LA STAGE WATCH is a series of articles by staff writer/blogger Don Shirley.
I’ve long touted L.A. as having more theatrical productions than just about anywhere else. But even I was astonished to hear that 79 L.A. companies use Equity contracts, which is what LA Times theater critic Charles McNulty reported a week ago in a “Critic’s Notebook.” It appeared on the front page of the Times Calendar section with the headline “Drop the curtain on L.A.’s bashers” and the subhead “Local theater is thriving, despite the myths out-of-towners insist on propagating.”
The article focused on McNulty’s rebuttal to a comment from former Pasadena Playhouse honcho Brian Colburn, who’s now the managing director of Seattle’s Intiman Theatre. Speaking in and about Seattle, Colburn had been quoted by the New York Times saying, “There’s probably as much theater here as in the city of Los Angeles, but the population is one-sixth the size.”
McNulty checked with Actors’ Equity and then reported that “roughly 79 theaters in Los Angeles” use Equity contracts.
And those 79 do not include big sit-down companies such as the musicals that play the Pantages, “the 40 or so” theaters that sometimes use an Equity member on Guest Artist or Special Appearance contracts - or the hordes of productions that use Equity’s 99-Seat Theater Plan. Equity estimates that about 1,000 99-Seat Plan shows go up each year.
By contrast, Seattle has only 15 Equity theaters - and another 16 that sometimes use Special Appearance or Guest Artist contracts. Although McNulty didn’t mention it, Seattle also lacks a 99-Seat Theater Plan, which allows Equity members to work for paltry fees in the smallest spaces. Equity generally considers that plan workable only in L.A., with its excessive supply of actors.
79-15! Imagine if the Lakers ever beat the Sonics by such a margin! The news of that many L.A. theaters with Equity contracts could certainly help stamp out the common misconception that L.A. theater has three big companies (CTG and the Pasadena and Geffen playhouses) plus a zillion sub-100-seat companies - and hardly anything in between.
Yet I immediately wondered how widely the “Los Angeles” boundaries were drawn in coming up with that total of 79. Equity promptly furnished me with a copy of the list - and with the sobering affirmation that the total numbers for “Los Angeles” actually include all of Southern California, not just L.A. Likewise, the numbers for Seattle include all of Washington.
This clarification weakens McNulty’s argument somewhat. The non-L.A. parts of Southern California include major theaters in Ventura, Orange and San Diego counties. San Diegans certainly don’t consider their city as part of L.A. In Washington, by contrast, it’s difficult to think offhand of any major theaters that are outside Seattle.
Not surprisingly, someone in Seattle noticed, too. Among the responders to McNulty’s article on the Times Culture Monster blog was Christopher Paul Comte, a Seattle Equity activist. After eliminating non-L.A. theaters in Southern California from the list, he figured that the more comparable number of L.A. theaters is 58, not 79 (and even this number is open to some debate, as I’ll explore in a future post). Then Comte factored in the square mileages and populations of the L.A. and Seattle metro areas and concluded that L.A. has fewer theaters PER SQUARE MILE and PER CAPITA than the relatively tiny Seattle.
All of Comte’s numbers-crunching, however, can’t seriously challenge McNulty’s main point - that L.A.’s theater is much, much larger than Seattle’s. When you also consider that Comte (and Colburn) ignore L.A.’s 99-seat theater scene - which is considered “professional” theater by many of its participants and observers, even if the pay stinks - the vast size advantage of L.A.’s theater over Seattle’s is multiplied by several times.
Then again, McNulty’s article didn’t say much about the 99-seat scene, either. He acknowledged it in only one sentence, when he wrote that before he arrived in L.A. from New York, his friends here told him that “the ‘real’ scene was happening at the under-the-radar smaller theaters, which may not be walkable like in Seattle but are so abundant that you never have to drive too far and, believe it or not, I get around by foot more than you might think from my home in West Hollywood.”
Near the end of McNulty’s article, he mentioned the plays he had seen recently and would be seeing soon. None was in a sub-100-seat house. However, McNulty wrote that he had rejected the idea of going to New York for Thanksgiving and had decided to stay in L.A. So I looked forward to seeing which L.A. show would be the subject of his next review.
And the winner was…A Streetcar Named Desire, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Yes, McNulty’s next review after his passionate defense of L.A. theater was of a show that’s playing in New York. He apparently flew there right after Thanksgiving.
Why would the Times care about this particular revival of a familiar play? It isn’t only because Cate Blanchett, a movie star, plays Blanche. It’s also because she - and it - are in New York. The location was apparently as important as the star, because if the Times really had considered this Australian-born production to be newsworthy regardless of the city, why not send McNulty to its U.S. premiere several weeks earlier in Washington D.C.?
