Fairfax High Opens Its Doors for New Troupe

Can a professional theater company thrive at a public high school?

The only local model for such a relationship, Theatre 40’s residency at Beverly Hills High School, is in danger. Elements within the Beverly Hills school board and the faculty are questioning Theatre 40’s continued presence on campus, at least under the terms that have applied there for nearly three decades.

At the same time, however, Fairfax High School is about to welcome a new professional theater company, Greenway Arts Alliance, to the campus.

The cooperative venture already has built a new 99-seat theater, Greenway Court, at Fairfax. The venue’s first production, the premiere of Jose Rivera’s “Sonnets for an Old Century,” is scheduled to open Jan. 14.

This may well be the first theater ever financed from the proceeds of a swap meet. On Sundays, the Melrose Trading Post flea market attracts about 120 vendors and 3,000 people to a Fairfax High School parking lot. It was developed and is operated by the Greenway company.

The proceeds go to the school, but it pays Greenway about one-third of the take, and Greenway in turn used $120,000 of its share to renovate Greenway Court--a 1941 campus structure that had initially been built as a student social hall. The new theater was designed by James Eric, whose earlier efforts included the Matrix and Court theaters. Eric also will direct “Sonnets.”

Besides offering as many as four professional productions a year, Greenway plans to integrate Fairfax students into its efforts. Ten students will be paid interns behind the scenes of the productions, thanks to a grant from the Weingart Foundation. Students can audition for the shows, and one has been cast in “Sonnets.”

The space will be used for classes and seminars during the daytime hours; a video production class is already underway, taught by a member of the theater company. Teachers will be offered discounted tickets to Greenway productions, and students can get rush tickets for free.

“Our policy is to give the school twice what we ask for in return,” said Greenway co-artistic director Pierson Blaetz. “During the day, they get full use of the theater in any way they see fit.”

Blaetz and his partner, Whitney Weston, joined forces three years ago, using the name of Weston’s company New Attitude Productions to produce a play in North Hollywood. But Blaetz had been working near Fairfax, at Theatre at the Improv, and Weston lived near the school.

They came up with the idea of the swap meet as a way to finance educational programs that they wanted to offer at Fairfax, as well as their own theatrical productions elsewhere. They didn’t know about the Greenway Court building until they examined it as potential office space for the swap meet.

“One of the happiest days of my life was when I opened the door [to Greenway Court] and saw this huge, beautiful vaulted space waiting to be a performance space,” Blaetz said.

After arranging the details with then-principal Carol McNealy-Truscott, they renamed their company after the space.

Fairfax’s new principal, Heather Daims, said the arrangement is “a great opportunity for the school.” Blaetz and Weston are “part of the family here,” she added. Because of this sense of collaboration, she and McNealy-Truscott said they have little concern that the professional company might do material that would be inappropriate for a high school. “I don’t think they’re doing ‘Oh! Calcutta!,’ ” Daims said.

BRING ON “BEAUTY”: The announcement last week that South Coast Repertory will present the local premiere of Martin McDonagh’s “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” ended a period of waiting, when it seemed that just about every part of the country other than the Southland was getting its own production of the popular play.

“Beauty Queen” topped American Theatre magazine’s annual list of the most produced plays (except for Shakespeare and “A Christmas Carol”) in the country’s resident theaters during the current season. And since that list was published in the magazine’s October issue, the number of nationwide productions has grown to 25, according to a spokesman for the company that handles the rights. The local delay was initially caused by a plan to present a brief tour with the New York cast that would have included Los Angeles, but that plan was abandoned last spring.