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Tom Ormeny and Maria Gobetti’s Victory Theatre Center
A Family Affair
by Dana Martin
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.
Intimate Forever
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Says Ormeny. “In my secret inner life I was thinking that there would be a major disruption. And it’s here. The whole world has sat at home now for weeks now. You can’t help but reflect on your own mortality.”
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Maria Gobetti and Tom Ormeny are in this thing together.
The Co-Artistic Directors of Victory Theatre Center (and long-time married couple) celebrate the 40th season of their acclaimed theater in the last place in the world they expected to be: at home.
This seems especially cruel since the couple strives to foster deep, personal connections to the by way of intimate theater spaces and an emphasis on closely shared experiences.
“It’s a family thing.” Ormeny explains. “It’s been intimate forever.”
The Victory was preparing to open the World Premiere of Jon Klein’s Love and Politics when lockdown orders came. The production was immediately halted.
“We closed before we opened.” Ormeny says. “It’s the first time in 50 years for me that I haven’t opened the show. The set was up, we were going into dress rehearsals, we were ready to go. All of the sudden the rug was pulled out from under us.”
“It wasn’t even sad, it was like, surreal” Gobetti adds. “We lost tons of money, everything within a week. I have 5,000 postcards ready to go, just sitting in my office!” she laughs. “Thank God I didn’t send them.”
Although the Covid-19 pandemic has currently shuttered every theater in Los Angeles indefinitely, the couple remains cautiously optimistic.
“We do own the theater.” Gobetti states. “But we put a mortgage on our home in order to do it. We know some people that will lose their theaters because they cannot come up with (the money). I don’t think we’ll lose ours, I mean for a while. But no one lasts forever.”
“There’s an opportunity for an awakening.” says Ormeny. “In my secret inner life I was thinking that there would be a major disruption. And it’s here. The whole world has sat at home now for weeks now. You can’t help but reflect on your own mortality.”
A Political Backdrop
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“There were times when we’d be woken in the middle of the night by people pounding on the door. People would take [my mother] away and we didn’t know if she’d come back because the secret police were going to question her. Sometimes both [my parents], sometimes just her.”
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Gobetti and Ormeny are clearly partners in all things. They tell one another’s story as if it is their own. They speak for each other and take turns bragging about and praising one other. They have similar passions as theater makers and both have a long history in politics.
Ormeny’s life has always been political and his theater roots run deep. Born and raised Budapest, Hungary, his father was Chief Engineer of the Hungarian National Theatre System and his mother was a famous actress.
“My mother was as recognizable in Hungary at the time as Elizabeth Taylor was here. She was one of the top stars. Starred in 36 feature films and was a member of the National Theatre.
Ormeny recalls many times as a child having the secret police taking his parents away for questioning.
“There were times when we’d be woken in the middle of the night by people pounding on the door. People would take [my mother] away and we didn’t know if she’d come back because the secret police were going to question her. Sometimes both [my parents], sometimes just her.”
“My mother was politically very active and very brave. She saved her friends during the Nazi occupation and never joined the party when the communists came in.”
Maria Gobetti got a taste of political theater on a national stage at an early age. At age 15, she hosted a radio show and worked at a local Baltimore radio station, WCBM.
“I worked for a news editor at the time when they had news commentators in Maryland. He would take me with him to D.C. cover elections, things like that, though I was just a kid. I worked summers at the station and did I a radio show every Saturday. It was a real eye opener for someone who was 15, 16. So I did that until I was 18 and came out (to California).”
Westward Ho
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“We get along.” Gobetti says. “In business we work together well too. I open and he closes. We fight over things, but not over the theater. If I’m directing a play and Tom walks into the building I always go ‘Oh, good he’s here.’”
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“I was always interested in plays, always in movies. I was always interested. I went to UCLA and got my M.A. there. Tom went to UCLA and got his M.F.A. We met in a Meisner class. Then we were in [Eugene O’Neil’s] Desire Under the Elms together and that was it. We just fell in love.”
“We had such chemistry onstage but we wouldn’t sleep together until the show was over.” Gobetti says with a laugh. “Can you imagine?”
