As part of his five day series at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in mid-March, theatre monologuist and provocateur Mike Daisey moderated a community roundtable between eight diverse leaders in the LA theatre community and a full house of several hundred theatre artists, patrons and supporters.  Held after a sold-out performance of his famed monologue, HOW THEATRE FAILED AMERICA, Mike asked a series of pointed and probing questions to the panelists and audience members, hoping that the monologue and the roundtable would provide a basis for ongoing dialogue and action in the theatre of LA in this time of change in our country.

The panelists included CTG Artistic Director Michael Ritchie, LA Stage Alliance Executive Director Terence McFarland, Artistic Director of Critical Mass Performance Group Nancy Keystone, Actress/Playwright Adriana Sevan, Artistic Director of Furious Theatre Company and Associate Artistic Director of Pasadena Playhouse Damaso Rodriguez, Artistic Director of Odyssey Theatre Ensemble Ron Sossi, Critic-At-Large from LA Weekly Steven Leigh Morris, and Cornerstone Theatre Company member Bahni Turpin.

The hour long conversation on the stage of the Douglas touched on many topics, with a few key subjects that came up time after time.  The most prominent of these addressed the ‘culture’ of Los Angeles, as it related to the attitude of the everyday Angelino to attending, supporting, or even being aware at all of theatre in Southern California.    Ron Sossi in particular discussed how because of the pervasiveness  of the Film/TV entertainment industry, theatre doesn’t have the appeal it can in other major cities.

“If you’re a successful meat-packer in Chicago,” Sossi suggested, “it’s really sexy to give money to the theatre.  But if you work everyday in entertainment, your money tends to go to hospitals, or something else that’s different from what you do every day.”

An audience member bemoaned the fact that in LA he doesn’t find everyday folks talking about theatre around the water cooler - instead reserving their casual conversation for television shows and non-local art and entertainment news.

This led to a discussion of the profusion of theatre in LA (at last count there are more than 300 theatre companies in the Greater LA Area, producing over 1000 full productions annually, and many more one-time or alternate style events), and the ‘ongoing contradiction’ that theatre artists face.

“We have two contradictory needs - to be true to our art, and to be popular,” asserted Michael Ritchie.  “Center Theatre Group has 3000 seats to fill every night, so making choices to be popular is very important, but that’s not our mission or what we’re fundamentally about.”

Sossi agreed.  “You always have to be aware of how much of your energy is going into the art that you really want to do, and how much you’re willing to twist your art to attract more audiences…  We’ve built our audience over many years, so now they trust us and will come see whatever we do.  It’s much harder to do that, of course, with one show. ”

Further conversation on this topic raised a fundamental question:  Do the theatres in LA exist to serve the artists, or to serve audiences and local communities?   Bahni Turpin and Adriana Sevin made impassioned statements about the number of Los Angeles residents who are not represented on LA stages, and whose voices are not being heard in the plays being written and produced on any of the stages in town.  To draw more audiences, they argued, it is key to speak to the people who live in this city and who would benefit most from attending the theatre, instead of only creating theatre that appeals directly to the artists.

Steven Leigh Morris pointed out several musicals and plays in 99 seat theatres in the last year that ran with full houses for months - clearly reaching a wider audience and serving the residents of LA.  In counterpoint, Damaso Rodriguez laid out his biggest concern about the many theatres in the city:

“The ease of ability to produce shows (due to the 99 seat plan) has generated many companies and many theatres in town, without requiring any skill in artistic direction or producing.  So when someone goes to one of these poorly produced shows, they’re less likely to give my theatre a try.”  He went on to suggest that the media or broader community should find a new way to identify the theatres who have higher aspirations and are consistently more successful in their artistic goals than the majority of theatres in the city.  Michael Ritchie, speaking in support of the smaller theatres, pointed out that one of the great strengths of the current theatre ecosystem was the very powerful communities that have arisen within the small theatres, where artists are socially and artistically sustained by their companies in times when they are without recognition or paid work.

On the topic of artistic quality, panelists repeated several times the idea that “If you’re serious about wanting to be successful in the theatre, you don’t go to LA.” or “Everyone comes to LA to get into TV and film, and then does theatre to sustain themselves in the meantime.”   Yet in contrast was the concern that this TV/film focus by artists and the broader community has fostered the continued impression that ‘no quality theatre is created in Los Angeles’, which the entire panel and audience agreed was entirely unfounded.   Left unresolved was the question of how the theatre community could raise its own status, prestige and national profile if the artists continue to have the attitude of ‘in the meantime’.  Possibly further discussion on how to find ways to encourage quality artists in LA to ‘choose theatre first’ is warranted, either through Daisey’s own proposition of making artist pay the first priority, or through marketing-induced cultural shifts, providing an alternative to the draw of TV and film paychecks and celebrity elbow-rubbing.

As a final question, Mike Daisey asked the panelists what they would tell someone who had just decided to dedicate their lives and career to the theatre.  The eight panelists’ answers mostly could be summed up as “Be sure that you have a burning desire to do this is greater than any other options you could pursue.  Then go for it and don’t let anything stop you.”