BURSTYN URGES SYSTEM OF REGIONAL THEATERS

Ellen Burstyn, keynoting the 10th annual California Theatre Council conference downtown Wednesday, sounded the call for a new “United States theater system” as an alternative to America’s “fast food” culture.

Burstyn, artistic director of New York’s Actors’ Studio and the Actors’ Equity official in charge of developing a national theater plan, told an audience of 200 at Los Angeles Theatre Center that she favors a “United States theater system,” a string of regional theaters that would be based on organized theater communities in each state.

Actor and arts activist Peter Coyote echoed similar sentiments. The former chairman of the California Arts Council under Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., addressed the conference on the subject of “Art and Politics.” Coyote criticized the fact that “we’ve never tried to build national and state theaters with staffs that could rotate . . . so that in Indiana the people could say, ‘Our director is at the National Theatre.’ ”

Later on Wednesday afternoon, the conference featured a “producers’ summit” where an echoing, smaller-scaled keynote was heard.

At the summit, held downstairs on another stage, 10 producers from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose (as well as a representative from the Museum of Contemporary Art, which has co-produced so-called performance art), talked about “production exchanges,” “co-productions” and plain, old-fashioned cooperation. They cited the advantages of pooling money and artistic expertise, tempered by some cautionary words about maintaining individual organizational identity.

“Instead of being independent city-states,” said Jack O’Brien, artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre, referring to the community of nonprofit theaters, “we should be looking at each other with trust.”

Onstage with O’Brien, and nodding in agreement, was Stephen Albert, general manager of the Mark Taper Forum. The Taper and the Old Globe are co-producing “Romance Languages,” currently playing at the Taper.

Also onstage talking up the merits of co-production were Susan Dietz, artistic producing director, L.A. Stage Co.; moderator Peg Yorkin, artistic director, L.A. Public Theatre, and Susan Loewenberg, producer, L.A. Theatre Works, co-producers of the play “Tracers.” They are scheduled to take the play to Philadelphia and Australia, “and hopefully,” said Loewenberg, “it will come back to the Kennedy Center; that’s what we really want.”

Although Museum of Contemporary Art representative Julie Lazar cautioned against “co-production-itis” or co-producing for the sake of co-producing, and Bill Bushnell, artistic producing director of the Theatre Center, pointed with humor to the “fever” of co-producing, it appeared as if most of those present had already caught, or wanted to catch it.

In fact, while Bushnell was speaking downstairs, Luis Valdez of El Teatro Campesino was upstairs, directing his play, “I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges,” a co-production with LATC, that opens next week.

Later, in welcoming conference participants to “my storefront,” Bushnell said he intends making the Theatre Center a home for other quality California companies as well as for companies in other parts of the country, and the world.

Scott Kemelman, producer of Pipeline, a small downtown theater, and co-producing with its MOCA neighbor a series of performance artists, suggested that theaters east of downtown trade productions with those on the Westside, and perhaps improve audience numbers for both.

Still it was something as simple as the cooperative venture of five relatively small Los Angeles theaters, which put together a ticketing package, that appeared to draw the most attention. Long after the producers’ summit ended, while conference participants feasted at a buffet hosted by CATS (for Computer Aided Ticketing Systems), Laura Zucker, whose brainchild the package was, found herself besieged with questions.

Zucker, producing director of Back Alley Theatre, devised a package of five tickets, this year going for $8 apiece, which can be used for any production at each of the five theaters. Besides Back Alley in Van Nuys, other partners in the ongoing venture, which began last spring, are Los Angeles Theatre Works, Odyssey, Stages and Matrix.

“We wanted theaters who feature different kinds of work but who have quality in common,” Zucker said. Altogether, the five as a group have sold 2,600 tickets--or twice as many as Odyssey has sold individually, said Zucker, who got the idea from a similar venture of interdisciplinary arts organizations in Chicago. Next season, the tickets will cost $9 “and we hope to sell 10,000,” she added.

This is the first Theatre Council conference where a main topic of discussion is “Burnout.” There are three burnout sessions for each of the three days of the conference, with consideration being given to such matters as anxiety, depression and fear. Discussion leader is Robert Maurer, director of behavioral sciences at Santa Monica Hospital.

Wednesday evening actor Richard Dreyfuss, who’s playing in “The Normal Heart” at the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood, accepted the California Theatre Council’s award for outstanding artistic achievement in the theater arts.