While the cast of our summer production, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, have been hard at work rehearsing, Sets-to-Go has been hard at work building the incredible set designed by our fabulous scenic designer, Desma Murphy.
Last week, the set for the Bluefish Cove beach cottage where a group of lesbian women spend their summers together was loaded onto our Outdoor Stage. Soon to come will be the rocks and dock of the cove.
Check out this short video chat with Desma and watch the magic happen as the crew installs the set and Bluefish Cove begins to become a reality.
Last Summer at Bluefish Cove begins previews on June 14, opens on June 17, and runs through August 27. Tickets/More Info.
Welcome to Bluefish Cove. The Fountain Theatre will transform the parking lot surrounding the set on its outdoor stage to create an oceanfront experience for its 40th-anniversary production of the groundbreaking comedy/drama, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove by Jane Chambers. Directed by Hannah Wolf, performances take place June 17 through August 27, with low-priced previews beginning June 14.
Set in 1974, a group of queer women spend their summers together in a remote oceanfront town on Long Island. Their lesbian enclave is disrupted when Eva, a naïve straight woman recently separated from her husband, stumbles unaware into their circle and falls for the charming, tough-talking Lil. This heartfelt play, a landmark in lesbian history, is bursting with friendship, laughter, love and hope, bringing well-rounded, three-dimensional characters that transcend stereotypes and preconceptions to the stage.
“The play ran for two years, from 1981-1983, at the Fountain Theatre 40 years ago starring Jean Smart, before Deborah Lawlor and I acquired the building and established our company,” says Fountain artistic director Stephen Sachs. “It was a benchmark achievement in L.A. theater, a turning point for L.A.’s queer community, and a milestone in the history of our building. Many women saw and remember it. Now its time for generations of young gay women born after the play was produced here to experience it for themselves.”
One of the first playwrights to depict love between women as happy, healthy, and well-adjusted, Jane Chambers (1937-1983) changed the course of American drama with works informed by second-wave feminism and the burgeoning gay rights movement, including A Late Snow (1974), Last Summer at Bluefish Cove (1980) and My Blue Heaven (1981). A prolific writer, Chambers also authored novels, poetry, and essays in addition to penning scripts for film and television. She trained as an actress at Rollins College and the Pasadena Playhouse because female students were not admitted to writing classes, and enjoyed success as an off-Broadway performer.
“(Bluefish Cove) was a benchmark achievement in L.A. theater, a turning point for L.A.’s queer community, and a milestone in the history of our building. … Now its time for generations of young gay women born after the play was produced here to experience it for themselves.”
–Stephen Sachs
In 1964, Chambers moved to Maine where she worked for MWTW-TV as a content producer and on-air personality. During President Johnson’s War on Poverty, Chambers took a position as arts coordinator with Jobs Corp, creating theater with inner-city youths. While earning a bachelor’s degree at Goddard College, Chambers returned to New York, co-founded Women’s Interart Theatre with Margot Lewitin, and met her life partner, talent agent Beth Allen. Chambers was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died in 1983. Her pioneering spirit is honored by an annual prize given in her name: The Jane Chambers Award for Playwriting is administered by The Women and Theatre Program. Chambers’ impact on American drama is also celebrated by a reading series at TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence) Theatre.
Earlier this month, eager students and their chaperones from three area high schools visited the Fountain Theatre for specially arranged morning performances of our current hit show, The Lifespan of a Fact. These kids had either been participants in Fountain Voices, the Fountain’s acclaimed theatre education program, or were recruited because they were active in their established high school theatre programs. Many of them already had an interest in the arts, some were newly exposed to it, and quite a few were even considering careers as writers and/or performers. All of them were thrilled to be seeing the show.
On Friday, March 3rd, 44 students from Hollywood High School and 15 students from Helen Bernstein High School were bussed to the Fountain to see Lifespan. A week later, on March 10th, approximately 60 students arrived from Compton Early College High School. Pre-show snacks and lunch were provided in the Fountain’s charming upstairs café, and the kids chatted excitedly about both seeing the show and the Q&A with the cast (Inger Tudor, Jonah Robinson, Ron Bottitta) and director (Simon Levy) that followed the performance.
Ali Nezu, Magnet Coordinator for the New Media Academy and the Performing Arts Magnet at Hollywood High School was also excited for the opportunity. “It’s just been a blessing to have such an amazing group of artists and board members and community people that just love and respect the arts and that understand how desperately we need the arts to create social change,” she said. “And the learning that happens in a situation like this, and the engagement level of the students in the content and their own growth is just so much more than in a situational classroom. So I love that we are inspiring students to experience that but then inspire them and empower them to do that in their own lives moving forward.”