Tom laughs. “We didn’t want to ruin the tension, you know?”
The couple moved in together shortly thereafter and worked many jobs to make ends meet. They both waited tables and took sporadic acting work. They had several incarnations of acting studios, mostly in run-down buildings around Hollywood. In 1980 they bought a building on Victory Blvd. in Burbank and began renovations for a theater and acting studio.
From the very beginning, the Victory Theater Center has been a labor of love. One of Ormeny’s brothers, an architect, drew up building plans. Another brother helped with construction.
“It’s a family place” Ormeny says. “My father had just retired and was helping us. He built a lighting patch board that is still there to this day.”
The team was well into construction when they heard the first plane fly overhead from nearby Burbank Airport. It hadn’t occurred to them they were so close to the airport.
“We were in the middle of building when all of the sudden there was this sound. And a plane went by. We’d been there 6 times! It was the first time. I thought I was going to faint.” Gobetti says.
“We had to take everything down and soundproof everything.”
Victory Theater Center’s inaugural play was Beth Henley’s Miss Firecraker Contest. During the show’s run, Henley won the Humana Prize followed by the Pulitzer for her play Crimes of the Heart. The young theater company was thrust onto the scene.
Over the past 40 years, Victory Theatre Center has produced over 100 plays, mostly new works; a remarkable and important feat.
“We’ve always been committed to originals.” Gobetti says. “We just love working with playwrights.”
Having lived and worked together for the past 49 years, Gobetti and Ormeny have clearly mastered the art of balancing one another.
“We get along.” Gobetti says. “In business we work together well too. I open and he closes.”
“We fight over things, but not over the theater. If I’m directing a play and Tom walks into the building I always go ‘Oh, good he’s here.’”
“Having your wife tell you what to do when you want to run your own process and she wants a result on the second rehearsal . . . there are difficult rides home.” says Ormeny.
“That’s not quite accurate.” Gobetti interjects. “I don’t want results right away. But I don’t want to wait until the very last minute.
“She pretty much has to wait until the last minute.” Ormeny replies.” I’m not an instant coffee kind of guy. It takes me time to put parts together.
Hanging in the Balance
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“Theater is not light entertainment. Theater is a challenge to reflect, and to enjoy reflecting. Every laugh in a theater is because that audience is surprised. Theater is here to surprise people. If you want to be surprised, you’re going to grow.”
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The couple now participates in weekly zoom gatherings. A project spearheaded by Skylight Theatre’s Gary Grossman, it’s comprised of 44 artistic directors from across the L.A. theater community, and it now includes two local support organizations: the Theatrical Producers League of Los Angeles and LA Stage Alliance. The plan is to form a united plan of action on how to deal with a wide variety of issues ranging from creating a united approach to re-opening theater spaces and practical thinking about how to safely distance an audience to addressing the recent AB5 law passed (independent contractors must be employees).
The Victory Theatre Center is currently producing an ongoing variety hour, Backstory, a bi-monthly evening of true stories, fiction and poetry via Zoom. They will also privately workshop Judith Leora’s new play, Heart Shaped Uterus.
“The theater can keep you company in a way that no other art form can.” says Ormeny.
“Theater in the United States from the outset has been thought of as sort of light entertainment. Theater is not light entertainment. Theater is a challenge to reflect, and to enjoy reflecting. Every laugh in a theater is because that audience is surprised. Theater is here to surprise people. If you want to be surprised, you’re going to grow. I’m hoping there will be a whole new appreciation for that kind of event.”
Gobetti and Ormeny have plenty of time these days to re-imagine the future of L.A. theater and their place within the community. They continue to move their community forward, to unite and to lead, even if it means foregoing the intimacy of a shared space for the time being.
“I hope we can open again soon.” Gobetti states. “We need each other.”
The Grossmans’ Skylight Theatre, by Julia Stier
Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott: The house they built (A Noise Within), by Marlena Becker
Frederique Michel and Charles Duncombe’s City Garage, by Julyza Commodore
David Melville and Melissa Chalsma’s Independent Shakespeare Company, by Ezra Bitterman
Jack Stehlin and Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, and their New American Theatre; by Steven Leigh Morris
