Dismissal of L.A. Theater a Blatant Betrayal

As a writer and actor who has spent the last 20 years creating “edgy” pieces in this city, I find it certifiably obnoxious that an L.A.-based casting executive (NBC’s Marc Hirschfeld, in this case) once again finds it necessary to drag out that old canardof Hollywood theater as only existing to showcase talent for show-biz discovery (“For Hip, Edgy Talent, NBC Taps Hip, Edgy Source,” by Robert Strauss, June 21).

Certainly Hirschfeld has never seen any of my critically acclaimed shows, which have tackled wide-ranging subjects from economic displacement in “Lady Beth: The Steelworkers’ Play” to incest in “Thicker Than Water, Thinner Than Ice.”

And Hirschfeld certainly couldn’t have seen such recent L.A. productions as Theresa Chavez’s “By the Hand of the Father,” a multimedia piece that celebrated Mexican American fathers (we all know this wasn’t done as a showcase for TV execs, as there is no home for Latino families on network television) or Tony Abatemarco’s solo show, “Cologne, or the Ways in Which Evil Enters the World,” a brave piece that tracked a gay teenager’s coming out in Long Island in the late 1960s.

And he couldn’t have seen any of the pieces Michael Kearns has created that touched upon the AIDS epidemic (another sure-fire route into the hearts of Hollywood casting execs). And he certainly never could have seen any of John Fleck’s shows; Fleck could easily qualify as the edgiest performer in the history of the world.

Did Hirschfeld ever go to the Padua Playwrights Festival, where Kelly Stuart, John Steppling, Leon Martell and Murray Mednick have created “hip, edgy” pieces on a regular basis for more than 10 years? Oh no, Padua would have been too far to drive to discover “talent,” but downtown Manhattan’s apparently not.

It can be easily argued that the studios and networks have received a bargain-basement deal via L.A. theater. Through its productions, the theater community has developed and trained actors for them (Edward James Olmos, Ed Harris and the late Phil Hartman are just a few of the actors who started off in L.A. theater). Local stages are a resource that the industry has been able to exploit with virtually no outlay of cash.

This indifference is fine--no one expects Hollywood executives to do anything out of the kindness of their hearts, especially when they can get it for free--but when a casting director such as Hirschfeld goes out of his way to decry L.A. theater as merely “showcasey,” it only displays his own ignorance and laziness. He simply hasn’t gotten off his butt to see the talent.

And when Hirschfeld and NBC find it in their interests to finance an outpost for the arts in downtown New York while dismissing Los Angeles-based performers as so many industry-hungry career hounds, it goes way beyond ignorance and slothfulness: It’s an insult and a betrayal and should be condemned as such.

Why a betrayal? It’s one thing to ignore Los Angeles theater; it’s quite another to fund a New York arts center while heaping abuse on L.A.

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Rob Sullivan’s solo shows include “Flower Ladies and Pistol Kids” and “The Long White Dress of Love.” His short stories have been published in the Sun and Between C&D;, and he has published articles in Life magazine and the Village Voice. He lives in Los Angeles.