“It’s just been a blessing to have such an amazing group of artists and board members and community people that just love and respect the arts, and that understand how desperately we need the arts to create social change,” says Ali Nezu, Magnet Coordinator for the New Media Academy and the Performing Arts Magnet at Hollywood High School.
“I really appreciate how Fountain Voices teaches students how to get into someone else’s shoes,” enthused Ebony Haywood, who teaches English and Theatre at Compton Early Collage. “To understand how someone else is thinking, to how do you put this story together? How do you present, and represent, this story on stage? It’s like an exercise in being human.”
Sherrick O’Quinn, the Fountain’s Theatre Education Manager, agrees. “Fountain Voices is instrumental in giving kids an opportunity to realize and find their voice,” he says. “The programming we are providing is giving them the tools to learn how to be change agents of the future by using the theater arts to communicate their own stories that can change lives, hearts, and minds. Whether it’s learning how to use playwriting or visiting our theater to see a show, we’re creating accessibility to the arts when we’re seeing students increasingly not being given those opportunities – especially in underserved communities.”
The Fountain Theatre is pleased and honored to welcome award-winning journalist Erin Aubry Kaplan to its Board of Directors. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Ms. Kaplan brings a longtime passion for theater and culture to the Fountain organization. She says, “I like to think that the narrative of theater, its goal of illuminating humanity in full without shying away from its most challenging aspects, informs what I do as a writer.” Plus, she’s a dog lover. What’s not to like?
Ms. Kaplan is a journalist, essayist and author who has been writing about race, politics, culture, individuality, and the confluence of all those things since 1992. She has been a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times (the first Black person to hold the position), staff writer and columnist for the LA Weekly, and contributing writer to the New York Times opinion, Politico and HuffPost.
“When my friend Diana Buchhantz invited me to join the Fountain board last year,” she explains. “I was honored and thrilled. I had been looking for a way to reconnect with theater. As a journalist I chiefly write about politics, race and culture, but I’ve always been equally passionate about theater; I have an MFA in acting, and spent years writing theater reviews and features for the LA Weekly when I was a staff writer there. That experience allowed me to experience the breadth and depth of the theater scene in greater L.A., and it was a revelation. Especially at the Fountain, whose shows were uniformly excellent. “
What are her goals as a board member?
“I hope to help the Fountain continue its tradition of mounting great productions that are highly entertaining, thought-provoking and, most importantly, fearless and forward-thinking. I hope also to be a benefit to Fountain Voices and other educational programs that seek to grow and diversify theater audiences, as well as cultivate talent that doesn’t necessarily have access to the traditionally cloistered world of theater. Arts are what we urgently need in these turbulent political times, and theater is a voice that can best speak to them.”
When Jeremy Kareken and David Murrell set out to adapt the 2012 book “The Lifespan of a Fact” for the Broadway stage, the longtime creative partners thought they were tackling an auspiciously straightforward assignment.
The source material, for one, came in at a relatively slim 128 pages. But more notably, the text was entirely composed of pithy exchanges between essayist John D’Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal as they worked their way, sentence by sentence, through the former’s nonfiction piece for Believer magazine about the 2002 suicide of a Las Vegas teenager.
“It seemed almost designed to be adapted into a play,” Murrell says during a recent video chat alongside Kareken, “because it’s just dialogue.”
“Emphasis,” Kareken interjects, “on the word ‘seems.’”
Kareken and Murrell soon came to realize that the task was more imposing than they anticipated. Between March 2012, when they first discussed adapting the book, and October 2018, when “The Lifespan of a Fact” opened on Broadway, the duo traded countless drafts, welcomed Gordon Farrell as a third co-writer, and incorporated the ideas of director Leigh Silverman and original stars Daniel Radcliffe, Bobby Cannavale and Cherry Jones.
Along the way, the “fake news” phenomenon had begun to permeate the political discourse. The play’s central debate — about how a larger truth can sometimes be at odds with factual accuracy — remains remarkably resonant.
“At what point are the facts irrelevant to the essence of the story?” Farrell asks in a phone interview. “That turned out to be a topic of national and global concern. None of the three of us knew or expected that. So somehow or other, we just stumbled onto the zeitgeist.”
