Local Theater and My Home Away From Home

February 2020. That was the last time that I had stepped foot into the main room at The Long Beach Playhouse. To outsiders, it’s one of the many local theaters that cater to live stagings of various plays, musicals, and other forms of entertainment. The lower floor is considered a roundabout, one where the stage is surrounded on three sides by audience members. It’s an intimate setting, not very big. The front row is practically able to stand up and walk into a scene. Meanwhile, actors often make their entrance and exit from the aisleways, coming from behind those seats. As one can guess, the sets aren’t always the most elaborate, only doing what’s able to fit in the available space. Like the best of theater, practicality is part of its appeal.

The show was Noises Off: a 1982 Michael Frayn play that essentially amounts to the premise of a play gone wrong. The night before opening, a cast and crew meet for rehearsals that only help to highlight the various ways they’re not prepared. Act I is rehearsals, replaying the scene where the director makes small changes as passive aggression from the actors enters, where personal lives start to irritate cast and crew. Act II is opening night where everything is seen from backstage, watching a near-silent farce where tensions are running high. It’s a great deconstruction of theater as a form of entertainment as well as a delightful and witty comedy full of slapstick. It’s the type of show that plays well with an enthusiastic cast, and I’m proud to say that I had a great time.

The only irony about putting on a show about a play gone wrong in February 2020 is the real world context, in which an entire medium was shut down and The Playhouse didn’t actually complete their run. A whole season was slowly canceled, including a July production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company that I was very excited about. Like everyone else, the future was uncertain for well over a year, before vaccines promised some stability. Thankfully, they recently returned to the same room to complete their run of Noises Off. Looking at promotional photos, it’s amusing to see the small way in which certain actors have physically changed in that time. What usually is an encapsulation of a month-long run now feels like a pandemic before and after.

In honor of their next show, “Angels in America: Part One, Millennium Approaches,” I have decided to dedicate this week’s column to local theater. Like any other theater fan, I do love what the stage can do. There are endless opportunities. However, I’m not always capable of driving out to Los Angeles or Costa Mesa to see the touring productions. While they usually make for fantastic evenings, most of my year is filled with theater that hits, geographically, closer to home. What they lack in budgets for grand theatrics, they more than make up for with enthusiasm and desire to make a show work no matter what. I believe that there’s something powerful about anyone who believes in performance as expression. It’s something I wish I have, and it only makes me appreciate these programs more.

Cast of Noises Off, 2021 version

A major reason that I have chosen to focus on The Playhouse is that for years I have come to consider it a “home away from home.” For well over a decade, it has been a place of reliable comfort; a centralized place for community, While it’s not a guarantee that I’ll recognize many in attendance, the feeling of seeing people who live in or around Long Beach gathered over a love of theater is beautiful to me. It’s the way that the room feels so intimate and small, a horseshoe design that allows you to see the entire room from your seat. In the lobby, there are always pamphlets for other local theater groups putting on shows, brochures for their upcoming season. As one can guess, I often find myself putting it on file and planning out my future visits months in advance.

There are a handful of reasons that the place brings me comfort. Part of it comes from the general reliability of having a place that feels familiar. When you park in the lot, there is something exciting about walking past the area that constitutes backstage. Pass at the right time and you can hear action happening inside, making you wonder what’s going on. Even if you know the show, there’s something fun about speculating what you’re about to witness. Will they be faithful to the costumes, the staging, etc., or will there be some great creative risks? Given that the shows often have a solid level of quality, it’s the type of curiosity that makes you wish you could jump up and look through the window, getting a peek behind a proverbial curtain.

Another thing that has been exciting, and I’m sure this is true of all local theater groups, is watching certain actors evolve over time. For instance, I saw productions of August Wilson’s Fences and Seven Guitars there where the protagonist was played by the same actor. The small differences between the two characters was impressive on top of introducing me to an essential playwright’s body of work. Other places I have seen actors star in everything from Dracula to La Cage Aux Folles and Around the World in 80 Days: a cast of thousands played by a cast of a half dozen. It is honestly one of the best nights of theater I’ve ever attended and I regret only seeing it once. Elsewhere, I’ve seen Sondheim’s Assassins that featured certain actors’ first works with The Playhouse before becoming a regular that I’ve now seen there three or four times.

Even as I prepare to see “Angels in America” sometime in the near future, I enjoy predicting how many faces I will recognize. What actors will make their return? Unlike the other shows I’ve mentioned (except Assassins), this show will be held in the more conventional theater upstairs where every seat faces a stage. I haven’t been in this room nearly as much, which makes every visit special. I’m only loosely familiar with this Tony Kushner work, but I’m aware that it’s a long and grueling production with a lot of interesting minimalism and stagecraft. I have been following their preproduction on their social media, and it looks like a wonderful night of theater.

Promotional photo for Angels in America

I always think that it’s a miracle to know that live theater is coming back. I know on some level that this was always true, but I had to wonder if it would be much longer until I could return to The Playhouse. I have missed being in that audience, watching a show, and feeling the thrills of spontaneously responding to actors. Even for the nights where I merely “like” a show, there is something rewarding about being in an audience that shares that interest. I have missed seeing those faces, feeling a brief shock that an actor is talking from behind me, or the occasional snafu that comes with live theater. So many small things make local theater in some ways more essential, and to me, that is epitomized with The Playhouse. I’m thankful that they have survived, even if they have felt like a Long Beach institution for most of my life, that this city wouldn’t be the same without them.

I recognize the struggle to survive, especially from other local groups. When you’re not putting on shows, there’s a lack of incoming revenue and thus an ability to stay financially afloat. There have to be brilliant schemes to get by, and I applaud any theater group that has found a niche through the live stream market. Groups like P3 Theater have taken to doing digital concerts. I’m unsure what the fate of other great groups like The Long Beach Landmark Theater, Musical Theater West, or La Mirada Theater currently looks like, but some of them at least have a few shows on the calendar, waiting for the curtains to go up. Given that I’ve also seen great groups like The Attic in Santa Ana have to sell off props and still say their farewells, the future of theater is a scary one, but let’s hope something great can be rebuilt. 

There’s no guarantee that I’m seeing “Angels in America” this next weekend, though I have all intention of doing it soon. I have been really looking forward to the moment I buy that ticket and take a seat. There’s always a thrill of wondering what I’ve just gotten myself into. Will it compare to the dozens of other shows I’ve seen in this room, maybe even becoming a new favorite? As I flip through the brochure as the house music plays, I await the thrill of what live theater can achieve. It’s not just the story. It’s the feeling of being in a moment with so many elements, reacting spontaneously together. Anything can happen and sometimes it does. A microphone may crackle, an actor may stumble over the stair, or somebody laughs a little too hard. It’s everything that becomes a memory that stands to linger with you for a night or years. Whatever it is, I’ve had them at The Long Beach Playhouse, and I look forward to restarting that tradition very, very soon.