Living and Dying in L.A. - Part 2

STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS mentions that there are actually two festivals slated for the coming weeks, REDCAT’s New Original Works (NOW) Festival, for visual and performance artists, which played over the (July 21–24) weekend, and the Edge of the World Theater Festival (Edgefest), scheduled for October. Morris asks REDCAT’s George Lugg and Edgefest’s Ray Simmons to discuss the challenges each festival faces.GEORGE LUGG:The idea behind our program is that we have an ongoing showcase of products through the year, and the audience expectations are really about raw work. The purpose of the NOW fest is to take those works who have been developed through the year, through those workshops. But that’s still a special audience. You never see your main stage subscriber say, “Oh, I want to see something that’s really raw.” RAY SIMMONS:[Edgefest] has evolved over the years. We don’t have the resources to help theater companies develop new works for the festival, though the board has started to make noises in that direction. A particular aesthetic has grown out of the companies that founded it. We keep asking ourselves — what is edgy work? JON LAWRENCE RIVERA:Couldn’t the festival be about development rather than product? Edgefest may be the perfect place for that. LUIS ALFARO:If a few small theaters could form a consortium, there’s a better chance at funding — when the theaters approach funders arm-in-arm. I once went to [a funder] with that idea, and she said, I dare you to do it. So what’s the challenge? What’s the bravery? What’s wrong? SHAY WAFER:My question is, what would this consortium do? LUIS ALFARO:It would be able to fund what theaters already do. JESSICA KUBZANSKY:How do we organize it? I think it’s a fascinating idea — connecting writers. I think there is something about knowing a festival has been curated. ANTHONY BYRNES:Is there something different, a further definition of new play development, is there some level of definition beyond “It’s a new play” that we could find? STACIE CHAIKEN:A level of selectivity is very important . . . SASHA ANAWALT:[Investor] Eileen Adams and Laura Zucker [L.A. County Arts Commission] are working on changing the cultural profile of L.A. USC is interested in becoming more of a player in Los Angeles. Working out of the journalism school, I realized you’ve got to get [theater artists and audiences] when they’re young. Most of them come through the public schools and the Cal States. LUIS ALFARO:Then, how do we grow. How do you graduate? — and graduation means a lot of things to a lot of people. Is there a need? What do you graduate to? If there’s a notion of graduation, what is it? SANDRA TSING LOH:I’ve been thinking of the classical repertory theaters and the Jewish audience — God love ‘em, the saviors of the theater — the Tuesdays With Morrie set — San Jose Rep did it and it killed, with the old guy in the wheel chair going, “Yeah!” I’m always chasing Charlayne Woodard, doing her fill-in when ever she cancels. I’m thinking there’s something interesting about different models of theater. In L.A., there’s a self-producing aspect, a guerrilla theater. Graduation doesn’t mean going to a bigger and larger theaters, ’cause that can feel like the Ice Capades, and it changes the work. JON LAWRENCE RIVERA:At Playwrights Arena, we were at the Los Angeles Theater Center for a couple of years with the hopes of growing into a mid-size theater, and we realized, with a program of all new plays by local writers, we couldn’t even fill 99 seats. For us now, I’m not envisioning us going beyond 99 seats, I’m hoping that our products go to other productions, other cities. And that’s what’s happening: Edinburgh, New York, Poland. SHAY WAFER:We do new plays with the knowledge and the commitment that they’re going to go up, to be on the stage. CHAY YEW:I’m interested in — Tim Dang at [at East West Players] is interested in incorporating the [former Mark Taper Forum lab] Asian Theater Workshop — I keep thinking about cities like Chicago, it’s just like L.A., but the difference is that the Chicago actors can’t find TV work, so they put their energy into making their theater what it is. They’re very proud. Can we learn from cities like Chicago, but I’m not sure, because we double-cast, because one of them is going to go to a commercial. LUIS ALFARO:Chicago suffers from something we do too, they’re not very diverse — If we create a new diversity, we can empower theaters to do new work. CHAY YEW:It’s about people inside the theaters. Let’s face it, a theater is just an empty building. The Mark Taper Forum is not the Mark Taper Forum without Gordon Davidson. It’s going to be a new theater. We have a challenge because L.A. is so wonderfully diverse. Even Gordon Davidson has said, after all those decades of working here, he still doesn’t understand L.A. How does new work describe the city, and how does the city define new work? ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN speaks about ethnic-specific theaters that she’s been following.STACIE CHAIKEN:But diversity is not about one ethnicity. Ethnic specific work is not diversity. SYVLIE DRAKE:The thing you’re not looking at here, I look at Luis Valdez [author of Zoot Suit, co-produced by Teatro Campesino and the Mark Taper Forum in 1978] and it was so exciting. If the work is exciting enough, people will come. You can’t just say, okay, now we’re going to do Latino theater. It has to come up from something inside. Those artists have to show up. It’s very difficult to legislate all of that. LUIS ALFARO:I think you have a point. But the bravest Latino artists are coming out of different entities — notethnic-specific. The idea is to be brave enough to do that new work, then inspire the community to come and see it.