Murrell first came across “Lifespan” when he read a scathing review of the book and sent it Kareken’s way, leaving both playwrights curious enough to read D’Agata and Fingal’s work for themselves. Struck by the partly true, partly fictionalized back-and-forth between the artistically inclined D’Agata and the comically meticulous Fingal, they considered penning a movie version or an experimental off-Broadway play before producer Norman Twain acquired the rights and suggested they write for a Broadway audience.
The playwrights decided early on to condense the years-long fact-checking process that played out in real life and add the ticking clock of a deadline, as the character of Fingal is assigned to work on D’Agata’s essay over one weekend. Kareken and Murrell also turned the essay’s editor — heard from only briefly in the book — into a fully fleshed out character who functions as an arbiter between D’Agata and Fingal. And they largely narrowed the play’s focus to the disputes over D’Agata’s opening paragraph in the name of brevity.
“Norman Twain said, ‘Guys, this is an abstract intellectual argument, so this play has got to move’ — and he literally said this — ‘like the Jesus lizard,’” Kareken recalls. “You know, that lizard that runs so quickly over the surface of the river that it doesn’t sink.”
Some realizations, however, took longer than others. Kareken and Murrell were well into the writing process before they came upon one crucial epiphany: They had to get the characters of D’Agata and Fingal in the same room. Although the book depicts a series of long-distance exchanges between the two, the play puts Fingal on a cross-country trip to D’Agata’s Las Vegas home as their Socratic dialogue unfolds in person.
“We were providing dud after dud of drafts — it just wasn’t going anywhere,” Kareken says. “There is such an invasive force of Jim’s character. I mean, he is the engine behind the whole play. By making that physical, that was kind of the thing that finally made us think that this was a possibility.”
In the fall of 2015, Twain floated the possibility of asking another writer to tackle an ending that Kareken and Murrell agreed wasn’t clicking. That’s when Farrell, a veteran playwright who had provided notes on previous drafts, formally boarded the project. After attending a fall 2013 reading, Farrell remembers sharing “strong words” with Kareken and Murrell about that conclusion.
“There was a lot of genius writing, and so much of it was so, so funny and so sharp through the first two-thirds of the play,” Farrell says. “Then they maintained that tone right up to the end, and that’s where it went awry.”
Specifically, Farrell was struck by the poignancy of D’Agata’s essay and perplexed that the play didn’t include more of the writer’s text, especially when it came to the suicide at its core. Upon joining the team, Farrell recalls, “It didn’t take me very long to get into it” and rewrite the final third to dwell more on the human side of the story.
After Twain’s death at age 85 in August 2016, Jeffrey Richards took the lead in producing the project. A November 2017 reading with Radcliffe gave Richards the confidence to forge ahead as the play made its way to Broadway. With Farrell tied up with his teaching duties at New York University, Kareken and Murrell worked with the director Silverman, dramaturge John Dias and the play’s stars to polish the script during rehearsals in the summer of 2018.
By that time, Donald Trump had risen to the presidency and was making false or misleading claims by the thousands. In January 2017, his counselor Kellyanne Conway infamously coined the phrase “alternative facts.” But as Kareken, Murrell and Farrell all emphasized, that topicality was no more than a happy coincidence. With “Lifespan” now being staged at regional theaters across the country, stories such as the spread of coronavirus misinformation and Rep. George Santos’s (R-N.Y.) résumé fabrications underscore the play’s enduring relevance.
“We’re the luckiest playwrights in the world because we look like geniuses,” Murrell says. “But it had absolutely nothing to do with Trump or Kellyanne or anything like that. We started in 2012, and then things happened in the world. It just happened to converge in a very fortunate way.”
When I was eighteen, I saw Anthony Hopkins onstage as Dr. Martin Dysart in Equus at the Huntington Hartford Theatre on Vine Street in Hollywood. A section of the audience was seated on the stage. I sat there, just a few feet away from Hopkins’ colossal, jaw-dropping performance. It remains seared in my soul to this day. I would not have had that struck-by-lightning experience if I were sitting thirty feet away.
1976 – An “Equus” photo from the Richard Wojcik collection on Vintage Los Angeles.
You never need to worry about that at the Fountain. We believe closeness, to art and to people, is everything. After two years of forced separation, you and I are back together and going strong. Now with two busy theaters, inside and outdoors, we are leading the way with new plays, music and dance concerts, and life-changing arts education programs for young people.
Yes, our theatre seats inside are outdated (more on that in a moment). Still, it sure feels good to sit collectively at the Fountain once again, just a few feet from the stage, being transported by an urgent, meaningful story expressed by actual human beings. Not on a screen.
