Robert Patrick (photo by Dylan Kenin)

We were captivated by this story in LA STAGE Times about Robert Patrick, the playwright and off-Off Broadway pioneer. His frank stories about the off-Off scene—and what happened to him when he left it—are rich, moving, and occasionally heartbreaking.

Take a look at this excerpt, and then read the full story at LA STAGE Times.

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For a television star like Kirsten Vangsness (above left), who’s currently seen on the CBS drama Criminal Minds, the theatre can offer a chance to go wild, to say and do things that just aren’t possible on a major network.

Recently, our friends at LA STAGE Times spoke to Vangsness about the challenges and rewards of playing an amateur porn star in Figure 8, Phinneas Kiyomura’s new play about “ordinary sinners doing sinfully ordinary things.” We’re delighted to share the following excerpt from the story. To read the rest, just go here.

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Thanks to six seasons on the sitcom “3rd Rock From the Sun,” French Stewart is bona fide star, yet he still loves performing in tiny theatres, where he’ll never get a large paycheck and may have to smoke in an alley. Recently, he wrote an essay for the L.A. Stage Times explaining why. We’re pleased to republish that essay in TDF Stages: It’s a great testament to why the theatre will always be exciting. [Note: The play that Stewart refers to at the end of the story closed earlier this month.]

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By FRENCH STEWART

About 25 years ago I did my first play in L.A., in a stinky dump called Galaxy Stage near Western and Santa Monica. We were required to clean toilets, mop the floor, and not ask questions about money. At night they used our set to film porn, and on your way out of the theatre, a certain “pant-less gentleman” might pee at you. Yes. At you!

It’s pretty common in the world of small theatre. It’s what you’d call “local color.” With no centralized drama district to speak of, our theatres float in weird neighborhoods like weird little pirate ships. Over the years, just outside some of L.A.’s small theatres, I’ve been lucky enough to witness (and this is true)—an angry Honduran man whipping a crackhead with jumper cables, a shirtless octogenarian “looking for a date”, and a raccoon who walked upright to intimidate people.

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As a companion to yesterday’s essay from Patrick Berger, our education associate, about  imagining a “communal” method of creating theatre, we’re pleased to present playwright Vasina Hasu Houston’s thoughts on what it really means to create something “new” for the stage. (This essay originally appeared in LA Stage Times, and we are reprinting it with their permission.)

What do you think about Houston’s ideas? Do you agree with her or with Patrick Berger? Or both of them? Let us know in the comments section.

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When I was 20, I did not worry about writing something “new” or “different” in subject matter or form, although my work often was perceived as such. I still do not concern myself with a quest for something different. Then and now, I wrote and write to write, period.

If a play’s subject matter or form is deemed as being new or different, it is a natural outcome of artistic expression and not an intentional result. I write compelled by passion for characters and story. To concern myself with re-invention in the process of original invention seems a waste of energy. If we write from the gut without worrying about how it is going to be perceived or where it will be produced or if it is “new” or “different,” we are more apt to create something truly imaginative and fresh.

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Patrick Berger is Theatre Development Fund’s Education Associate and an active member of New York City’s arts education community. Last month, he made a presentation on the future of the theatre at  Theatre Communications Group’s annual conference. Here is  what he learned and experienced there.

And don’t miss playwright Valina Hasu Houston’s complementary essay on what it means to make something “new” for the stage.

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The future can be a scary thing. New technology, especially social media, is shifting the way people interact with each other and even with art. From June 16-18, I was able to join the mighty many of the U.S. theatre elite for the Theatre Communications Group’s (TCG) annual conference. The theme this year, which is also the 50^th birthday of TCG, was inspired by the theatre’s increasing interest in its future: What if?

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