From left, Ty Jones (Sam Cooke), Jason Delane (Malcolm X), Matt Jones (Cassius Clay) and Ken Daniels (Jim Brown) in the world premiere production of Kemp Powers’ play, “One Night in Miami” at Rogue Machine Theatre on June 8, 2013 in Venice, CA – Photo by John Perrin Flynn
By Steve Simmons – Published at 4;20 p.m., April 21, 2021
Small independent theatre companies across California are fighting for their survival. A coalition of 40 small 99-seat nonprofit theaters from around the state (with the majority from Southern California) and freelance performers have joined to advocate for Senate Bill 805 (SB 805), The “Save The Performing Arts Act of 2021” which the Senate Labor Committee is set to vote on Monday, April 26.
The legislation is touted as the first bill in the nation creating a critical funding infrastructure to help fund Small Nonprofit Performing Arts Companies (SNPAC) with average adjusted gross revenues equal to or less than $1.4 million, to be adjusted every five years based on the California Consumer Price Index.
SB 805 will direct the California Arts Council to establish the California Nonprofit Performing Arts Paymaster, which will provide low-cost payroll and a paymaster service to SNPACs. The legislation will also establish the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund to ensure that SNPACs can pay all workers minimum wage, particularly workers in marginalized communities.
Background
As originally written, the bill is in response to AB5, which went into effect January 2020, and was intended to reduce worker misclassification, making it harder for companies to treat workers as independent contractors. The law established a test to determine whether workers are employees who should receive minimum wage, paid sick days and other benefits.
Converting an independent contractor to an employee increases staffing costs so much that many small theatre companies fear they won’t be able to continue. Theatre managers and founders worry that without exemptions to AB5 or more funding, they won’t survive.
“AB5 was designed to protect gig workers, but the way it was written was too broad,” says Emmanuel Deleage, executive director of CASA 0101 Theater in Boyle Heights. “A lot of exemptions were made for Uber and Lyft drivers and musicians, but for some reason, small theaters were left out.”
“The math doesn’t work out for us with paying rent and other expenses. AB5 regulations triple the cost of productions,” says Deleage. A typical production at his theater costs around $30,000, with actors, artists and staff like light-board operators paid a small stipend to take part in the production from start to finish. “If you make employees hourly, then a $500 stipend goes to $2,000. We only make $10,000 to $15,000 in ticket sales, so I have to raise an additional $15,000. Raising twice that much would be almost impossible. Finding money in this town is hard, nobody wants to support the arts.”
An unaltered AB5 or no alternative “could cripple small theaters,” says Vanessa Stewart, co-artistic director of Sacred Fools Theater Company. “We bring in 100 artists a year, from set designers to costumers. We give as generous a stipend as we can afford, but the costs in AB5 make productions impossible for small theaters. If the direction is to pay artists as employees, then we need the money. New York supports arts agencies to the tune of $2.38 per person, in California it’s 27 cents.”
The coalition “sort of formed organically,” says Deleage. Amid the pandemic, theater managers and artistic directors began discussing problems caused by AB5 and seeking advice and support. Spearheaded by Gary Grossman, producing artistic director, Skylight Theatre Company, the network, Alternative Theaters for Los Angeles, grew to 60 theaters from across the state in weekly conversation.
“AB5 passed right before the pandemic shut everything down,” says Stewart. “And Gary brought us together to discuss the issues we’re all facing like diversity and health and safety.”
“We started talking to legislators about the value we bring to our respective communities,” says Deleage. He met first with his Assemblyman Mike Santiago in April and later with State Senator Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) representing the 22nd District, whom he had met as a theatre student, and discussed the damage AB5 would do to the theaters’ cause and mission if the bill was not changed.
Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), who has called the arts “instrumental,” citing their role in her own childhood “as an at-risk, inner-city youth growing up near Downtown L.A.,” became the coalition’s champion, authoring the bill. “We found a hero in Susan,” adds Stewart. “She credits her success in life to having been exposed to small theater as a child.” Co-author is State Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) representing the 26th District.
There are still six opportunities for amendments and changes to the bill’s wording. After the Labor Committee, the bill will go to the Appropriations Committee and if that passes, will go to the full Senate and then the process repeats in the Assembly.
Incubators For Hits And Talent
Small 99-seat theaters in California have frequently been the incubators where new works that have moved on to Broadway, Off-Broadway, national tours and screenplays for hit films.
For example:
– Kemp Powers’ play One Night In Miami, which received its world premiere at the Rogue Machine Theatre in Venice, Calif., before the play was adapted into a screenplay, directed by Regina King. Now the movie is nominated for three Academy Awards (the presentation is Sunday), and it was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards as well.
“When we started in 2008, we wanted to do new plays, that most L.A. theatres were not,” says John Perrin Flynn, founding artistic director of Rogue Machine Theatre said. “We aimed to do plays new to L.A., out of the Chicago theatre scene and plays by local playwrights. Each year, we offer 50 to 100 artists the opportunity to work and refine their work. In the space of 13 years, we’ve done 25 new productions, and three have become feature films.”