That means coming out of our caves. Like Elijah. When he isolated himself in a mountain to retreat from the world, a Divine Voice said to him, “What are you doing in here, Elijah? Get out!” As Joan Didion urged, our task in the world isn’t to suffer in it, not to just pass through it, but to live in it. To live recklessly, take chances. To jump into the deep end of life and swim in it.
Like an embrace, theatre is a collaborative act. It takes away the aloneness of the world. It repairs. Think about it. What happens when you hold someone close? You feel them. The in-out of their breathing, the beat of their heart on your chest. That is what good intimate theatre does.
The Fountain’s heart keeps beating strong because of large and small donations from people like you. Private giving like yours is essential. Your year-end contribution of $100 or more today will help lift us into the coming year as we march forward into 2023. So, what’s coming? A smart comedy from Broadway, a summer musical outdoors, a thought-provoking drama in the fall. Plus chamber music, jazz, and flamenco. And here’s the kicker: we are installing NEW SEATS indoors! Brand-new comfy chairs, which you’re going to love.
Like a hug, we can’t do it alone. We need you to give of yourself. As a nonprofit, 80% of our income comes from contributions from good people like you. Seize the moment. Jump back into life. Support what you see on our stage, in a classroom, and/or be part of our history by having your name engraved on a plaque on a seat. Click here to find out how.
Wherever you wish to direct your giving, whatever the amount, your donation and friendship are priceless.
The Fountain Theatre’s hit production of If I Forget, written by Tony Award-winning playwright Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hanson) and directed by Tony Award-winning actor Jason Alexander (widely known from TV’s Seinfeld), has extended through December 18, re-opening at the end of October following a brief hiatus. At once deeply personal and political, If I Forget is a funny and complex tale that explores the lasting impact of the Holocaust on a Jewish family at the beginning of the 21st century. The widely acclaimed original cast returns to portray three adult siblings and their families who reunite to celebrate their father’s 75th birthday, with Richard Fancy taking over the role of patriarch Lou Fischer, a role he previously played in the 2018 Washington D.C. production. In addition to Fancy’s extensive stage career (Singin’ in the Rain on Broadway; Julia at 59e59th off-Broadway; lead roles in All My Sons and Death of a Salesman at Pacific Resident Theatre), Fancy is remembered for his role as Mr. Lippman on Seinfeld, where he worked alongside Mr. Alexander.
“STAGE RAW TOP 10… ensconces themes relating to Jewish history and heritage into a funny, poignant domestic comedy.” — Stage Raw
“UNFORGETTABLE… provocative, engaging, funny, poignant, mesmerizing… Definitely a must see!” —LA Theatrix
“REMARKABLE… a richly real script and uniformly excellent acting combine in a riveting theater-going experience.” — Larchmont Buzz
“DON’T MISS THIS ONE. GO!”— Performing Arts Live
“RIVETING, NUANCED PERFORMANCES… crisp dialogue packed with opposing ideas… pathos and humor.” — Santa Monica Mirror
“POWERFUL… will keep viewers talking long after the curtain drops.” — Splash magazines
“WOW!… HILARIOUS AND HARROWING… one superb performance after another.” — Stage Scene LA
“MEMORABLE… COMPELLING AND RELEVANT… deep and intense think-pieces presented at the pace of screwball comedy.” — The Hollywood Times
“URGENTLY IMPORTANT, BRILLIANTLY LYRICAL AND THEATRICAL… best mounting of a new American play I’ve seen done in 14 years.” — Ticket Holders LA
“ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR THE VENERABLE FOUNTAIN THEATRE… a play you won’t forget.” — Discover Hollywood
The Fountain Theatre will live stream the final performance of Roe by Lisa Loomer on Sunday, July 10 beginning at 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET. The event will be made available free of charge as a public service to audiences around the country. To receive a link, go to www.fountaintheatre.com.
Part outdoor rally, part call to action, part guerrilla theater, Roe is concluding a 3-week, sold-out run on the Fountain’s outdoor stage, where it is being presented as a “hyper-staged” reading.
Powerful, poignant and often humorous, Loomer’s play cuts through the headlines to reveal the real-life women—Norma McCorvey, known as “Jane Roe” and Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who argued the case—behind Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that gave women the right to safe, legal abortion. Fast-moving and fair-minded, Roe brings these two complicated human beings, the challenging years following the court’s fateful decision, and the polarization around the issue in America today into sharp focus.
“This live stream broadcast of our final performance will be the crowning event of this remarkable journey that started only one month ago,” says Fountain Theatre artistic director Stephen Sachs.“It is happening because people are passionate about this issue and care deeply about supporting the Fountain in our effort to give it a voice.”
