“The pandemic has affected everyone,” says Grossman without hesitation. “I don’t think any company or business is the same. And we gotta find a whole new model in order to work in our industry… The idea of small companies, small 99-seat theater companies surviving in this climate, it’s going to be very difficult.”
Domenico says the idea for the company came after learning that one of the guys in his unit had committed suicide. He was sitting in his acting class at Marymount Manhattan College when he received a text with the devastating news. “Shortly afterwards, pictures started circulating online of one of our bases being overrun,” Domenico shares, “and the guys were texting one another, Do people back home even know what we did over there or even care?” With that question in mind, Domenico says it hit him: “I know what would fix this: a theater company.”
Starting to see the light of the end of the Covid Tunnel begs the question: Is there a future for these pandemic innovations?
"Through the TeenTix Pass Program, teenagers, ages 13-19, can sign up for a free TeenTix Pass, which will allow them to purchase day-of-show tickets for just $5 from participating arts organizations, including concert venues, galleries, museums, and theaters. To help teens make the most of this program, and to make navigating LA’s abundant arts scene easier, the local chapter has created the LA.TeenTix.Org Calendar, which posts all listings available on a specific day."
What the reversed County policy does, however, is throw shade on the hundreds of indoor productions being planned – including the entire Hollywood Fringe Festival, which uses tiny indoor spaces -- and the accompanying confidence that the pandemic is behind us.
Fellow colleague Deborah Klugman was in the room at the time and assured him that he was not crazy. He leaned forward in his hospital bed – not an easy task, when hooked up to oxygen – to remark in a now piping treble cleff, “They they must be crazy!”
"When is a play about race in this tragically divisive nation of ours ever not timely?"
Stoccardo is among an elite pantheon of Los Angeles actors, living and dead, whose every moment on the stage appears sculpted from some combination of craft and charisma. These would include the late Chris Pennock, a maven of The Actors’ Studio, and Pamela Gordon, who showed up on the Theatre of NOTE Stage, as well on stages such as the currently shuttered Evidence Room.
For starters, SB 805 would bring countless of impoverished theaters across California, out of the shadows of non-compliance with AB 5 – a risk with draconian financial penalties.
Chris was a very good actor, on Broadway in 1967 in The Rose Tattoo and A Patriot for Me, before being contracted to the soap opera, Dark Shadows. He also appeared on General Hospital, Baywatch and Melrose Place, and countless other television shows, and in the 1982 movie Frances, opposite Jessica Lange. He was a lifetime member of The Actors Studio.