Greetings, theatergoers! It’s been much longer than I ever intended. You know how it is: you take on a couple of exciting projects, one turns out to be particularly engrossing and takes precedence over everything else, and before long you’ve lost the habit of keeping up the other stuff. When it comes to theater, especially, I get very passionate about my current projects. Which ties in nicely with what I want to discuss today.

We’ve got a new-ish (or perhaps I should say, semi-recently reborn) space at the Santa Paula Theater Center, one that serves as an exciting alternative to our already attractive Mainstage, and one that subsists on the sweat of those who get especially worked up about their theatrical endeavors. If you’re a regular, you already know what I’m talking about, as we’ve gotten much better about hyping it up both in our Mainstage curtain speeches and on Facebook. Yes, I refer to the increasingly popular and much spoken-of Backstage.
What exactly is the Backstage? The current incarnation is new enough that we’re still in the process of defining it in many ways! But I’ll start with the simple stuff. Physically, the Backstage is a performance space including a small stage, a semi-permanent set of walls establishing the skeleton of a trapezoidal box set, and risers onto which movable seats can be placed for an audience to occupy. We call it the Backstage because, in relation to the Mainstage, it fills up the primary backstage area of the theater. That partition in the Craftsman Pub that “authorized personnel” are always spiriting through during intermissions of Mainstage shows? Yeah, that partition separates the Pub from the Backstage. The stage itself backs right up to the wall at the back of the Mainstage space, so that the two stages abut each other but face opposite directions. The upside of all this is that we are now using just about every bit of space in our dear old building all the time. Actors hanging out backstage during a Mainstage production are essentially camping out in Backstage territory (and vice-versa, for that matter: during Backstage productions, actors use the Mainstage house as their main lounging area!)

In terms of use, some history might be informative. The Backstage is not, strictly speaking, new. Back when SPTC was being helmed by our original artistic directors, Dana Elcar and Bill Lucking conceived of the Backstage as being our alternative venue, just as you might find in an Equity theater in a big city somewhere. The Backstage was used, in those days, mainly to host edgier work or work with niche appeal, and which did not require the same material resources to stage as a Mainstage piece. The Backstage saw some use during the early years of SPTC’s tenure in the Ebell Club building, but at some point along the line, it fell by the wayside and was largely relegated to overflow storage (and of course serving as the backstage area for Mainstage productions). Eventually too, there were equipment issues. Even a smaller scale space with stripped-down production values needs lights and sound and operating boards, and we didn’t have the instrumentation and controls to cover both spaces for many years.

Starting around, I don’t know, 2005-ish or so if memory serves, I started hearing mutterings amongst various regular participants of someone maybe spearheading an operation to get the Backstage going again. At that point, it wasn’t clear how serious people were. Those of you with experience in big volunteer organizations will understand: it takes a lot of energy for people to build up the momentum necessary to institute a major change like that, especially when most of them are being paid little to nothing for it. I always threw my two cents in about projects I’d like to see done if it ever happened, though at the time I didn’t feel qualified to push anything too hard.

One proposed project from this time which was fairly seriously discussed for a bit was rather inventive: a novel take on the staging of Noises Off. For various reasons we never ended up securing the rights to the show, but had we done so, the first refurbishment of the Backstage might have been in support of this production. Typically N.O. is mounted with a rotating set so that the second-act backstage antics are shown after the whole set has been rotated. In managing director Fred Helsel’s proposed staging, the audience would have started in the Mainstage house for the first act, moved backstage for the second act, and returned to the main house for the third. Alas, it was not to be.

In 2008, a project finally came along which gathered the necessary momentum. Proposed and directed by Jill Dolan (assisted by Andrea Robles), and sporting a cast of mostly SPTC stalwarts including Kate English, Gloria Deleon, Jennifer Carnahan, Dolan again, and then-SPTC Board President Leslie Nichols, the show was a little-known gem called Playhouse Creatures. Jill gathered the cast, put them through months of reading, and inspired everyone into the position of taking ownership of their own show (a theme which has become central to the current vision of the Backstage). As a production, they pushed and got things done. The space was cleared, instruments were gathered, and summer of that year saw the rebirth of the Backstage, with a highly successful production operating on the tightest of budgets. Due to the seminal importance of Playhouse Creatures, subsequent SPTC productions on the Backstage have been referred to by convention as “Creature Company Productions.”

