A Show and a Producer Find Homes

Item: The Tony-winning play “Side Man” has finally found a local home--January 2001, at the nonprofit Pasadena Playhouse--after months of attempts to mount the show commercially in Los Angeles.

Item: Joan Stein, one of the co-producers of “Side Man” on Broadway, has left Canon Theatricals, the commercial theater company she ran with Susan Dietz, based at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills. Although Stein has probably been more successful than any other L.A.-focused commercial producer over the last 10 years (“Love Letters,” “Forever Plaid,” “Ruthless”), she has, at least for now, left the world of L.A. theater for television.

These items look as if they just might be related. Many observers of L.A. theater had assumed that “Side Man” would arrive in Los Angeles as a commercial production, under the auspices of Stein and Dietz.

Stein, however, talks as if the events are coincidental. She decided to leave L.A. theater because she was offered “an incredible opportunity” to develop TV sitcom projects with Steve Martin, whom she got to know when she served as co-producer and general manager for his play “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” here in 1994-95.

And “Side Man” didn’t work out as a commercial production in L.A. because of problems in “the timing and availability of theaters.” Specifically, Stein had hoped that such stars of the New York production as Edie Falco, Frank Wood and Kevin Geer would do the play in Los Angeles this spring, but instead they did it in London.

Apart from possible casting, which hasn’t been announced for the Pasadena production, will it make any difference to theatergoers if the play is done commercially or at Pasadena? Only if the commercial production were to hit big and last a long time, said Stein--”then more people would have a chance to see it.” But she expects the playhouse to do a good job producing the play.

Stein was openly disdainful about the prospects for L.A.-based commercial productions after Canon’s production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” lost $600,000 at the Henry Fonda Theatre last fall. Last week, however, she refused to draw a line between the failure of “Hedwig” and her decision to stop producing L.A. theater. Might she have produced “Side Man” here if “Hedwig” had been a hit? “If beggars rode horses . . . how would I know?” responded Stein.

Meanwhile, Dietz will continue to run Canon Theatricals by herself. Revues focusing on the work of lyricist David Zippel and pop songwriter Diane Warren are being developed, as is a theater piece with Amanda McBroom. But the company’s only new projects with definite green lights are an independent film and a conservatory, which will begin offering acting and production classes for students aged 10 to 18.

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WHITE IN PASADENA: Lyla L. White has been named executive director of the Pasadena Playhouse. She had been serving as interim executive director for a year, since predecessor Lars Hansen left to run Theatre LA. Before that, she was the theater company’s director of development. “Over the past year, Lyla and I have developed a strong partnership,” said artistic director Sheldon Epps.

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FROM THE GROUND UP: Every year, A.S.K. Theater Projects, with its Common Ground Festival, provides a first public look at a few cutting-edge projects that often develop later into finished pieces with longer runs. The festival, at UCLA’s North Campus, begins Wednesday and continues through Sunday. Although performances are free, reservations are required: (310) 478-9ASK.

The festival also will host its annual open-air theater fair next Sunday afternoon, in which local companies distribute information about themselves.