It’s tough, this independent-theater racket. The planning, financing and spilling of creative blood that goes into each production is trying enough, and made more difficult in such a Strip-centric, big-budget, Cirqued-out city as Vegas. Despite a promising endeavor like the 5th Annual Beckett Festival (now through December 15) offering a much-needed boost, groups experienced an unsettling week or two nevertheless.
Even as newbie LionHeart Theatrics’ Act Without Words I and II exceeded seating capacity the evening of its November 28 debut, the Insurgo Theater Movement was forced to withdraw its The Water Hen from the festival due to technical and scheduling issues. “I’m so excited about the festival, and I’m so excited about what they do, but technically, they weren’t able to accommodate what we needed,” says Artistic Director John Beane, who has been invited to open the show at the Onyx Theatre January 10. “The piece is beautiful, and I want the audience to see it for what it can be.”
Not so lucky was Seattle transplant Atlas Theater’s Art, scheduled to open November 30 at the Arts Factory’s Michael Wardle Art Gallery. After Arts Factory owner Wes Myles invoked a clause in Wardle’s lease that said no outside events can use the leased spaces without the owner’s written approval, Threshold Dance Theatre owner Petrina Olson offered to accommodate the group for its two-week run. Says Atlas Artistic Director Chris Mayse. “What we wanted all along was to just do a play and become a part of the community. I wanted to help it grow, help build theater companies here—professional-quality theater that’s also professional in the way it conducts itself —and try to raise the status here so that Vegas can have a true fringe-theater scene.” (Myles, who co-owns the property in which the Beckett Festival is taking place, did not return calls for comment.)
Then there’s the New American Theatre Project, which, after three years and five lauded productions, called it quits after its run of Neil Labute’s Bash failed to attract its needed public support and attendance. “We don’t have the funding. We have the resources, but those people still aren’t coming. It’s not really taking shape as we had planned, or as we had hoped,” says NATP Artistic Director Wayne Wilson. “It’s disheartening, but we had a lot of fun and learned a lot. We’re just going to close this chapter and open a new one.”
Beane, for one, along with others like him, still hasn’t given up hope on local theater blossoming in Las Vegas. “There is a lot of change going on. It’s an interesting time,” he says. “We’re here to stay, though. You’re going to have to deal with us.”