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Paul Birchall’s Got It Covered:

The Year’s Five Top Stories, L.A. Theater-Wise

By Paul Birchall

One thing folks love at the end of the year is a nice end-of-the-year list, and I am perfectly delighted to look through my “Desk Calendar of Fun” to recall the several comparatively most important stories in Los Angeles in 2015. 

I say “comparatively” because really, one can’t help but note that these stories will already be known to folks who inhabit the murky netherworld of Los Angeles theater. If you are familiar with them, you are one of the club; it’s part of the “lore” — the code and key that lets you in. But just because the New Year loves a look back, let’s have a peek.  

1. Actors Equity Attacks the Los Angeles 99-Seat Theater Plan

Pro-99’s March rally in front of North Hollywood’s AEA headquarters (Photo by Bill Raden)

This year’s main story is the one that we are going to be hearing about more and more in the months ahead: the clash between Actors’ Equity and its union members here in L.A. who desire to perform “voluntarily” in theaters containing 99 seats or less. Equity’s still mystifying decision to set aside the 99-Seat Plan established through fierce negotiation back in the 1980s has set into play a ferocious backlash over the last year.  

The summer was filled with protests: In March, local AEA members who supported the 99-seat scene marched on the union’s own headquarters. In April, AEA actually held an advisory referendum, the purpose of which was to determine how local members felt about the 99-seat program. Though the referendum was worded in such a way as to create maximum confusion amongst voters, over 60% of them voted to maintain the status quo. The results were essentially ignored by the leadership, who instead offered incremental changes to the proposal. In May, when the time to vote for new leaders arrived, the president of Equity was voted out and Kate Shindle, who had strongly lobbied with the 99-seat faction, won.  

With the union settling in to wait out the clock (the changes were due to go down June 1, 2016), the Pro99 faction filed (but withheld from serving) a lawsuit that forestalled the action. This was in late October, with several prominent members —  including Ed Asner, Gary Grossman, and Vanessa and French Stewart —  citing breach of contract and breach of good faith. As of early December, the two sides had agreed to quietly discuss the situation. Little news is leaking out about the negotiations – and that seems promising to me.  

2. The LA Weekly Cuts Theater Coverage; Stage Raw Adds to It

Photo courtesy laweekly.org

The L.A. Weekly is supposedly the “alternative” paper for culture and the arts in Los Angeles, so its decision some time over the summer to essentially cut all long form theater coverage sent strong ripples throughout the theater community. The decision to also terminate funding for the LA Weekly Awards, which ended the 35 year tradition of honoring and celebrating the city’s not-for-profit and intimate theater productions, was appalling news for local arts practitioners.  

The gap in both local coverage and long form reviewing is currently being addressed by Stage Raw, but the fact that the LA Weekly was a huge newspaper while Stage Raw is an emergent, albeit ambitious, website cannot be ignored. A rave review from Stage Raw does not yet pack quite the same wallop as a rave review from the Weekly, even when the review might be by the same writer. 

Stage Raw has also stepped up to produce the former Weekly Awards — if only because it would be a sad thing to let such a good party fall by the wayside. The change has made for some strange situations as theater critics develop unexpected new job skills: I remember wearing my finger tips to the bone the week of the Awards, tying those damn gold ribbons around the awards scrolls. But we’ll do anything to keep the party going!

3. The Think Tanks Cometh

A Los Angeles Theater Network meeting on Diversity (Photo by Jessica Salans)

Now that the local theater scene is grappling with what corporate self-help books call “strategic planning,” many opportunities have arisen for groups to get together and hash over plans and thoughts on the future. The Los Angeles Theater Network, which launched in the spring of this year, consists of theater practitioners from a number of smaller companies who now meet regularly to discuss how to promote diversity, marketing, and creativity within the region. Though the group is non-partisan (meaning they profess not to have an opinion on Pro99), it does provides a format that’s incredibly nurturing for differing points of view. Meetings are usually headed by luminaries such as Jon Lawrence Rivera and Ashley Steed, and those attending read like a who’s who of the small theater scene.  

On a related note, Stage Raw hosted a four-part seminar that addressed many of the same issues dealt with in their “Visualizing the Invisible” series. Noted panelists in the series included LA Times critic Charles McNulty, Rogue Machine’s John Flynn, and Sheldon Epps, artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse. 

Elsewhere, the death of print has led to an abundance of smaller theater-related websites —such as Footlights and Broadway World — which are serving to pick up the slack. Now when a story breaks there is competition to “scoop” the other websites and get it online first. It is actually rather healthy and amusing to watch.   

4. Morris to LA STAGE Alliance. Rob Kendt to Edit American Theatre 

Steven Leigh Morris addresses last year’s First Annual Stage Raw Theater Awards (Photo by Tim Norris)

Also big news this year was the promotion of two well-known professionals in the theater journalism community. Steven Leigh Morris has been hired as executive director of the LA Stage Alliance, the city’s go-to organization for the advocacy and furthering of matters relating to local theater. In this position Morris will work to develop Los Angeles theater and keep it prominent, both locally and nationally.  He will use his already terrifyingly enormous rolodex to liaise with political leaders and decision makers — all for the benefit of the arts community we know and love.  

Meanwhile, the hiring of former Backstage West editor Rob Kendt as the editor of American Theater magazine is a huge deal. Kendt cut his teeth in arts journalism in LA and he knows this city as well as any in the country. When he commissions articles on our community, it’s done using local writers and with an awareness of the challenges. And if an important issue arises here, we can depend on Kendt to be aware of it in a way that few journalists on the East Coast can be. It’s a good thing for us, indeed.

5. Fall and Rise of Sacred Fools and Theater Companies Ousted by Economic Trends  

The news that Sacred Fools is moving into the shuttered Lillian Theater complex —purchased by Fools’ patrons Patrick and Carlyn Duffy who will act as the company’s landlords — is so fresh that the ink is still wet on the press release. It’s also a story with ramifications that will become obvious in the months to come, as we wait to see how Sacred Fools will handle the numerous spaces they’ve just inherited and whether any will be available for the Hollywood Fringe this summer. That Sacred Fools will preserve the Lillian spaces as theaters on Theater Row is wonderful news, but we can’t help but feel sorry for the companies that faced similar economic woes and didn’t have a patron to help them move up.  

Although theater companies come and go all the time, this has been a year when we’ve become more aware of the lifetime trajectory of theater real estate. A theater company moves in and takes up space in a run-down economically depressed area. Before long, the theater has helped anchor the neighborhood. Rents rise, and the landlords decide that they can find a tenant who will pay more than the theater company which started the upscaling process. Out goes the good theater company, and in comes a new carpet store or a Walgreens. We saw this a number of times this year, with the Celebration Theatre, the Banshee and The Elephant Theatre Company. Many of the resident companies manage to find another space and go from good to better, but many don’t. However, this is the year when people truly started to identify this disturbing gentrification phenomenon.  

Etcetera

Spring Awakening (Photo by Kevin Perry)

Of course there were other incredibly important events over the year. For instance, there was the amazing journey of Spring Awakening, a production which moved from the Deaf West theater to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts to Broadway and then to the White House. It is indeed one of the year’s great inspirations. 

And runners up for any list of significant events would have to include some national stories, such as the debate over the Howlround Jubilee, in which participating theater companies were asked to produce only plays by authors of diversity. Although some have found fault with the idea of excluding white male authors, the Jubilee’s basic concept has opened up a compelling discussion about race consciousness in the theater.