Soul Representative

THEATER IS TOO OFTEN PERCEIVED as an elitist pursuit, a diversion appealing narrowly to the middle- and upper-class white population. It’s not, of course, but whatever the reasons, audiences for stage productions comprise mostly those segments of society.

Consequently, theater companies everywhere constantly look for ways to attract a more diverse attendance. Locally, one organization stands out for such efforts: the San Diego Repertory Theatre. Since its beginnings in 1976, the company has consistently and successfully sought cross-cultural productions and patronage— a mission honored in January when the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle gave the Rep a special Craig Noel Award for “30 Years of Artistic Dedication to Downtown and Diversity.”

“Our audiences are 30 percent people of color,” says Sam Woodhouse, the Rep’s artistic director. “We want a theater in which the audiences and actors look like America . . . By building cross-cultural participation, we’re part of the birth of a new California culture.” He labels the Rep’s Lyceum location in Horton Plaza, which hosts—besides the company’s season— annual events like Kuumba Fest and the San Diego Jewish Arts Festival, a “cultural town hall.”

Woodhouse and college pal Douglas Jacobs were members of a street troupe called Indian Magique when they decided to create an adventurous downtown company. After a first season at San Diego City College, during which they inaugurated their annual tradition of adapting Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, they turned an abandoned funeral parlor into the Sixth Avenue Playhouse. There they continued blazing trails, as with the nontraditional casting of Whoopi Goldberg in the title role of Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.

When the fine old Lyceum was condemned to make way for the Horton Plaza shopping center, the Rep enhanced the house’s last days with hit shows like Working and Of Mice and Men, thus proving that people would go south of Broadway for good theater and convincing the mall’s builders to add a theater space to the new center. That underground area became the Lyceum Stage and Space, into which the Rep moved in 1986.

These days, the revered and neighboring Balboa is being retrofitted under plans to reopen it as a midsize theater. “Besides having a larger venue available next door, it would add to the feeling of a downtown theater district,” says Woodhouse.

He finds it surprising and rewarding to have reached a 30th anniversary, a hallmark being celebrated June 24 with an evening gala “on the rooftops of downtown” at Napa Valley Grille, the Westgate and the Westin. Did Woodhouse foresee the troupe’s longevity and a $3 million-plus budget? He laughs: “How could a 26-year-old possibly conceive of that?”

Besides directing a play or two each season, Woodhouse has acted regularly, in a variety of roles that have included Elvis and last season’s King Lear. But he’s not planning to go back on stage soon, joking: “Where do you go after you’ve played Lear?”

The Rep’s new season starts in September with Ella: Off the Record, a celebration of the life of marvelous jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald told via a concert of some two dozen songs.

SLEDGEHAMMER THEATRE has settled into a new home, the 10th Avenue Theatre, joining the Stone Soup Theatre Company and Eveoke Dance Theatre as tenants. Sledge will do two of its next season’s works at that venue, followed by a site-specific production. Its initial offering in the new venue is the West Coast debut of Charles Mee’s play with music, Chiang Kai Chek (June 15–July 2). The show, directed by Sledge co-founder Scott Feldsher, is mysteriously titled because it doesn’t actually concern the Taiwanese dictator but is a graphic multimedia meditation about power and its abuse—in short, perfect material for Sledge.

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