In most of the arenas that the Times covers, the emphasis on local matters is growing. Local news has taken over most of the first half of the front section of the print version of the Times. This stems from the common belief that while readers can easily find national and international stories from many online sources and news aggregators, they must rely on the relatively few local news organizations to provide the local news, whether online or in print.
This strategy should apply to theater coverage in spades, because theater inherently takes place one performance at a time, under very local conditions. Wouldn’t most theatergoers be more interested in reading about productions they could see fairly easily, without traveling to the other side of the country?
Of course, McNulty isn’t the only Times theater critic. The Times sends several excellent free-lance reviewers to midsize and smaller shows, but their comments usually are buried deep inside the Friday section. Also, McNulty sees more plays than he reviews; occasionally he refers later to something that he saw and liked but didn’t review.
I salute McNulty for his column in praise of L.A. theater, even though his supporting arguments faltered. Still, whenever I see a front page theater review from New York (or, for that matter, last Sunday’s theater reviews from London by former Times critic Laurie Winer), I can usually think of a dozen worthy local shows that are newsworthy enough for front page coverage - and how that coverage might have benefited theater-interested Times readers a lot more than those reports from afar.
Don:
I just wanted to share how much I have enjoyed reading the L.A. Stage Watch column and your always-on-the-mark observations. This one’s a gem! Thank you for telling it like it is!
D.J. Harner
Again I congratulate you Mr. Don Shirley for telling it like it is. You have ventured out to almost all of our productions at St. Matt’s even our first before we had our own space here. The L.A. Times only twice… and one of those times because they were doing reviews of Christmas based shows and had an unusual drought last year. Mr. McNulty has never responded to an email from us and probably doesn’t even know we exist. I am sure we are not alone in the 99 seat plan area and with sooooo many theaters in the L.A. area I understand. However, the L.A. Times would do well to cover more and more theater in this town and perhaps help some of the smaller theaters to grow. Our latest show has been seen on NBC, KTLA and reviewed by 2 online reviewers, 1 small paper (The Tolucan) and you. With so many theaters in this town, my hats off to all who take an interest in the smaller theaters. I have to say it is silly to compare major cities. When Chicago got it’s reputation for being the hot theater city back in the late 70’s and early 80’s there were only a little more then a handful of AEA companies and several of them had actor kickbacks to stay alive… what made it a theater city were the two major papers and their two main critics who truly championed the theater scene. Thanks for being a champion to L.A. Theater.
Mr. Shirley is correct on all points. To underscore his observations about the Times coverage, in the Friday December 4 issue, three L.A. plays are reviewed, only two of which are in 99-seat houses. The show in the larger house is a visiting production from Ireland. If we’re still reading newspapers for coverage of local events, shouldn’t the Times allott even a little more space to theatre coverage, in the interest of making a more comprehensive cultural record of the community?
This is a wonderful article ~ All of us here know that L.A. theater gets much less respect than it deserves…even within our own city…and, since the pay is nill, respect is one of the main things we’re seeking, yes?
However, the quote “…the common misconception that L.A. theater has three big companies (CTG and the Pasadena and Geffen playhouses) plus a zillion sub-100-seat companies - and hardly anything in between” is a little misleading. Who are these “in-between” companies? How many are there? And are they indeed within the Los Angeles city limits? Or even County limits? And how much do they pay? In my view, Costa Mesa doesn’t count, Ventura doesn’t count, and Laguna Beach doesn’t count. The city of Los Angeles is what numbers should be based on. I don’t consider a theater 70 miles away from where I live “local”. And neither would an audience member I suspect.
The fact is, the 99 seat plan has made acting in theater in this city for a paycheck virtually an impossibility. Yes, there’s a lot of theater. Yes, much of it is fantastic. At the end of the day though, giving away your talent for free (or $12/show) makes acting in theater in this town difficult to sustain.
And, I believe, THAT was Mr. Colburn’s point. He omitted the phrase “paying a living wage” when he spoke because he doesn’t consider working for free (or virtually free)…well…WORKING. I don’t know him, I’m not SURE that’s what he meant, but it seems likely that’s what he meant…I DO know that we in the L.A. theater community have a bit of a chip on our shoulder about the lack of respect we get from our colleagues in other towns…and it’s always wise to remember that the reality is: respect is often based on pay…I don’t necessarily believe that…but it’s just reality.
