Perched Atop Boutiques and Bakeries Alike
A 22-year-old comes to a discover and appreciate L.A.’s smaller theaters
By Isadora Swann
New York City, Times Square
This article is part of the Stage Raw/Unusual Suspects Youth Journalism Fellowship
Walking through the artificially lit alleyways of New York City, I gazed at billboards of Broadway productions. I realized they all hung with familiar names. The Lion King, Wicked, Hadestown. That’s not to say these productions are not well executed, but rather an indicator of what gets the green light for production: Revivals and movie adaptations up the odds of box office success. The same princesses and villains that inspired and enraged people 15 years ago will do so today or, more to the point, make do today. Familiarity breeds content.
But is that really the primary purpose of the theater? After decades of travel, have we arrived in an artistic desert? A seed of an answer was planted for me last year when I traveled throughout Europe. Germany’s state-funded theaters are as non-traditional as ever. Britain’s National Theatre continues to run productions I had never heard of before. The fiscal safety of state-backed theater allows for creatively riskier decision-making. America’s commercial box office principles rely on stories already told, or faces already known.
Makara Gamble, JD Cullum and Philicia Saunders in “I, Daniel Blake” at the Fountain Theatre (2024) (photo by Cooper Bates)
Then again, is this really the plundering of imagination and adventure that it might seem? Maybe American audiences want the reruns. Maybe we long to relive the stories of our youth, craving reliability within a world that feels growingly uncomfortable if not out of control. Of course, Wicked is running in London too, while London’s West End is an unapologetically commercial enterprise, but it seems that European audiences (on the other side of the English Channel) expect to be challenged; from the work on their stages, it’s clear they believe that art should be more surprising than reassuring.
Theater is financially struggling everywhere, even within countries that receive governmental support. As theater makers, how then do we hang on to kind of creative freedom and dedication to artistry that may feed our souls and imaginations when our institutional theaters’ best chance of survival is to curtail those impulses? As we collectively face on-demand streaming and the threats of AI, how do we continue to take risks? And don’t forget the post-partum of COVID-19 as artists still suffer in the wake of the shutdown. Despite all of this, if you look past Broadway’s digital mega posters and flashing signs, many small theaters around the country continue to produce new, boundary-pushing, and community-oriented work. Even in movie mecca Los Angeles.
I found myself in New York City trying to scope out the scene. As a theater lover and practitioner, I have always been told “New York’s the place to go.” But after a stroll through Times Square, and a browse through ticketing websites, my enthusiasm faded. New York had been sold to me with just as much fervent advertisement as Los Angeles had. Both cities tempt the artist with destinies of fame and fortune. But I grew up far from that reality, steeped in Minneapolis snow three-quarters of the year. Theater found me at a young age, pulled me in and never let me go. I didn’t know what an audition or an agent was, and my parents had no more idea what a call sheet was than I did. But the warmth of the stage lights and the sticky microphone tape that left residue for days quickly became my beloved normal. The characters I played became my dearest friends, and the worlds I inhabited onstage defined my young imagination.
Heading to college, Los Angeles seemed like the perfect next step. Minneapolis had introduced me to acting, and Los Angeles would inaugurate me into the world of the professionals. What a naive perspective that was. To glaze over smaller theaters everywhere is like insisting Starbucks is the only place to buy coffee. That’s not to say you can’t get a really good grande frappuccino at Starbucks, but the brilliance of a local theater is its ability to cater to its community. Unlike the commercial pressure-cooker of New York, what’s now called “intimate theater” has some flexibility that permits risk-taking, like an old friend, with the skill and dedication of any of the greats.
Daniel Passer in “Heading into Night” at the Odyssey Theatre (2024) (Photo by Cooper Bates)
It has been somewhat of an unlearning for me to see past the coasts that glimmer with millions of dollars poured into stories told for a profit. As advertised, Los Angeles is primarily a “film town.” The same energy and attention that Broadway’s theaters receive in New York, the film and TV industries receive in LA.
Theater here seemed to me to be an afterthought, a hobby of the quirky, and those not quite successful enough to be otherwise occupied. But this semester working with Stage Raw has revealed to me the beauty of theatrical work done in a place that overlooks it. Productions like I, Daniel Blake at the Fountain Theatre, and A Clown Play (About…. Forgetting) at the Odyssey Theatre have changed my mind.
And then there are troupes such as Antaeus Company dedicated for years to performing classics on a quite small stage with some of the most accomplished television actors in the city.
As a theater student studying in LA, the stage is often marketed as a tool to hone your craft for the big screen. Many Oscar-studded actors all have local theater credits tucked among the folds of their golden robes. (Even the heralded George Clooney was weaned on L.A. theater.)
But the productions I saw at the Odyssey and the Fountain theaters were far more than an acting class with an audience; they were rich portrayals of humanity and true works of art. Theater is and does have the capacity to describe the indescribable and represent the unseen. Theaters scattered around the country house brilliant artists if only you seek to find them. They are there, scribbled into the calendars of the dedicated, and perched atop boutiques and bakeries alike.
