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This Week’s Roundup:
The Ovations, the future of Stage Raw in the day-to-day absence of SLM, Zachary Pincus Roth leaves the Weekly, Stage Report and Jerry Charlson
By Paul Birchall
Standing O
Deaf West’s SPRING AWAKENING (photo by Kevin Parry)
Deaf West’s production of Spring Awakening (born at 99-seat Deaf West, transferred to the Wallis Annenberg Center and now on Broadway) swept the Ovations on Monday night, in a ceremony amiably hosted by French Stewart and Vanessa Stewart. “Tell me about your first Ovation Award,” Vanessa slyly goaded her husband, who responded with a deadpan glare. “How about your first Drama Critics Circle Award?” Another glare.
But the elephant in the Ahmanson – the AEA lawsuit, filed by Equity members against their own union, which is trying to restrict their ability to perform in intimate theaters – went unmentioned. Not that it needed to be. The multiple wins for Spring Awakening were perhaps the best argument for our best performers being permitted to volunteer in 99-seat theaters. They’re now on Broadway, performing under Equity contracts. And what exactly is wrong with that picture?
The full list of winners is here
The Future of Stage Raw is Upon Us
So SLM is leaving the building. Well, perhaps.
If you’ve been following the blogs this week, you will already be reasonably familiar with our top story — that is, Stage Raw founding editor and long-time LA Weekly theater critic and editor has accepted an offer to become the Executive Director of the LA Stage Alliance, starting in December. LASA is a not-for-profit arts organization whose purpose is, according to its mission statement, “building awareness, appreciation, and support for the performing arts in Los Angeles.” And they also produce the Ovations, yo!
This is huge news, and for a variety of reasons. The cultural environment is now going to gain an extraordinarily charismatic and seasoned advocate, who happens to be as familiar with the state of the arts as anyone in Los Angeles can be.
One thing that is really nice about hiring an opinion journalist for this kind of job is that you really know where he’s coming from: Morris has written about all angles of the theater and the Los Angeles cultural scene for decades. Few are as familiar with and have his depth and breadth of familiarity with the subject. It will indeed be interesting to see what happens when you take someone who has covered the issues concerning the city’s cultural landscape, and actually put him in a place where he can do some good. Well done Steven!
Of course, given that this is Stage Raw, our interest in this story comes from a different direction from the Stage Alliance side. You might very well ask what is going to come to the venerable institution called Stage Raw once Morris has left the building. I mean, we are so used to this system now: All of us Stage Raw writers at our desks in the gigantic copy room of the ginormous Stage Raw skyscraper downtown, with Morris in his glass walled “editor’s office,” demanding that we all “get the story” and “fast,” and with us calling out “Stop the Presses!” upon the completion of our review of the late night show at the Hudson. Why, we could have gone on like this forever! Well, yes, of course, the reality is nothing at all like this – that’s more The Daily Planet than Stage Raw.
However, one thing I am assured of is that Stage Raw will continue its grand tradition of almost two years. Morris says he’s withdrawing from the day-to-day operations of the website – assigning, editing, posting, etc – and will delegate those roles to staff, and will guide the more general direction of Stage Raw. The Stage Raw Theater Awards is expected to continue. The staff here is dedicated to the point almost beyond all reason, and remains enthusiastic. The writers, especially my fellow critics, have all sorts of reasons to want to continue their service to the theater community and as long as there’s a template and a show to see, we’re going to keep seeing them. The reviews are going to keep coming. After all, we do this because we love it and because there are so few other outlets where impressive stage work can be reviewed.
Zachary Pincus-Roth Leaves LA Weekly
Standup comedy has been among Zachary Pincus- Roth’s avocations
In more news of exits and entrances, which really tells volumes about the state of arts journalism in our glamorous town: LA Weekly‘s former Deputy Editor for Arts & Culture Zachary Pincus-Roth is leaving for Washington D.C., to be replaced by Gwynedd Stuart, just in from Chicago. The ease of Pincus-Roth’s departure is further evidence of the Weekly’s lack of interest in the local theater scene. Mind you, according to an e-mail he sent out last week, Pincus-Roth is leaving to take a job as the pop culture editor of The Washington Post, so it’s quite a promotion for him as well. But I think one might say that if things were healthy at the Weekly, he might not have been so sorely tempted to make such a departure.
I always liked Pincus-Roth a great deal and found him to be funny, smart, and extremely likable. It’s a good thing that he is going somewhere better where his abilities will be well used. The truth is, though, the Weekly has become a noonday shadow of itself.
For none of these developments can one actually blame Pincus-Roth, but one can’t help but think that the atmosphere at the paper has become rather toxic for someone fighting to maintain a status quo of arts coverage in one of the country’s most vibrant cities. So good luck to Zach on his new gig – and good luck to the new gal in town.
Jerry Charlson’s Long and Winding Recovery
Charlson (far right) with fellow publicists l-r: Ken Werther, David Elzer, Judith Borne, Lucy Pollak and Phil Sokoloff (Photo by thisstage.la)
We have all been very sorry to hear about the illness of Jerry Charlson, an event that we’ve kept quiet about for a few weeks, but feel we can talk about now, since other blogs are doing so. Charlson, a long time publicist specializing in shows on the 99-seat circuit, collapsed in his apartment about a month ago and has been in the hospital since then with pneumonia.
Charlson is one of the really really good ones in this town – a publicist for small theaters who has been a dedicated fighter for the scene as long as most of us have been here and much before. Jerry’s passion for the theater has always been infectious and, with his good humor, wit, and acerbic attitude (he was often well aware that the shows he sometimes repped were barking dogs and gobbling turkeys) made him a delight to deal with. Our understanding from e-mails from Beth Hogan, producer at the Odyssey Theatre, which is one of Charlson’s main clients, is that Charlson’s recovery is going to be long and arduous. We all wish him well and I for one almost can’t imagine LA theater without having him around.
Covering the Coverage
An interesting memo out of New York from former Backstage West editor-turned American Theatre-editor Rob Kendt about the advent of a new organization called Stage Report. This could potentially have quite an impact here in the Los Angeles area and on theater coverage in particular. Stage Report is an aggregator site, based on the idea of Stage Scene, a rating service Kendt worked with in NY. Stage Report will assign someone in each city the site services and that person will read every review of a non-for-profit production. The reviews will be synthesized into an impartial grade for the production. According to the proposal, the agency does not list Los Angeles in its plans – which more than anything else speaks volumes as to how LA theater is viewed in the National Scene.
If you will recall a couple of months back at the Stage Raw sponsored seminar, one of the issues that became part of the discussion was the need for a creditable, impartial aggregator of shows. Interestingly, LA Times theater critic Charles McNulty, one of the members of the panel, went so far as to deplore aggregators as “the enemy of nuance.” I can certainly understand that opinion: As a critic myself, I hate when my reviews are boiled down to a thumb’s up or a thumb’s down. And criticism is meant to be contextual, not a report card. However, in the general public, there is certainly a market and an avenue for report card aggregation, and it will be very exciting and delightful if Stage Report brings its big guns to Los Angeles.