To another point, the fact that local papers should be covering only local productions is just a smart business move for the papers. A review of a show in NYC (or anywhere else) can be read easily enough online in seconds. To pay a reviewer for a trip to NY or London is a waste of their money…and it certainly doesn’t cause someone to buy a paper.
Don,
I do think the production of “No Man’s Land” is worth your time.
Also I’d love to see you again.
Alan
I’ll answer some of Mr. Grissom’s questions in my next LA Stage Watch.
“Do we all think that more coverage by the Times will lead to larger houses for the big cheap theatre scene?”
Unlike Sacred Fools… the times has barely ever been to our theater… Charles McNulty and Kathleen never. For our Christmas show last year, we got a nice review (not a rave) and a large picture… it made no dent. However, I think if the Times covered more… people would start to use them as a compass again and there is no telling if that will hurt or help you. Back in the day everyone always asked “has the Times seen the show”… now I’ve only heard that twice in 2 years. One person called and said, “I read some reviews, but I only go if the Times liked it”… I said, “they haven’t seen it” and he said, “Oh.” He didn’t come to the show. On the other hand, we have been in our space for 2 years and have only played to a house less then 22 people once. Our average has been between 33 and 42 per night. Our latest show “A Big, Gay north Hollywood Wedding” has been averaging 50 people a night (theater is set up for 54 seats, so a lot of sold out houses). All this thanks to the internet. So I think if the L.A. Times wants to grow it’s readership and truly become a leader again… it needs to cover more smaller theater.
Great to hear specifics on how Times coverage has or hasn’t affected their theatres - any data is very useful. From what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard from folks who have been around far longer than I, the one clear truth is that unless you bring a big pile of cash to the table, it hasn’t really been possible to convince, petition, or force the Times to do anything.
These days, with all the changes in staff and structure at the Times, it seems even less likely that an outside group of any kind can even get through to be heard at the Times.
This does lead me to agree with some of the thoughts above that energy should be focused more on new solutions and ways to reach audiences en masse, rather than throwing more energy at the brick wall of the LA Times.
For those who can get Times reviews and do benefit from that, awesome! For everyone else, working to find new solutions will probably be more effective and less depressing.
Agreed, Douglas ~
At the Road in Noho last year, we had a feature article in the times about the playwright directing the show, plus a positive review ~ all the while having the audience take a survey during the run. The show certainly didn’t play to full houses throughout the run, and to the question “How did you hear about us?” 90% of the respondents said “Word of mouth”. It is debateable whether the feature or the review helped fill the seats at all…
Thanks to Don Shirley for an illuminating follow up to the McNulty piece. What might once have been a real debate as to whether a review by LAT, or any other local paper, affects audience turnout is no longer much of a debate at all — it has no effect beyond the most superficial.
Reviews discuss little if anything pertinent about plays or their makers because they are not given the space to do so, or because reviewers are unqualified to say anything beyond whether they like or dislike what they’ve seen. No one benefits from coverage like this. Needless to say, a critique must engage serious material seriously in order to begin the kind of dialogue with the community that transcends the thumbs-up/thumbs-down referendum that any individual production is currently subjected to.
It is the responsibility of artists to put forward serious work; critics must then be given the latitude (or be trained) to engage the work according to what they see and not according to what they “like.” The role of the critic must be to uphold his end of the dialectic while pushing the artist to uphold his. Any audience/readership that engages with this kind dialogue will start to get the feeling that something important is happening.
Unfortunately, there are many obstacles preventing this from becoming a reality. But I’m grateful to Don Shirley for pointing out the need for more local coverage, and it’s a savvy argument tying the case for it to the fact of dwindling LAT readership. I’d like to think that out of the paper’s instinct for survival it might recognize the need for engaging local readership more vigorously, and perhaps blunder inadvertently into conferring respect upon those who make or love theater.
Don:
Perceptive piece, as usual.
The LA Times retains its inexplicable habit of covering New York in the Calendar section despite the recent assertions of its editor, Russ Stanton, that he no longer considers it a national or even regional paper given its diminished resources and refocused mission. Perhaps they didn’t get the message.
A thought about Charles’ choice of what to cover. I don’t know how things work at the Times, but here at the Register we’re under considerable pressure to write stories and reviews that generate a lot of pageviews online. For me that means passing on worthwhile shows at smaller venues and reviewing fewer productions outside of Orange County, based largely on what my editors consider is the best click bait within my purview. I know from my colleagues at other papers that my situation is far from unique. When your show is ignored these days, often it’s not the critic who’s to blame. We’re not nearly as autonomous as we used to be.
Don, it’s great to see you in a forum that’s worthy of your skills. Keep it up!