A Millennium Wish List
Millennium fever and a booming stock market merged to inspire an unprecedented sense of optimism in Southern California's arts and entertainment industry, and everyone is enthusiastically planning their 2000 seasons. Damn the Y2K bug and full speed ahead! With the future in mind, and in hopes of bolstering the "state of the arts" in Southern California, perhaps a few suggestions from a longtime theatregoer, former LORT producer, and concerned arts critic would be in order.
If there were any such thing as a collective Southern California theatre critics "new year's/millennium wish list," it would have to include at least a few of the following:
1) Cast actors, not stars. Using star names may sell tickets in the short run, if they are actors first and foremost. Television "personalities" and movie "stars" without talent need to skip the stage and save the audience and themselves from nightly embarrassment. The bad taste of a burned audience lingers inside the producing theatre's memory long after the star has returned to celluloid heaven;
2) Check everything that beeps at the box office (or give permission to theatres to wire the metal parts of all seats, so that house managers can penalize rude patrons with a bolt of electric shock that equals the intensity of the offending noise). In addition, cellular-phone users would be subject to roaming charges equal to the sum of the highest-priced theatre ticket;
3) Know who your Othello, Hamlet, Lear, Cyrano, Medea, Kate, and Maggie the Cat are before you decide to do the play. Productions are too often won and lost on the casting front, and brilliant actors interested in and capable of doing the above roles are a rare breed in American theatre;
4) No more college Chekhov. If you can't pronounce the names and you don't know where Moscow is, stick with The Fantasticks, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Our Town;
5) No more The Fantasticks, A Midsummer Night's Dreams, or Our Towns;
6) Start shows on time (or allow audience members to leave bad shows early by a number of minutes equal to those that the curtain was delayed for latecomers). Starting shows late trains audiences to arrive at shows late.
7) Let directors choose plays they want to do vs. "being assigned" plays they have directed successfully five to 50 other times. Someone has to have a passion for the work and be excited about the challenges of live theatre. If it doesn't start with the director, is it any surprise that the "revival" has trouble emerging from its artistic coma?
8) Choose good plays. It seems so simple, but a quick perusal of Back Stage West or the Los Angeles Times calendar section will convince you that great plays are a low priority for the vast majority of Southern California producing theatres. Selecting plays based on past commercial success, as vehicles for agents to check out future sitcom stars, or to provide educational opportunities for actors in training, is no way to forward the state of the art in Y2K.
9) Encourage new playwrights (perhaps by making it prestigious and profitable to write for the live theatre);
10) Challenge and nurture young audiences. Pokemon the Musical may be the next new Broadway blockbuster, but there has to be a way to translate the success of faddish pop culture into more meaningful, substantive stage productions.

Anyway, joy to the world, and Happy New Year! The year 2000 promises a bold new Southern California theatre full of risk-taking, soul-searching drama onstage and off. Be there! q