Kemp took part in the company’s “Rant and Rave” program and did a one man show Flynn produced. “And I took him out to lunch and told him he needed to write a real play with characters and that I had an idea which I pitched him,” Flynn recalls. “He said, ‘I have a story I’ve been thinking about.'” After a fight he was not expected to win against Sonny Liston in 1964, Cassius Clay met in a motel room with three friends – Sam Cooke, Malcolm X and Jim Brown. The next day Clay announced he was joining the nation of Islam and the next month he became Muhammad Ali. “No one knows what they talked about, and Kemp had never written a play, but he has a unique and extraordinary voice and he worked hard to be a playwright, which is much different from the journalism and autobiographical material he’d been writing.”
The play was workshopped in Harlem and with Rogue Machine and “we had a reading and afterwards I told Kemp I would love to produce his play,” Flynn says. “The amazing thing about Kemp is that he’s so talented and he’d maybe get a shot, but what small institutions provide is the opportunity they’d not get anywhere else, and that’s what we’re in business for. We are incubators where people with talent can have the freedom to develop without financial burdens.”
The play took off and ran for 15 weeks, winning a number of local awards. During the run the artistic directors of both the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and Baltimore Center Stage flew out to see the play and ultimately helmed their own productions. The Baltimore director had worked as a producer at the Donmar Warehouse, so the play traveled to London. “It’s been a long path from the debut in 2013 to the Academy Awards, and it speaks to Kemp’s determination and how important it is to have a place to begin.
“Rogue Machine is proud that Kemp Powers, screenwriter of One Night in Miami and Soul, and John Pollono, screenwriter of Stronger and Small Engine Repair, were able to start their careers through productions at Rogue Machine. Both just needed a place to prove themselves and that’s what we were able to provide.”
–Josefina López’s signature play, Real Women Have Curves began in the 99-seat Teatro De La Esperanza in the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, before becoming a screenplay López wrote with George LaVoo, that went on to win the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award in 2002, as well as the Humanitas Prize. The film’s stars, America Ferrera and Lupe Ontiveros won the first ever awarded acting awards at the Sundance Film Festival that year too.
“Small community theaters tell the stories that mainstream theater won’t because they often consider the stories of BIPOC like me not commercial enough to merit productions,” says López, founding artistic director of CASA 0101. “We are the voice of those left out of the mainstream narrative that puts a white man’s experience as the universal experience. Over our 20-year history we have created new works and festivals like Brown & Out telling LGBTQI+ stories, and Chicanas, Cholas y Chisme, telling Latina women’s stories.”
– “I got my start when my small theater took a chance on my original musical Louis and Keely: Live at the Sahara– (about the love story of Louis Prima and Keely Smith) a project I wrote for myself as an actor because, as an unknown artist, I was having difficulty finding work in a town saturated with actors,” says Stewart. “It’s easier for small theaters to take risks on new artists when there isn’t a lot of money involved.”
As a member of Sacred Fools, the artistic director chose her play, gave her a time slot and $1,500. She proposed her original idea and cobbled together the show finding co-star and fellow writer Jake Broder, a musical director, musicians and more. “Because the theater wasn’t constrained by payroll taxes and wage mandates, my show was able to be produced for $7,500–part of that money came from my folks who took out a loan against their home to help and my godmother from New Orleans who gave me money I used to pay for music arrangements.”
Because of that opportunity, the show was seen by director Taylor Hackford and moved from East Hollywood to the Geffen Playhouse where it ran for eight months “and created 50 jobs and made over $1 million at the box office, officially launching my career as an actor and writer,” says Stewart. Hersey Felder produced it in Chicago and Laguna Beach. Stewart was able to quit the three jobs she had. And get an agent. “If AB 5 had been in place when I was desperate for my big break, the limitations created by this law would have increased the budget of my show to $50k and my Cinderella story would never have happened. SB 805 would be a lifesaver to protect new and emerging voices so that they too can tell their stories and find their own path of upward mobility in the arts sector.”
“Actors and designers need that first chance.” says French. Small theaters create jobs and are an essential stepping-stone that every new artist needs to begin their careers which is why I fight to protect them. I want to make sure the young Vanessas coming up in L.A. have the same opportunities.”
A Vital Community Resource
SNAPACs assert they are a pipeline for workforce development, providing training for actors, stage craft people and experience for artists just starting out. “We contribute to the economic growth, social well-being and cultural vitality of the communities we serve,” says Flynn.
No company in L.A. wanted to stage Josefina López’s hit play Real Women Have Curves, so in 1990 she rented a theater, and the show ran for 13 weeks. Casa 0101 now serves a low-income, largely immigrant community. “In 2000, when the company started, there was no live theatre east of the L.A. River, says Deleage. “There was no local place that spoke to the Latino experience in America and told the stories.” The company was all volunteer for 10 years “and little by little the quality kept improving and we started to get grants,” recalls Deleage. The company now has a staff of three-and-a half and a successful arts education program, that since the pandemic has gone to Zoom.
