Countless people with small bank accounts and big dreams flock to Los Angeles with the hope of making it onto the silver screen. But Tom Jacobson’s interests lie in live theater.
The Los Angeles playwright has carved out a space for himself far away from the bright lights of Broadway in New York. He's been involved in more than 70 productions, and also teaches playwriting courses at the University of California Los Angeles.
Jacobson recently chatted with NBC LA about Los Angeles theater and what separates it from the rest of the U.S. He also shared what theater students most desire to learn from him (Hint: It has little to do with playwriting).
Q. Was there something in particular that made you gravitate toward playwriting?
A. I like telling stories and I like live performance.
Q. What separates Los Angeles theatre from theater in other areas?
A. LA has more actors than anywhere in the world because of the film and television industry. Actors Equity, the union, has a 99-Seat Theatre Plan, which allows union actors to work in theaters of 99 seats or less for essentially car fare. So you might wonder, "Why would an actor do this?" If they’re in a play that is well reviewed and/or popular, people from the film and television industry may see it and it can result in paid work. There is no similar plan anywhere else. They have a plan in New York sort of like it, but the number of performances is very limited before you have to pay union wages.
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Q. Now, you teach some of the industry’s up-and-comers? What do you see around the bend for LA-based theatre?
A. I think Los Angeles is slowly coming into its own from a cultural perspective and the arts in general are only going to get strong as LA becomes more sophisticated and more confident.
Q. What projects are you currently working on?
A. I’m working on a trilogy about Pompeii: Three full length plays about a Roman family putting on a fake Greek play in their private theater on the day that the Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. I was inspired by the Getty Villa, which was modeled on a villa that was destroyed by the Vesuvius in 79AD. I want to do a play some time at the Getty Villa and I realize that the plays that they do there are adaptations of Greek plays, so I thought, why not write a Greek play.
Q. What are students today most interested in learning about theater?
A. Students want to know how to make money in the arts. I think there is more of a focus on making money... There is less interest in playwriting for playwriting's sake and more in playwriting as a way toward screenwriting.
Q. Where do you think that comes from?
A. In the 1960s and 70s, surveys of undergraduates indicated that the reason students went to college was to learn. During the Reagan administration student surveys showed they went to school for a better job.
Q. What advice do you give your students?
A. I talked to them last night about how to get their plays produced, which is actually harder than writing plays, and I said, “Create relationships with other theater professionals, playwrights, actors, directors and they will help you get your plays produced.”
Q. Anything else you would like to add?
A. Los Angeles is the best place in the world to premiere a new play because you can do it inexpensively with the best actors in the world.
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