Yet, Rolin Jones, quickly upends expectations when he sits down to meet me with a glass of ice cold milk and a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie. The pie along with his wry smile and sharp sense of humor is disarming. Before I can ask him a question, he inquires after my health and a medical procedure that delayed our meeting.--BY MAUREEN LENKER
Of course, the big elephant in the room is the bitter conflict between AEA minimum wage and local actors working in the 99-seat theater scene. Any discussion of theater at this time must indeed necessarily center on the local scene’s current struggle for existence. As group chair Jon Lawrence Rivera noted, LATN is neutral on the AEA feud, on the grounds that LATN chooses to deal with issues of advocacy and marketing instead of the casting concerns of individual companies. Still, on their Facebook page, the group has hosted equally shrill diatribes from both sides of the issue. BY PAUL BIRCHALL
Of course, the big elephant in the room is the bitter conflict between AEA minimum wage and local actors working in the 99-seat theater scene. Any discussion of theater at this time must indeed necessarily center on the local scene’s current struggle for existence. As group chair Jon Lawrence Rivera noted, LATN is neutral on the AEA feud, on the grounds that LATN chooses to deal with issues of advocacy and marketing instead of the casting concerns of individual companies. Still, on their Facebook page, the group has hosted equally shrill diatribes from both sides of the issue. BY PAUL BIRCHALL
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE NOMINEES OF THE STAGE RAW THEATER AWARDS. Talk about "I can't get no respect." Rodney Dangerfield aside, the L.A. Weekly dumped its theater awards (honoring L.A.'s intimate theaters) after 36 years. Then the actors/stage managers' union Actors Equity Association marches into town with a plan to decimate the availability of union actors to those same theaters. But the community is pushing back in a big way, and so is Stage Raw. Using most of the L.A. Weekly's awards jury, Stage Raw announces its first Stage Raw Los Angeles Theater Awards, honoring excellence in theaters of up to 99 seats. BY STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS
There’s been some criticism of the performance of Alxander Jon in the central role of Robert. I am not surprised: The character of the just-turned-35 bachelor, moved to review his life choices as he interacts with the five married couples who are his closest friends, is one of the trickiest roles in modern musicals. Nonetheless, Jon’s performance is well-crafted from first to last and his casting is a masterstroke. Here’s why. . . BY BOB VERINI
As Actors' Equity Association plans to renew talks of changes to L.A.'s 99-Seat Plan at its January 13 membership meeting, MYRON MEISEL looks at the debate from the most overlooked party in the discussion -- the audience.
Myron Meisel has been tracking the work of enfant terrible Robert Wilson in L.A. since the late 1970s. Says Meisel, Wilson's recent staging of "The Old Woman" -- adapted from the writings of Soviet dissident Daniil Kharms, and starring Willem Dafoe and Mikhail Baryshnikov, presented by UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance -- was Wilson at his best. Meisel explains why.
Set Designer TOM BUDERWITZ has 25 rules for his craft. Among them: "Hold honesty above everything else. The truth is paramount. Make sure what you design is truthful. Is it the right space with the correct elements? Does it answer the questions in the text? Is it the right world for the play? That’s huge. Again, is it the right world for the play? Does it fit to the text? It had better. Is it a viable space? Does it make sense? Do the actors feel right within it? Is there the right amount of room to move (not too much, not too little). Your design must speak to the essence of the playwright’s play."
A Settlement Committee of the Los Angeles Producers League is currently negotiating the future terms of L.A.'s 99-Seat Plan with the actors' union (Actors' Equity Association). Matrix Theatre Company Producer Joseph Stern sits on that committee, and is very concerned about what he describes as the New York-based Union's historical antipathy towards L.A.'s small theaters. Equity's recent removal of long-time Union-rep Michael Van Duzer from the Western Region (for decades, Van Duzer massaged the changing terms of the Union's 99-Seat-Plan, and so preserved the hundreds of small theaters in L.A.) is not a good sign. In speaking with Stern, GUY ZIMMERMAN offer an historical overview on why the 99-Seat Plan is so valuable.
In his first-person account, director JAIME ROBLEDO describes the excitement and challenges of moving his production of Vanessa Claire Stewart's bioplay about Buster Keaton, "Stoneface," from its birthplace at the 99-seat Sacred Fools Theater Company in east Hollywood to the mid-size Pasadena Playhouse.