Canon Theatre | Intimate Excellent
The Canon Theatre, Beverly Hills
by Stephen Sachs
She called to take me up on my offer. I struggled to place who she was. A young woman from my Playwrighting Group in Hollywood willing to volunteer to usher at my theatre in Beverly Hills for the perk of seeing our long running hit play for free. I pretended to recognize her name but my mind raced. Who was she? A fellow writer? An actress?
“Sure, you can usher,” I muttered distractedly to the mysterious voice on the other line. “Be here at the theater tonight. Wear a black skirt or slacks. A white blouse. I’ll show you what to do.”
Part of my job as the theater manager at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills was to recruit volunteers to usher. The theatre was enjoying a celebrated 16-month run of A.R. Gurney’s play about friendship and romance, Love Letters, starring a rotating parade of famous actors, including Ben Gazarra, Gena Rowlands, Christopher Reeve, Whoopi Goldberg, Charlton Heston, Robert Wagner, Richard Thomas, Matthew Broderick, Helen Hunt, and many more. Because the celebrity roster changed every week, recruiting volunteer ushers eager to see the play wasn’t difficult. It often meant mobilizing a house staff of enlisted actors, wannabe screenwriters, middle-aged theatre junkies, and westside seniors looking for something to do. Then came the phone call from the enigmatic young woman.
She arrived that night precisely on time. I was standing in the theatre lobby, busily counting programs for that evening’s performance. I turned and glanced at the front entrance. Gliding in through the glass doors, the sun setting behind her and highlighting her slim form, strode a beautiful blonde in a black skirt, a white blouse, flashing a warm, inviting smile. My body jolted, even in my pressed suit. I stopped breathing. This is Los Angeles. Attractive women are everywhere. Something about her was different.
My hands shook as I demonstrated to her how to properly tear a theater ticket stub. Did she spot I was trembling? She leaned forward. Her warmth smelled delicious. Inside the theater before opening the doors, I stumbled down the carpeted aisle of empty seats with her, doing my best to outline our audience seating protocols, all the while my thoughts catapulting into a pathetic frenzied mantra, Ask her out, you idiot! Ask her out! Don’t let her get away. When the night’s performance ended, as we picked up littered programs from the floor and flipped up the seats, I asked her to join me for a bite to eat. She said yes.
We strolled south down Beverly Drive to an Italian restaurant still open and had pizza. Over wine, I explained that I was coming out of a long-term relationship and just wanted to stay casual. She confessed that she was ready to give up on dating and didn’t know how to be casual. We talked, we laughed, and we closed the place down.
Soon, we were catching new plays at The Music Center, having a ball at a jazz club in Encino, savoring intimate dinners on Melrose. We’d step out of my small apartment in Beachwood Canyon for late night strolls through the Hollywood Hills, talking non-stop, plotting our careers and confiding aspirations. The production of Love Letters at my theater provided the perfect background for our blossoming relationship. The play chronicles the bond that develops between a man and a woman as they share their hopes and ambitions, their dreams and disappointments, their triumphs and heartbreak.
Because Love Letters starred a new pair of celebrity actors each week, our theater was bombarded with flowers delivered to the stage door by fans. I would collect the dozens of bouquets and vases and display them around our lobby, filling the entranceway with bright color and sweet fragrance. Never imagining that one bouquet would help change the course of my life.
Late one night, following another sold out performance, I was locking up the Canon Theatre for the evening. The audience had gone home, the theatre was dark and empty. She was waiting patiently for me outside as I closed. We were on our way to a party in Brentwood. It was a warm August evening and she wore a lovely white linen dress. She beamed, fresh and radiant. I grabbed a large bouquet of flowers from the lobby and presented them to her with a flourish under the front marquee outside. She blushed and kissed me. We then turned and walked down Canon Drive to the car.
What happened next is difficult to describe.
As we strolled down the narrow sidewalk, she suddenly took my arm. We marched forward, arm in arm. I then glanced at her. At the two of us, together, arms interlocked. My suit. Her white dress. Flowers clutched in her hand. In that instant, I saw us. In a flash, time stopped, collapsed, and rushed forward. It was like peering into a looking glass, a crystal ball and a rear-view mirror, all at the same time. I saw our past, present and future together, as best friends, as life partners, as husband and wife, compressed into one perfect vision. I saw it.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” I whispered.
A recognition of the other.
It’s you.
We were married, exactly one year from the night we first met. One year to the day from that first afternoon when she stepped through those glass doors and into the lobby, and my life, forever.
Stephen Sachs is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood. Stephen and his wife, Jacqueline, have been married twenty-seven years and have two sons.
Posted in Anniversary, Arts, arts organizations, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, love, movies, performing arts, plays, stage, Theater, theatre
Tagged Beverly Hills, Canon Theatre, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, love, Love Letters, Stephen Sachs, Valentine’s Day
On Wednesday, February 8th, Fountain Theatre Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs was asked to speak at the Board of Directors meeting for Center Theatre Group to share his thoughts on the Fountain’s participation in CTG’s new Block Party. The following are his remarks:
Stephen Sachs
I’m Stephen Sachs, the Co-Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, which I co-founded with my partner Deborah Lawlor in 1990. We are now celebrating our 27th season. Prior to that, I was an actor – a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. In fact, in 1982, one of the biggest thrills of my young career as an actor was standing on stage at the Mark Taper Forum in a small role in the world premiere of Tales from Hollywood by Christopher Hampton, directed by Gordon Davidson.
