[Mb-hair] Live plays on TV

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_http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-tvplays7mar07,2,4340127.story_ 
(http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-tvplays7mar07,2,4340127.story)   
KOCE-TV working on live play series
Orange County's public television station plans  to air productions selected 
from among local theater groups. But hurdles  remain.
By Mike Boehm
Times Staff  Writer

March 7, 2005

In a throwback to "Playhouse 90," a classic  drama program from the 1950s 
"Golden Age of Television," Orange County public  television station KOCE aims to 
launch a regular series of live stage plays to  be performed and 
simultaneously broadcast from its studios in Huntington Beach —  a gambit apparently 
unique on the current broadcast television  landscape.

Lacking the budget for well-known actors or name playwrights,  the series, 
tentatively called "First Stage Saturday," will offer new, unknown  plays that 
spring from Orange County's small-theater scene, with its casts of  
predominantly nonunion actors.

Plans call for presenting a new play each  month on a Saturday at 11 p.m., 
beginning April 2 with the Chance Theater's  adaptation of "The Rover," a 17th 
century comedy by Aphra Behn. Writer-director  Josh Costello reframes the play 
so four contemporary teenage girls having a  slumber party act out its take on 
romance and sexual attraction. KOCE education  director Hall Davidson said 
the idea sprang from the station's push to become  more community-oriented after 
an ownership change last November.

"Small  theater is a vital part of any community. Most of the community may 
not know  about it, and we're going to share it with Orange County."

With less than  a month to go before the premiere, contractual and logistical 
details remain to  be firmed up before the series can go forward. KOCE will 
front $5,000 to $6,000  in equipment costs and technicians' salaries for each 
episode, Davidson said,  and the stage companies are expected to kick in 
$1,620. Davidson expects the  broadcasts to reach 40,000 to 80,000 viewers, the 
numbers pulled by "Sound  Affects," a local rock band showcase that aired for two 
years in the Saturday  late-night slot. 

KOCE's attempt appears to stand alone. At The Times'  request, Public 
Broadcasting Service spokeswoman Kim Tavares sent e-mailed  queries to all 349 
PBS-affiliated stations, and responses turned up nothing  comparable.

To pick shows, the station has recruited four volunteer  artistic directors 
from the Orange County-Long Beach small-theater scene: Dave  Barton, artistic 
director of Santa Ana's Rude Guerrilla Theater Company; Laguna  Beach 
writer-director-performer Aimee Greenberg; Oanh Nguyen, artistic director  of the 
Chance in Anaheim; and Long Beach teacher-director Caprice Spencer Rothe.  All are 
aware of the pitfalls in translating live theater to the tube, where a  TV 
director and three camera operators will have ultimate control over what  viewers 
see.

"I'm not majorly concerned. That's the price you pay" for TV  exposure, 
Barton said. "But there's always the question of what happens if the  TV director 
doesn't get the piece and starts missing" important  shots.

Despite its backers' enthusiasm, some caution-inducing bumps  already have 
been encountered. The series originally was to have been launched  this month 
with "The Female Terrorist Project," a Rude Guerrilla production that  closed on 
Feb. 26. But Barton said that an attorney for playwright Ken Urban  raised 
many questions for which KOCE didn't have answers, such as who would own  the 
broadcast and how many rebroadcasts would be allowed. 

"None of us  thought through these things. It was, 'Let's put on a show, 
yeah, great,' "  Barton said. "There was a great deal of enthusiasm, but there are 
still  [logistical and contractual] things that need to be handled."

The issues  are being addressed, KOCE's Davidson said, including a decision 
that any  financial gains from tapes of the broadcasts would belong to the 
playwrights,  directors and actors and not the station. "Let's hope someone gets 
rich off of  it, but it won't be us," he said.

Also still in doubt is whether the  series, which can't afford union wages, 
can win clearance to use actors who  belong to the Screen Actors Guild or the 
American Federation of Television and  Radio Artists. And Barton raised 
concerns about finding enough good material.  "If you get a couple of [miserable] 
shows, it makes the series look bad and  makes us all in the theater scene look 
bad." 

Orange County playwrights  such as Joel Beers, Mary Fengar Gail, Kristina 
Leach and Stephen Ludwig have had  critically well-received productions in 
Southern California. But sustaining the  series, most of its artistic directors 
agree, probably will require reaching out  eventually to emerging L.A. playwrights 
as  well.
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