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When Gordon Davidson was hired as the first artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum in 1967, Los Angeles wasn't exactly a cultural backwater, but the center of the theater world was clearly in New York City.
Davidson, however, quickly established the Taper's reputation as one of the leading regional theaters in the country. As both a producer and director, he had a hand in countless landmark productions, including the world premiere of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.”
By the time Davidson retired in 2005, he had built the Center Theatre Group into a powerhouse that included the Taper, the Ahmanson Theatre and the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City. Davidson died on Oct. 2 at the age of 83.
Davidson was succeeded at Center Theatre Group by Michael Ritchie. KPCC's Priska Neely spoke with Ritchie about what he learned from Davidson and the influence he had on the theater community.
In 1981, I was a young stage manager on Broadway. One day I was walking through the halls and I heard this voice going, Michael! Is that you? And I turned around and it was a man walking down the hall towards me who I had never met before.
He said, "I'm Gordon Davidson. I run the Center Theatre Group out in Los Angeles and I heard about you and I just wanted to just introduce myself to you." Here was one of the leading artistic directors in the country. He had no idea who I was except that he had heard of me, and he reached out to say hello to me and chatted with me for a couple minutes in the hallway.
I walked away and I thought, Now that's a guy who both loves what he's doing, but also loves the people he's doing it with. That impression was always my impression of Gordon through the years.
"Zoot Suit" by Luis Valdez, a really important Latino play. The first major Chicano play to appear in a large regional theater, and certainly the first one to appear on Broadway.
"Children of a Lesser God," an incredible play that brought the deaf community into the theater in a very vibrant way. Both [Davidson] and Center Theatre Group won Tony awards that year when it appeared on Broadway.
"Angels in America," in the middle of the AIDS crisis when that disease was being ignored in many quarters. It was that play that Tony Kushner wrote that Gordon [Davidson] developed and produced at the Mark Taper Forum. It really brought the depth and the pain of the AIDS crisis to the forefront of the conversation in the country, and went beyond a theatrical event and became a rallying point for a social issue that needed to be addressed.
I just think that Gordon always had an eye and an ear for the voices that were being unheard that deserved to be broadcast to the greater community.
He said to me, "Follow your instincts," and he said, "Listen to the audience." That was one thing that I learned from him in watching previews. We would sit in the back row and he would close his eyes and lean his head back.
At first I thought, What's he doing? And at intermission he'd turn to me and he'd say, "This is what I heard." He'd be listening to the actors and he'd be listening to the audience as to how they reacted. It was a real lesson into how to create a new perspective on what you think is going on in the play.
Just close your eyes and listen to everybody.