I am a playwright, a director, a producer and artistic director. I began running theatre companies in Los Angeles in 1987 – the Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills with Suzi Dietz and Joan Stein – and launched the Fountain Theatre in 1990 to create an artistic home where new plays could be developed and produced that reflect the cultural diversity of Los Angeles and dramatize important social and political issues confronting specific communities in our region and our nation. The Fountain Theatre sits in the heart of the most diverse district in the City. Thirty-two languages are spoken at the local high school.
Our brand phrase is: Intimate. Excellent. We have artistic relationships with such noted playwrights as Athol Fugard, Tarell McCraney, Robert Schenkkan, Emily Mann, Dael Orlandersmith, Anna Ziegler, Lauren Gunderson, Zayd Dorn. We were just featured in the New York Times on Monday for opening the world premiere in March of Robert Schenkkan’s new play Building the Wall. You can guess what that’s about.
Plays launched at the Fountain Theatre are now being produced across the country, in New York, in London, have been translated into other languages and are now being seen around the world.
I’ve been a theatre maker in Los Angeles for 30 years. I’ve seen the intimate theatre community in Los Angeles grow from a cluster of what was then called “Equity Waiver” theaters in the 1980’s to the vast network of literally hundreds of intimate theaters we have today. Although we still fight for the right to call ourselves a “theatre town” because of the film and television industry – more theatre is now produced in Los Angeles every year than in any city in the world. More than New York. More than London.
The constellation of intimate theatres in Los Angeles is utterly unique nationwide. There is nothing like it anywhere in this country. Theaters around the country envied our 99-Seat Plan, which – for 30 years – gave Equity actors the right to hone their craft in an intimate theater without a contract — but not without payment and protections – if they so choose. The 99-Seat Plan was created by Equity actors. It came out of that spirit of revolution, the right to volunteer your services if you so choose, to insist on the artistic freedom to create. Where budgets and bottom lines were not a factor because nobody was making any money anyway. I don’t have to tell you – there’s a reason why it’s called non-profit theatre.
As many of you may know, Actors Equity has just eliminated the 99-Seat Plan. Against the will of its own membership. LA Equity actors voted overwhelmingly against eliminating the Plan. Equity has done it anyway. Forcing theatres to now use a very hotly-contested New Agreement impacting every intimate theatre in Los Angeles. Several small theatres are now closing. The entire landscape of the intimate theatre community will be forever changed.
This makes what you are offering with Block Party so extraordinary. And the timing of it so essential.
With Block Party, Center Theatre Group – the flagship theatre organization in Los Angeles – is reaching out its hand to the intimate theatre community. Not as a hand-out but as a hand in partnership. Recognizing that our work matters. Block Party affirms that the work created in intimate theatres is alive and vibrant and an essential part of the cultural life of Los Angeles. I can not over emphasize how important and meaningful this is. Not only to the Fountain Theatre, and Echo Theatre Company and Courage Theatre Company participating this year, but to all intimate theatres everywhere, throughout our community.
With one program, with Block Party, you have dissolved the barrier between “big” theatre and “small”, between “us” and “them”. With Block Party, there finally is now “we”. Together.
CTG Artistic Director Michael Ritchie
Michael Ritchie, Lindsay Allbaugh, Ian-Julian Williams and the entire Block Party staff have been so open, so inviting, so welcoming. The beauty of Block Party is not only the magic of what’s going to happen on stage, it’s the relationship-building already happening off stage. The setting up of meetings between our intimate theatre companies and CTG departments, to share ideas and swap strategies, is remarkable and generous and will be beneficial to both sides.
I’m confident that the spirit of goodwill and partnership that Block Party creates will ripple out and continue, not only for the 38 days of the festival, but throughout the entire year.
I was at the memorial celebration for Gordon Davidson at the Ahmanson last month. Just a few days after that ceremony, I attended a production meeting for Block Party. The juxtaposition of those two events was not lost on me. Gordon is smiling down on Block Party. He would have loved this. It truly carries forward his spirit of adventure, of risk, his dedication to diversity and inclusion. And I applaud and thank Michael Ritchie, and all of you on this Board, for making that spirit a reality.
Gordon Davidson celebration at the Ahmanson Theatre.
More Info/Get Tickets for Block Party
Posted in arts organizations, Board of Directors, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged 99-Seat Plan, Actors Equity Association, Ahmanson, Athol Fugard, Block Party, Board of Directors, Building the Wall, Canon Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Christopher Hampton, Coeurage Theatre Company, CTG, Deborah Lawlor, Echo Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Fountain Theatre, Gordon Davidson, Ian-Julian Williams, Joan Stein, Lindsay Allbaugh, Los Angeles, Mark Taper Forum, Michael Ritchie, Robert Schenkkan, Stephen Sachs, Suzi Dietz, Tales from Hollywood, Tarell Alvin McCraney, theater, theatre