The Backstage has been re-imagined not just as a space for niche-appeal pieces, but as an opportunity for people with passion projects to put their money where their mouth is, and as a training ground for people looking to broaden their current skill set (especially, but not limited to, new lighting designers, producers, and directors).

In theory, just about anyone can propose a project to be staged. The SPTC Executive Board has an official position, the Backstage Coordinator, devoted to vetting these proposals. The position is currently held by longtime SPTC actor and Backstage-trained director John McKinley.

Of course, in practice, it takes more than just an idea and a proposal. It’ll help if you’ve attended Backstage pieces in the past, and you can gain credibility by looking for ways to help in previously-scheduled productions before proposing your own project. But if you’ve got the passion (and the thriftiness!) John is a remarkably open-minded fellow.

Getting back to the first paragraph, now, of this post, my own Backstage project was one of the main reasons I first lost sight of this Blog. (It turns out directing is a lot of work if you’re committed to doing it properly!) Here’s a bit of my recent Backstage tale, for the benefit of those wondering about the experience. I appeared in 2009’s production of Twinkle, Twinkle Killer Kane and immediately knew the Backstage was going to figure big in my subsequent involvement with SPTC. I started testing the waters about the possibility of learning to direct, and even soft-pitched a script to then-Backstage-coordinator Andrea Robles. Drea didn’t much care for the text I gave her, and I didn’t push it very hard, because I knew I needed to ground myself first. To gain credibility I took one of SPTC’s Organic Acting classes in the area of directing, and looked for ways to help out in a couple more Backstage productions. I then more carefully chose a script, and made sure to write a full proposal, including an analysis of cost issues, which I gave to John, who by now had taken over from Drea. Things turned out much better this time, and my life between late October 2010 and the end of January of this year was pretty much ruled by my attempts to realize the requirements of a quirky text called “Tales of the Lost Formicans.” I have never learned so much about theater in such a compressed timeframe in my life. I had to worry about set issues, staging issues, pacing issues, lighting issues (oh my GOODNESS the lighting issues)… but, much like Jill Dolan, and in fact every Backstage director to follow her, I had the good sense to inspire my team to take ownership of the material, and in the end, that’s what made the production fly.

Our Backstage isn’t just attracting wannabe directors like me; it’s attracting swarms of new actors, and even whole new segments of audience. And although I admit one of the main reasons I personally am compelled by the growth of the Backstage is due to my own interest in alternative or edgy texts, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case for everyone else. There’s a culture growing on the Backstage that says the pressure is off, that the Backstage is a space about learning craft, that it’s okay to dream big and risk failure. The husband of one of our most experienced stage managers appeared onstage for the first time ever in Twinkle, Twinkle Killer Kane. I’ve spoken to audience members who had never been to live theater before. In my blog post on auditioning back in October I tried to convey how SPTC’s culture generally is one of inclusion, which is true; with regard to the Backstage in particular I’d say it’s one of everyone giving their all to the team to give it their best shot, especially if you’re doing stuff you’ve never done before. I hope you find that as exciting as I do.

What can you do to get involved? Well of course, you can come be in the audience. We’re in the middle of our first full season of shows on the Backstage, with the final weekend of Bug by Tracy Letts about to get underway tonight, April 14. The next slot will see an original play by SPTC actor Michael Perlmutter entitled Directing Hamlet. The season will close with a suite of original one-act plays by local playwrights entitled, collectively, Quills and Keys. Audition opportunities will appear here on the Web site and on Facebook, and if you want to get involved in technical aspects, the audition period is a good time to say so. If you’ve got a project you want considered, I encourage you to get hold of John McKinley. Comment here and I’m sure we can set you up with his email. Also, also, also, if you’re a writer, now’s a great time to shoot us material for Quills and Keys! Check out the Quills and Keys page on this site for info about requirements and how to submit.

In any case, if you’ve any desire to expand your horizons as an artist or as a consumer of art, the Backstage is a great place to stretch your wings. We hope to see you there soon.

 


Comments

Suzi Skutley
04/14/2011 4:18pm

Nice piece Peter! Makes me want to volunteer to work backstage... oh, wait.... ;-)

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