New Venue Opens With New Works

‘You’re allowed to do art in the 818 area code.” Garry Marshall said that’s what he told Mark Taper Forum artistic director Gordon Davidson as arrangements were being made for the Taper’s New Work Festival to open Marshall’s Falcon Theatre in Burbank.

And so the Taper will establish its first beachhead in the San Fernando Valley (except for a few youth-oriented productions that visited Valley sites as part of tours) when the festival opens its 10th season Thursday with “An Evening of L.A. Running Wild.” Scheduled are performers Marga Gomez, Sandra Tsing Loh and Diane Rodriguez, the musical comedy team Tenacious D. and jazz singer Julian Fleisher and his Rather Big Band.

Play readings begin Friday, and open public rehearsals of play workshops start Nov. 19, with events continuing through Dec. 20.

The festival had to leave its previous home at the Taper, Too, on the bottom level of the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, because of ongoing renovations. The Falcon came to mind as an alternate site, said Taper producing director Robert Egan, because Marshall had asked Taper staff for technical advice regarding his new theater.

Marshall and his wife, Barbara, have been “close friends” of the Taper for years, Egan said. From 1988 to 1994, Barbara was on the Center Theatre Group board, which oversees the Taper. Garry was on the Music Center’s board of governors from 1983 to 1995 and has served on other Music Center and CTG-related councils and committees. Yet he has never attended a New Work Festival event, he said.

While showing his new theater to “some of the Taper guys,” Garry Marshall said they looked as if they were thinking, “ ‘Maybe he won’t donate [to the Taper] anymore.’ But we will.”

This particular event is not a donation--the Taper is paying the same rent that other producers will pay. However, “the fact that he has held off on his own productions and allowed us to open this really well-equipped facility, with a lot more support space than we had at the Taper, Too--we consider that extremely generous,” said Douglas Baker, general manager of Center Theatre Group.

The festival operates under the Taper’s Actors’ Equity contract instead of Equity’s 99-Seat Theater Plan--and charges no admission, yet as of press time it appeared that seating still would be restricted to only 99 of the 120 Falcon seats. The festival uses an experimental theater section of the contract that allows no more than 99 audience members.

As far as the festival itself, Egan said he is especially glad that 10 of the 14 writers whose plays will be read or “workshopped” are from the L.A. area. He also noted that in the nine-year history of the festival so far, more than 80% of the participating plays have gone on to full productions, somewhere.

This year’s schedule starts with readings: Severo Perez’s “Speak Only of Cats” (Friday, 8 p.m.), Caridad Svich’s “Pensacola” (Saturday, 4 p.m.), Laural Meade’s “Harry Thaw Hates Everybody” (Saturday, 7 p.m.), Eric Bagan’s “Lump Sum” (Sunday, 4 p.m.) and Russell Davis’ “The Travelling Cinderella’s Dead Mother Show” (Sunday, 7 p.m.).

The first two weeks of workshops offer John Belluso’s “Gretty Good Time” (Nov. 19-20, 8 p.m.), Marlane Meyer’s “The Chemistry of Change” (Nov. 22-23, 7 p.m.), Adelaide MacKenzie’s “The Fading Day” (Dec. 3-4, 8 p.m.) and David Lee Lindsey’s “Of Gods and Supergods” (Dec. 6-7, 7 p.m.).

The final round of workshops includes Bernardo Solano’s “Dominion” (Dec. 10-11, 8 p.m.), Robert Glaudini’s “The Claiming Race” (Dec. 13-14, 7 p.m.) and “The Square Project” (Dec. 17-18, 8 p.m.), which includes work from 16 playwrights: Ping Chong, Constance Congdon, Kia Corthron, Maria Irene Fornes, Philip Kan Gotanda, Jessica Hagedorn, Holly Hughes, David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, Marion McClinton, Han Ong, Jose Rivera, Diana Son, Alice Tuan, Mac Wellman and Chay Yew.

Readings conclude with Lisa Loomer’s “Expecting Isabel” (Dec. 19, 8 p.m.) and Eduardo Machado’s “Cuba and the Night” (Dec. 20, 7 p.m.).

Conor McPherson’s “St. Nicholas” will be performed by Brian Cox, co-star of the Taper’s recent “Skylight,” as a special event on Dec. 1 at 8 p.m. And a CalArts presentation of “The American Bullfighter” on Dec. 4-6 at 8 p.m. and Dec. 6 at 4 p.m. is also listed on the festival roster, though it will be presented at CalArts, not at the Falcon.*