to close. We will be preparing and distributing a detailed analysis of how members’ opportunities will become more difficult, costlier and much less available.

If our lawsuit and other efforts are not successful, the era of volunteer small theater in Los Angeles will be over.

Equity paints itself as a victim. Not so. We did not “demand” negotiations. We offered a reasonable approach to resolving our dispute. We did not “blacklist” anyone. We represent a vibrant and creative community that supports the lawsuit and other efforts to preserve small theatre. We are not rigid ideologues. We are flexible and we only wish Equity would be flexible as well.

Our leadership committee worked arduously to try to resolve the dispute. This group and its leaders never acted inappropriately. We call on Equity to retract these malicious and false accusations.

We ask Equity what we have been asking them for three years – to listen to its membership and to be transparent. Instead Equity continues to vilify members who disagree with them, members who have the conviction and the courage to stand up and say “There is a better way.”

Our efforts were unsuccessful. So what happens next? We will serve the lawsuit and defend vigorously against Equity’s efforts to have the case dismissed. We will ask the NLRB to enjoin Equity from putting its new plan into place.

We will rally and we will be heard. “Let LA decide the fate of LA Intimate Theatre.”
 

Hollywood Fringe Closes with Awards and Prizes!

The cast of ANGEL’S FLIGHT, winner of the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Award for Best Cabaret Performance

This year, the Hollywood Fringe had plenty of competition for our attention: the horror of Orlando, the lunacy of Brexit and (in a more local way) the story out of Chicago concerning abuse at the Profiles Theater and the subsequent shocking implosion of Los Angeles’s Bitter Lemons website. 

Despite these distractions, I found theater’s ability to offer balm and comfort never more palpable than in this Fringe season, which furnished a wonderful showcase for plays both sublime and broad, artful and quirky, hilarious and tragic. You wouldn’t want to generalize about any one theme this year: 300 plus plays can’t be quantified, except that each is proof of the art’s vitality. 

A list of the winners of the peer-voted Fringe Awards can be found here.  My Big Fat Blonde Musical swept the Top of the Fringe, Musical, and Fringe First categories.  Although sincere congratulations are in order to the winners, I must confess that the list does not for me fully represent the breadth of the Fringe experience, which ranged from the jaw-dropping bizarreness of Christopher Johnson’s downright psychotic Punch and Judy to Kim Davies’s lusciously creepy sex tale, Smoke. I was also surprised that Janet Miller’s hilarious (and quite tuneful) Toxic Avenger: The Musical didn’t make the list. 

Michael Seel to Depart Boston Court 

Michael Seel, retiring Executive Director of the Boston Court Performing Arts Center

Startling news out of Boston Court, where managing director Michael Seel has announced his departure after 14 years. Seel has been with Boston Court since its opening in 2002 when he was hired as general manager. He rose to managing director in 2003, then became producing director in 2005 and was named executive director in 2008. 

The press release quotes Seel: ““While my 14 plus years associated with Boston Court have been the most rewarding of my lifetime, it is time for me to transition to another phase in my career. Thank you all for the tremendous support and great opportunities Boston Court has given me.”

Under Seel, Boston Court has become the sort of success story that’s often hailed as the reason why Actor’s Equity is wrong to suggest that mandating a minimum wage is no big deal. Their argument ignores the fact Boston Court’s equity-waiver productions make up only a fraction of the Center’s events and activities. 

The announcement states that the Board of Directors will perform a national search to find Seel’s replacement.  

 99 Seat Show Opportunities in Center Theater Group Festival.  

Kirk Douglas Theater (photo from Creative Commons)

And here is an intriguing opportunity worth sharing:  It’s not exactly brand new news, as the Center Theater Group announced it on June 13, but it just sounds so delightful I didn’t want it to go by unnoticed. 

According to the CTG’s Kristi Avila, any theater company that has performed a show in L.A. may apply to participate in the CTG’s “Block Party” celebration of Los Angeles theater. The “Block Party” will consist of three productions (which must have performed between January 1, 2015 and August 12, 2016) from small theaters around the city that will be given productions at the Kirk Douglas Theater. 

