Literary Los Angeles: Doing Theater in a Film Town

L.A.’s Chalk Repertory Theatre has been one of my go-to choices for theater in Los Angeles ever since I saw their remarkable performance of “Three Sisters” last year.   After watching the original play “Full Disclosure” last month (starring founding member Amy Ellenberger), I tracked down playwright Ruth McKee (another founding company member) and gushed about her script until she agreed to be interviewed. We met late in the evening, after we’d both put our infants to bed, at a cozy all-night coffee shop in Sherman Oaks whose waiters boasted a level of beverage-refilling attentiveness bordering on the deranged.   We chatted about L.A. vs. New York, going to bed late vs. getting up early, and the pleasures and pains of doing theater in a film town.

Born in Ottawa, Ruth McKee lived in Bangladesh and Kenya before studying Dramatic Writing as an undergraduate at NYU.   She lived and worked in the New York theater scene before moving to California to get her MFA in Playwriting at UC San Diego.   After she graduated, she and her husband, comic book writer and screenwriter Brian Vaughan, debated whether to return to New York or head up to L.A.

“We made a pro and con list for New York and for L.A., and all our pros for New York were about familiarity — we knew people there, we had friends — but we also wanted to push ourselves.”

So it was in L.A. that McKee became the Literary Manager for the Black Dahlia Theatre and a founding member of Chalk Rep, a company best known for their site-specific work.   Instead of maintaining a fixed theater space, Chalk puts on shows in nontraditional spaces like the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (“Three Sisters”), or in the case of “Full Disclosure,” an extended riff on the psychic pull of real estate, empty private homes that are up for sale.

Though I usually try to avoid getting bogged down in the old New York vs. Los Angeles debate, I had to ask — what is the difference between theater there and theater here?

“When I first told people here that I had an MFA in playwriting, the most common response was “Why?” McKee laughs.   “Why do you write plays?”

Despite that, she found, “There are incredible opportunities for theater here because it’s not a theater town.   You get to make your own rules   . . . [and] there are so many incredibly talented people here just waiting and hoping to get a guest star role or to be in a commercial.   The most talented actors in the whole country are here and they’re waiting for someone to offer them a chance do Chekhov.   And that’s what we did.”

McKee adds, “What I’ve found is, actors want to act.   And a lot of what they’re doing in Hollywood may not be acting.   And of course, as an actor, you are very grateful for any opportunity, for modeling or commercial parts, but you also want to push yourself as an actor.”

More established film and television performers, too, often long for the opportunity to get back to live theater—actors like Ricardo Antonio Chavira (“Desperate Housewives”), a fellow graduate of McKee’s UC San Diego MFA Theater program who brought remarkable grace and gravity to the role of Vershinin in “Three Sisters.”

The fact remains, though, that L.A. will always be known more for television and movies than for the stage.

“You have to ask yourself, what does theater in a film town look like? Because you can’t compete with what film does,” she says, adding that she’s a film lover herself.   But no matter how gripping film and television can be, they do not take place in real time, not right out there in front of you, not happening an arm’s reach away.   That thrilling will-they-make-it? giddiness is part of what makes theater a unique — and uniquely harrowing — experience.   So McKee and Chalk Rep try to play to that strength, putting up small, intimate plays in small, interesting spaces.

“We’re doing plays that break down barriers between the artist and the audience.   We want it to be an immersive experience.”

Her husband has suggested taking a cue from the movie industry and billing the experience as “Theater in 3D.”

But Los Angeles has its limitations, too, McKee adds.   One thing L.A. does not have is Off-Broadway.

“There is no mid-size theater here,” McKee says.   Instead there are hundreds of 99-seat and fewer theaters, the equivalent of Off-Off, which run the range from community productions of stand-by musicals to highly-trained professionals creating cutting-edge new work.   And then there are mega-houses like the Geffen, the equivalent of Broadway.   But there’s not really anything in between.

“As a young theater professional, that in-between area is where you want to live.   In Los Angeles, there’s not a clear path.   There’s good work being done all over the city, but there’s no geographical center,” and so many theater professionals find themselves circulating around and around instead of moving forward with their careers.

So considering that, will McKee stay in L.A.?   She may.   For one thing, she likes the lifestyle.

“It’s a much better city to write in,” she says, joking that earlier closing hours and longer driving times mean “you have to go home; you don’t stay up late.   Then you get up in the morning and write. It’s a healthier environment; you get more sleep.”

More seriously, she adds, “My friends in New York are spending a lot of time playing the social game, or else just trying to make ends meet, and less time writing.”

Living in a more affordable city frees up a tremendous amount of time and energy for working.

“It’s much easier to make friends here,” she adds   “It’s like Sunny says in [“Full Disclosure”], this is a really transient place, but that also makes it really vibrant, and it makes people very open to meeting new people and accepting them into their community.   When I moved here, I knew hardly anyone and I met people really quickly.”

McKee concludes, “I think I really became an L.A. playwright after I had a play produced in New York [the play “Stray,” produced in the Cherry Lane Theatre’s Mentor Project].   That was a turning point for me. I realized I’m not missing any opportunities by being here.   My national presence is not at all diminished.”

Confirming what I’ve suspected all along: the best answer to “New York or Los Angeles?” is “Both.”