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Frédérique Michel and Charles Duncombe’s City Garage
A Thirty-Year Passion Hangs in the Balance
By Julyza Commodore
Charles Duncombe and Frederique Michel
This article is part of Stage Raw’s series on domestic partners who run Los Angeles-area theaters, on how they’re coping under a stay-at-home order, and what they envisage as a future, after the plague. The second in this series, on David Melville and Melissa Chalsma’s Independent Shakespeare Company, was posted earlier this month.
This particular interview is also part of the Z. Clark Branson/Stage Raw/Wallis Annenberg Center Grow@The Wallis Young Journalists’ Initiative, where the writer, Julyza Commodore, is a Mentee.
Low-Level Panic, Relieved by Writing and Cooking
in front of their current venue in Bergamot Station
“I knew right away that I wanted to work as an actress on stage and then that was it. I was in love with the theater and will always be in love with the theater, and right now I am suffering, because I am not working in the theater.”
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Like many of us during the Covid-19 pandemic, husband and wife team Charles Duncombe and Frédérique Michel of City Garage Theatre are spending a great amount of time at home. (Michel is the Artistic Director, Duncombe is the Executive Director.) Stage Raw spoke with them three weeks ago on Zoom.
City Garage Theatre, founded by Michel and Duncombe in 1987, serves as a creative hub that presents classical and contemporary works, many of which are international and take deep dives into political and social injustices, with authors ranging from Molière and Ionesco to Werner Fassbinder and Václav Havel, Sarah Kane, Sarah Ruhl, Neil LaBute and, recently, Kosovar playwright Jeton Neziraj, plus several adaptations and new works by Duncombe – mostly heady, sometimes farcical fare that appeals to select and dedicated followers.
“It’s a uniquely personal vision,” Duncombe says.
In its three-decade-plus tenure, the company has received an “Otto,” (2004), a New York-based national award for political theater, honored alongside Robert Wilson, El Teatro Campesino, and Charles L. Mee. In 2009, Michel and Duncombe received LA Weekly’s “Queen of the Angels” award for “decades of directing and producing scintillating, politically charged theater that challenges audiences to reconsider their assumptions about the nature of politics and the nature of theater itself.” And in 2011 the company won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for Sustained Excellence in Theatre.
Originally from Paris, Michel was born into a family full of artists. “At the age of 16,” she says, “I knew right away that I wanted to work as an actress on stage and then that was it. I was in love with the theater and will always be in love with the theater, and right now I am suffering, because I am not working in the theater.”
The former actress turned artistic director . . .
It is clear that Michel yearns to reconnect with her community. On the other hand, Duncombe has found solace as he exclaims, “I’m writing all day!” After speaking highly of her husband’s writing skills, Michel interjects, “He’s writing, he’s cooking because he’s a great chef, so he’s very happy.”
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a low-level panic brought on by these strange and uncertain times.
“It was the middle of March when Frédérique was hard at rehearsal for Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and was very excited and working away with a great cast and suddenly it all screeched to a halt,” says Duncombe.
On surviving the pandemic financially, Michel reflects candidly, “It is going to be an enormous challenge and we will have to count on a lot of help, if possible, from the government and our patrons. We hope to be able to make it but it’s uncertain, which would break our hearts if we had to stop more than 30 years of hard work.” And though the company is currently investing its resources into virtual theater, “There is no substitute for live theater,” Michel insists.
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Jack Stehlin and Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin’s New American Theatre
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Like Dancing With a Cousin – A Virtual Silver Lining
THE BOURGEOIS GENTLEMAN (2018) photo by Paul M. Rubenstein
We hope to be able to make it but it’s uncertain, which would break our hearts if we had to stop more than 30 years of hard work.” And though the company is currently investing its resources into virtual theater, “There is no substitute for live theater,” Michel insists.
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Although they are unable to stage this production right now, they have found a virtual silver lining by creating the City Garage Theatre Virtual cabaret, where company members are posting monologues from past City Garage productions as a way to keep those creative juices flowing.
ORESTES 3.0: INFERNO (2012), photo by Paul M. Rubenstein
Says Michel, “We were experimenting with video and realized it would be fun to do City Garage classic Fridays by showing scenes from some of our past work with some anecdotes about making it with actors.”
On April 17th, the company broadcast its production of Frederick of Prussia/George W’s Dream of Sleep, a production that ridiculed then-President George W. Bush, and which they were compelled to stop because of 9/11 – the biggest national crisis of this century until the corona virus.
Michel and her pup Archie
They’ve also started adding some previous productions to the company’s YouTube channel. Michel mentions that because City Garage Theatre’s style is specific to them, she wanted the videos to reflect their artistic sensibilities. Duncombe explains, “We’re in the process of putting together a series of online readings, as well as a play from Jeton Neziraj. So, like everybody else, we’re trying to figure out how to do virtual theater.”
Michel adds, “We are trying to find a way to be able to put some kind of production together with everyone performing remotely. We have no idea how long the current situation is sustainable. We’re going month to month like everyone else, hoping for this nightmare to end soon.”
While they are figuring out the artistic side of things, they have also had to figure out the business aspect as well. Luckily, the theater is on city owned property and is under rent protection. However, they openly share their worries as well.
A Creation Story
When asked how they met, Michel jokes, “Don’t ask him that because you’ll be here for three hours.” Duncombe then promises a shorter version:
“Frédérique was directing a production of Miss Julie and in front of the theater, they had posted a notice that they were looking for people to work on the set. I was looking at the notice when she came by and she invited me to come back the next day to be part of things, so I came back the next day and she said to the cast, ‘Oh, here’s the man from the street who is going to build the set.’”
That story took place in 1985, when Michel, was directing at the Off-Main Theatre in Santa Monica. They began working at that moment, founding the company in 1987. Since its founding, Michel has directed all of the company’s 100-plus productions, and she’s designed all of the costumes. Meanwhile, Duncombe has built every set, as well as produced each show in addition to providing production, prop, and lighting design.
City Garage has operated out of at four different locations, all in Santa Monica. It began in 1987 at the Off-Main Street Theatre in Ocean Park, moved to the Santa Monica Pier in 1989 for a two year residency in the landmark Billiard Building, and from there, in 1994, to its namesake location in a former police parking garage in the alley behind the Third Street Promenade. The theater was eventually gentrified out of the Promenade, and found its new digs in 2010 among the art galleries of Bergamot Station, a stone’s throw from Expo Line’s 26th Street/Bergamot light rail stop.
Michel and Duncombe send a clear impression of being great collaborators.
“When I met her, I was very inspired by the way we shared a creative outlook,” Duncombe says. “It fell into a very organic partnership right away.”
Michel holds firm in her artistic vision, which consists largely of red and black costumes against a sky-blue backdrop, and arch choreography. “The way I direct is more European style,” she explains.
Her strong artistic vision is not only palpable in the productions put on by the company, but also in its organizational structure: City Garage Theatre is comprised of 20 dedicated volunteer-members, and a production team of only three (Paul Rubenstein helps with publicity and graphics.).
You can view their Virtual Cabaret videos from their company members on their Facebook page as well as on chuffed.org. During this time, it may seem as though we aren’t able to support theaters in the absence of live productions, but City Garage is gladly accepting donations: https://citygarage.org/support-us/.