I reached out to Avila to learn more “We are looking for previously produced shows from 99-seat theatre companies,” Avila noted. “They will be performed using LORT D contracts.  Each show will be given two weeks of rehearsal and a CTG rehearsal space to remount the production and adapt the show to the Kirk Douglas space.” 

I asked if producers of shows currently performing at the Hollywood Fringe would be good candidates, and Avila replied, “One of the goals of the program is to further support these productions in whatever form that may be. There’s limited rehearsal time for major changes, though we will encourage each company to utilize the CTG resources available to them, such as space, costume, and prop support, technical support, and marketing and publicity.”

Center Theatre Group Associate Producer Lindsay Allbaugh, himself a former co-director and producer on the 99-seat scene, added, “This is a program that has been long in the works and took a small army of dedicated staff and a couple of very generous donors to pull off.”  She concluded by noting, “I believe partnerships and collaborations between the 99-seat community and CTG are vital to strengthening the local ecology.”  

That said, competition for one of the three berths is clearly going to be intense. For instance, I suggested to one Fringe producer that she be sure to apply to the Douglas program.  Her response was, “Oh, I certainly did! Along with 200 other submissions from other small theaters in town!” On the other hand, if you don’t enter, you don’t win.  And this just sounds like an incredible, no-brainer career-enhancing move.  It’s also a textbook way of growing a show from 99-seat to union scale that rebuffs the AEA plan.

[ssba]

Colin Mitchell Removed as Bitter Lemons Editor-in-Chief

By Paul Birchall

Colin Mitchell (Photo: Courtesy @thisstage)

Colin Mitchell, Editor of the controversial L.A. theater news, opinion, and aggregation website Bitter Lemons has been removed from his post as Editor, according to a post by the Publisher, Enci, on Saturday.

The cause of Mitchell’s termination was an opinion piece he wrote in reaction to journalist Aimee Levitt and Christopher Piatt’s compelling and horrifying piece last week in the Chicago Reader about abuse at the Profiles Theatre, an acclaimed non-Equity theater company located near Wrigleyville on Chicago’s North Side. The article’s portrait of the highly acclaimed theater company, controlled by the martinet company director and star, Darrell W. Cox, described productions of shows, including the latest work by Tony Award-winning writer Tracy Letts, in which Cox, as lead performer, allegedly beat, throttled, and molested fellow performers on stage. In a cavalier and slightly peevish tone, Mitchell questioned what happened to “personal responsibility” by the victims. His comments were widely construed as blaming the victim, though Mitchell anticipated that reaction in the body of his article, and preemptively denied that was his intent.  

Wrote Enci, “Bitter Lemons has always celebrated its open forum environment but Editor Colin Mitchell’s recent article within the Chicago theatrical community crossed from controversial into unacceptable. As a result, Bitter Lemons has removed Colin Mitchell as the Editor-in-Chief effective immediately.”

The day before Mitchell’s sacking, Enci had publicly apologized for Mitchell’s article. Meanwhile, producers of the Hollywood Fringe festival, now running for the next two weeks in Hollywood’s Theater Row, announced the same day that they had curtailed their relationship with Bitter Lemons. How Mitchell’s removal will affect Fringe policy remains to be seen. The Fringe and Bitter Lemons have been intricately allied for several iterations of the Festival.

Although Mitchell admitted in his article that “this Darrell W. Cox dude is some kind of messianic, power-hungry, disturbed freak and it’s right that he’s been found out and called out,” his editorial took the line that the performers in the show were all adults (though one actress was 17-years-old) and thus have some kind of “personal responsibility” to stand up for themselves and not “let” Cox take advantage of them. This, even when the performers are in a situation of limited power, and under the control of a sociopathic figure.

“Guy is putting his hands down your pants without permission, injuring people on stage and not rehearsing fight scenes and you’re worried about being ‘difficult’ I’m sorry, but if you allow crap like this to happen, then YOU are to blame,” opined Mitchell, despite the pattern of manipulation and intimidation described in the article.

