Thursday, September 07, 2006
1975 +...Lisa Lias
I can start you in about 1975. At that time, there were the Folger and Arena Stage of course, but also New Playwright's, The Washington Theatre Lab and Asta. I worked for all of them between '77 and '80. The Washington Theatre Lab's final show was The Snow Queen. Michaeline O'Neal was in that as was Bart Whiteman, who immediately started Source and took Michaeline along. Meanwhile, I met Joy Zinoman in '79 when Studio had not yet done a full production in the Church St. space that later was home to Woolly Mammoth, and then took classes and worked at Studio in the office for a chunk of '83.Asta did one full season. Dona Cooper was AD and in 77-78 did "Merton of the Movies," "Private Lives," "Playboy of the Western World" and some other things. Richard Coe of the Washington Post was quite supportive. Still, at that point they were in finacial trouble and not only did the Washington Theatre Lab move into their space on 8th st. SE (where I think the Shakespeare Theatre now has its costume shop) but the very first Source productions ever were done there - 2 one acts by O'Neil. That same summer a group who had just graduated from Georgetown did "The Goodwoman of Szechwan" and "Measure for Measure," often butting heads with Bart if I recall.The following season ASTA was gone as was the Washington Theatre Lab and at New Playwright's Tim Grundman was writing musical comedy. I had worked for Russel Metheny at ASTA and followed him the New Playwright's where I eventually got cast in their summer festival, the annual "Dramathon," in Ernie Joslevitz' play, "Hagar's Children." I met Leslie Jacobson at that festival and did 3 shows for her between 86 and 91. The 80's is when small theatre took off in DC. Even so, the first League auditons in the early 80's were not what they are today. There just were not 60 or 70 groups much less 800 actors vying for their attention.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Lisa Lias – so nice to hear your voice again even if only in print. Nice to read your memories. The 70’s were awesome in Washington small theatres because there was more passion than money and nobody thought twice about working 18 to 24 hour days to make theatre happen. Your mention of HAGAR’s CHILDREN peaked my curiosity. I looked up the info. on that production in which you performed a wonderfully sympathetic Sharon. Also in the cast were Brad Oscar – yes, that Brad Oscar of recent Broadway fame and Ron Canada whom we see in so many movies and TV shows … also cast were Paula Marmon, Portia Kamons, Tom Loftis, Mark Morris, Peter Suddeth and here’s one that surprised me … Brian Hemmingsen as the Sheriff. What a great cast – directed by Harriet Davis who worked as an advisor to director Bobby Small on the original production that went on to NYC thanks to Joseph Papp. Wow, you mention the ASTA Theatre – brings backs memories of achievement as well as rivalries and fights when we all tried to worked under one roof – all of us ASTA founders - we all went separate ways and Donna Cooper wound up as head of the company. Oh yeah, the HAGAR production you did was performed in April 1979 as part of New Playwrights’ Theatre’s “Dramathon 79” at the L’Enfant Plaza Theatre because we had been thrown out of our home on Church Street by the fire marshal … how about that – we moved from a 125 seat theatre to an 800 seat theatre … the nerve of us! Oh Lord! And so many actors and techies worked so hard on that 53 hours marathon! I think we raised over $40,000 with that event (a fortune in those days).
Well, you’ve got me thinking when I should be writing on a script that’s due soon. But thanks for the memories Lisa. Those were wonderful years. The Washington Theatre Lab was remarkable, the Horizon’s Theatre Co was wonderful and Bart Whiteman’s passion for theatre gained him a noble following while turning some others off .. but we were all making theatre happen on a shoestring … we succeeded, we failed … and damn, it felt good!
Deborah, if you could forward this to Harry, I would be deeply grateful.
Harry! Funny meeting you here!
"Hagar's Children" was a turning point in my life. To give an example of
why, I did tech on two other shows in Dramathon '79. I was a techie
(Remember "Eddie's Catchy Tunes" with Dana Vance and J. Fred Schiffman
and Barbara Rappaport? I was the stage-hand, but sang every song
backstage. Had a fight with T.G. Finkbinder!) till my parents saw
"Hagar's Children" and their minds opened to me going to Northwestern to
major in theater. That show had a few curse words and I was so worried
they would be upset. (I turned 16 that weekend. Paula and Ron did my
horoscope and were very tut-tut about my aries/taurus cusp status.)
Afterward my parents said "But Lisa, it wasn't YOU cursing, it was
Sharon. And you blew us away."
And let's face it, that whole era was the birth of small theater in DC.
Long before the Capital Fringe Festival, even before the Source
Festival, there was Dramathon. all the folks now macking sets out of
newspaper and chewing gum in holes in the wall they are happy to have
can look to their ancestors (um, that would be you and me, among others)
who did it before there was a City Paper to dub it "cool."
Hope you are well - drop me a line and say hi!
Lisa
Post a Comment