[Mb-hair] Live plays on TV

[Michael Butler]

Linda,
Very interesting. Thanks for sending. It will be nice to see what happens.
I did the LATimes today.
Are you going to be able to do it?
XO Michael

> _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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