Noted Levitt, “Cast and crew members described in disturbingly similar terms what they suffered or witnessed while working at the theater. They alleged that, since the 1990s, Cox has physically and psychologically abused many of his costars, collaborators, unpaid crew members, and acting students, some of whom also became romantically involved with Cox while under his supervision at the theater. Others in key roles in the theater, they say, did little if anything to stop it or turned a blind eye altogether.” 

According to the article, which compiled evidence from over 30 previous employees and performers, the company’s reputation for performing shows with absolute truthfulness – “whatever the truth requires” is their motto – belied violent jags that ignored the official fight choreography as well as the “safe words” that would supposedly curtail uncomfortable physical situations. The article details how, one night, “Cox squeezed the throat of one of his co-performers so hard, she says she began to see specks. She tried to squeeze his thigh and say the safe word they’d agreed upon to let him know he was hurting her, but he didn’t respond to the signal and held her throat so tightly she couldn’t make a sound.” In other scenes, the article describes how Cox was accused of ignoring the sexual choreography of a seduction scene to actually violate and grope a performer.

Photo: Sun-Times Archives.
Darrell W. Cox (left) and the Profiles Theatre Cast of
Killer Joe

That this story describes abuse of power and a cynical, predatory attitude against actors in positions of less power than those in authority is merely a reiteration of that same old story – one which we see here in LA often. What is unusual is that the Profiles Theatre’s reputation for edgy, adrenaline-driven work appears to rely on this abuse and violation, almost to achieve its critical bona fides.

Reaction to Mitchell’s piece was swift and irate, not just including furious comments on the article’s page (now taken down), which ranged from “Why, hello there, Male Privilege. We’ve unfortunately been expecting your point of view on this story,” to takes such as “Colin, you’re a disgrace,” and, “Congrats on officially being part of the problem. This is gross beyond words.”  

“Not In Our House,” an activist group in Chicago recently formed to demand a code of conduct for non-Equity companies, has directly addressed the scandal, noting, “We aim to prevent future abuses of power in the theatre community and provide a source of support for people who have been abused. We can work together for change and positive action so that we as artists can embrace the freedom of creativity safely, respectfully and with open arms.”

What this all means for the annual Bitter Lemons Fringe Roundtable, the coverage of Fringe events in the site, and, indeed, for the credibility of the reviews purchased by numerous individual productions from the Bitter Lemons Initiative, the oft-criticized and controversial “pay for play” review wing of the site, remains to be seen.

Support for Mitchell’s position comes from an article on the same site posted by long-time critic Jason Rohrer, who notes, “What’s wrong is the existence of a flourishing support-group culture, without a correlative culture supporting wisdom and care in personal and professional choices.” Rohrer goes on to suggest that if the historical cases of abuse had more merit, criminal charges would have been filed. “(Cox) is not accused of anything as clearly criminal as a rape, and those he has physically attacked – all of those quoted in the Reader article speak of events years old – have not brought criminal charges against him. And so he walks among us, and his victims circulate paperwork.”

Aspects of Mitchell’s article have also now gone national, with theater advocacy pundit Howard Sherman posting a piquant editorial late afternoon Friday on the Arts Integrity website. “Colin Mitchell (seems), in essence, to “blame the victims” of Profiles for not speaking up sooner,” notes Sherman. “Given this manner of engaging with a serious problem at one theatre that, unfortunately, is likely happening at other theatres and in the arts at large, Arts Integrity believes Bitter Lemons has gone from bitter to vile, and will no longer give further consideration to writing that appears on the site again.”

The hope is that the Chicago performers at Profiles Theatre either get their day in court or at least a chance to create a code of conduct for theater companies.

Editor’s Note: A prior version of the article referred to Mitchell being removed “from the [Bitter Lemons] organization,” however Enci’s announcement refers only to his being removed as Editor. Mitchell is a co-founder of Bitter Lemons and has a proprietary interest in it.