“It’s been interesting for us doing outreach,” says Flynn, “working with lower income kids in free theatre and playwriting programs. Over the last three years, with all his success, Kemp has been teaching young people. One of the things Kemp said to me at that Larchmont lunch when he told me of his idea was, ‘I want to tell stories that give role models to young Black men. When I was growing up, they were hard to find.’”
Moving Forward
The coalition is working on a robust social media outreach plan and collecting stories about what small theatre has meant to performers, designers, artistic staff, technicians and audiences.
A Casa 0101 story is Angel Marie Galvan. Attending a prestigious local performing arts high school, “she wasn’t landing any significant roles,” recalls Deleage. She took advantage of Casa 0101’s free acting classes and landed the lead in Lopez’s Simply Maria and eventually a full scholarship to NYU. A Boyle Heights resident without a lot of resources, “she credits her acting chops to Casa,” Deleage says.
“The point is that we’re 501 C3 organizations bringing art to the communities we serve,” says Deleage. “Hundreds of people have access to the arts at an affordable price in their own communities. The arts are healing and therapeutic and people come to Casa to de-stress. They appreciate what we do.”
Members of the Senate Labor Committee include:
Dave Cortese (chair) (D-San José) representing the 15 th Senate District: senator.cortese@sen.ca.gov
Rosilicie Ochoa-Bogh (vice chair) (R-Yucaipa) representing the 23 rd
Senate District: senator.ochoa-bogh@senate.ca.gov
María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) representing Senate District 24:
senator.durazo@senate.ca.gov
John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) representing Senate District 17: senator.laird@senate.ca.gov
Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) representing Senate District 29: senator.newman@senate.ca.gov
Small 99-seat noprofit theaters and freelance performers who are part of the coalition for the passage of SB 805 include:
Leagues:
– Theatrical Producer’s League Los Angeles, Martha Demson, president
– Theatre Bay Area, Brad Erikson, executive director
– California for the Arts/California Arts Advocates, Julie Baker, executive
director
– San José Arts Advocates, Peter Allen, Former San José Arts Commission chair
Theatres:
– 24 th Street Theatre, Jay McAdams, executive director
– Actors Co-Op Theatre Company, Nan McNamaravo, artistic chair
– Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, Sara Guerrero and Angela Estela
Moore, directors
– CASA 0101 Theater, Josefina López, founding artistic director and
Emmanuel Deleage, executive director
– Celebration Theatre, Michael A. Sheppard, artistic director
– Chance Theater, Oanh Nguyen, executive artistic director
– Coin & Ghost, Zach Reeve Davidson, founding artistic director
– Company of Angels, Armando Molina, artistic director
– Dezart Performs, Clark Dugger, president, board of sirectors
– El Teatro Campesino, Luis Valdez, founding artistic director,
Christy Sandoval, managing director
– Fountain Theatre, Simon Levy, producing director
– IAMA Theatre Company, Stephanie Black, co-artistic director
– The Inkwell Theater, Daniel Shoenman, artistic director
– Inland Valley Repertory Theater, Frank Minano, founding artistic director
– Interact Theatre Company, Barry Heins, president and artistic director
– Macha Theatre Company/Films, Odalys Nanin, producing artistic
director/president
– New American Theatre, Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, managing director
– Numi Opera, Gail R. Gordon, founding director, president
– Open Fist Theatre Company, Martha Demson, artistic director
– Ophelia’s Jump, Beatrice Casagran, producing artistic director
– Playwrights’ Arena, Jon Lawrence Rivera, founding artistic director
– Rogues Artists Ensemble, Sean Calwelti, artistic director
– Rogue Machine Theatre, John Perrin Flynn, producing artistic director and Elina de Santos, co-artistic director
– Sacred Fools Theater Company at the Broadwater, Marc Antonio Pritchett
and Vanessa Stewart, artistic directors
– Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre, Andrew Ceglio, associate artistic director
– Sierra Madre Playhouse, Christian Lebano, producing artistic director
– Skylight Theatre Company, Gary Grossman, producing artistic director
– The Victory Theatre Center, Tom Ormeny and Maria Gobetti, co-Founding artistic directors
– Theatre of NOTE, Elinor Gunn, member of the artistic management
committee
– Teatro Visión, Leigh Henderson, managing dDirector
– Teatro Máscara Mágica, William Virchis, producing artistic director
– Theatre West, Michael Van Duzer, chairman of artistic board
Independent Artists:
– Michaela Bulkley, producer, Serving Los Angeles
– Robert Fancy, actor, Performer in Los Angeles
– Cristal Gonzalez, actress, Teatro Visión and El Teatro Campesino