The live stream is sponsored by The Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. The center is an innovative new division engaging with community organizations, scholars, lawmakers, practitioners and advocates on reproductive health, law and policy. For more information or to get involved, go to law.ucla.edu/academics/centers/center-reproductive-health-law-and-policy.
The seven-camera live stream will be directed by award-winning filmmaker, director and editor Jeff Richter of Beautiful Pictures Inc. and produced by Barbara Jacobs of Barbara Jacobs Events & Consulting. The director of photography is Chuck Ozeas. Equipment is being donated by Kemp Curly and Transition Productions. The camera crew is also donating their services, time and equipment to support this event.
CounterPunch calls Roe “a powerful, compelling, topical work of political theater about a pressing issue of the day presented by a talented ensemble,” and local L.A. theater site Stage Raw named it “One of the most vitally important pieces of theater in Los Angeles.”
Among the many lessons learned in 2020, the most crucial may be our urgent need to have open and honest conversations about race in America. As the grisly video of George Floyd’s murder surfaced, it became painfully clear that we could not afford to look away. Protesters spilled into the streets of cities across the country with a powerful message: If we are silent about injustice, we are complicit.
Angie Kariotis, Program Facilitator and Curriculum Director for Walking the Beat Los Angeles, has devoted her work to fostering these difficult conversations. Kariotis, along with Fountain Theatre Board member Theo Perkins, created Walking the Beat as a tool for community building for high school students. The nine-week multi-media workshop combines performance, creative writing, film, and research to initiate positive interactions between youth and police.
The Arts Education program began in New Jersey in partnership with Elizabeth Youth Theatre Ensemble, and in 2019 the Fountain Theatre launched Walking the Beat Hollywood. This year, the Fountain expanded the program, making it possible for students and police officers outside Hollywood to participate. On August 25, the Fountain will screen Walking the Beat Los Angeles’ culminating multi-media presentation, BLACKOUT 2021.
I had the pleasure of talking to Kariotis about the evolution, impact, and future of this vital program.
–What kind of impact did the events of 2020 have on the students, based on your work with them this past month?
If we are scared as a nation, we will forget all the lessons hard learned. You can see it happening already. No one is talking about all the changes we want to keep. What do we want to keep? Instead of rushing to “normal” (which wasn’t!), 2020 necessitated an activation. We’re activated. One thing the students are is ready.
–Was it difficult getting the officers and students to open up?
No, it wasn’t difficult for anyone to open up, by themselves and with each other. People, and I believe most people, want to do just that. But they need permission and they don’t want to be alone doing it.
–How has the program evolved since its inception, particularly in the last year?
We got research-heavy this year. We turned this workshop into a popular education. We practiced critique and analysis. We studied. We grew into our work as research-based performance artists. We aimed to challenge public policy formally. We are working to move our practice into the theater that is public policy.
–How have your own background and experiences prepared you to do this?
I am studying design thinking and collaborative group processes. This framework is about divergent thinking, collaboration, experimentation, and honoring failure. Creativity — and not just the art-making transactional kind — is a necessary skill. We need people who are able to identify problems before they become problems.
–Who should see BLACKOUT 2021? Why?
Anyone who wants to know how to have hard conversations with others. People interested in learning how to get people to the table. How to talk about things no one knows how to talk about. Right now we all want to talk about a lot, but we don’t know how.
–What is your vision for the future of Walking the Beat and beyond?
For Walking the Beat, my vision is doing policy brief work, where we move beyond survivance and reconnect with the Earth. I wonder how our workshop can tackle the larger theme of power and how that affects our relationship with the planet. We talk about public safety. Do we have planetary safety? What does that mean? How is the way we treat each other impacting climate? This is the ethos moving me into this space and beyond.
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It is this passion and progressive vision that have inspired the ensemble of students and officers to create work that is bold, brave, and charged with the urgency of this moment in our country. In addition to serving as Program Facilitator and Curriculum Director of Walking the Beat, Kariotis offers community workshops for parents on How to Raise Anti-Racist Kids, works at Brookdale Community College as Director of Diversity and Inclusion/CCOG, and has published a chapter in Musing the Margins, an anthology examining the influence of culture and identity on the craft of fiction.
BLACKOUT 2021 will premiere on the Fountain Theatre’s outdoor stage this Wednesday, August 25, at 7pm. It will also be available to view on Fountain Stream in the fall.
France-Luce Benson is an award-winning playwright and the Community Engagement Coordinator at the Fountain Theatre.
