Perhaps Chalk Repertory Theatre should be re-named Chalk Site-Specific Theatre. The company doesn’t perform productions in repertory, but it’s becoming one of LA theater’s leading advocates of site-specificity.
Chalk Rep is dedicated to producing classical and contemporary plays in unconventional spaces. Founded in 2008, Chalk has already produced eight plays in such diverse locations as the Masonic Hall of Hollywood Forever Cemetery for its productions of Three Sisters and Twelfth Night and private homes for its 2009 Ovation Award double winner Family Planning and its real estate comedy Full Disclosure.
Now Chalk is using a downtown loft for the premiere of Hell Money, opening April 1.
Ruth McKee
“We set out with the question, how is theater relevant in a film town? That was what we wanted to address,” explains Ruth McKee, one of six founding members of Chalk and author of Hell Money.
“What film does so well is put you in the dark, looking at a screen up front that makes you feel very intimate and involved. And we really felt if theater was just like that, why go to theater instead of going to the movies? We wanted to create theater that was an event to go to, where you’re in the space with the actors and it matters that they’re actually three feet away and in some cases talking right to you. It may not be completely comfortable for the audience, but for us it’s more about what is an exciting and unique and transformative experience.”
Another of Chalk Rep’s goals is to reach a non-traditional audience and stimulate community discussion. McKee continues, “In particular we wanted to reach people who are jaded by black box theater in Los Angeles. Our audiences are often people who don’t go to the theater at all.”
The name Chalk Rep was inspired by a gravestone at Hollywood Forever Cemetery that just says “chalk” and has a box of chalk next to it so you can write on the stone. “We all sort of said, ‘Oh there it is.’ We were looking for something that was ephemeral, here today, gone tomorrow, that sort of sense of when you draw a chalk line that’s where your stage is, that’s where your theater is. And then when you erase it, it’s gone.”
Budget considerations also entered into the decision to use site-specific theater. “I think that it made a lot of sense for us. Starting a company in the middle of a recession, we needed to think about how to keep costs low and not spend a lot of money on a building, or theatrical lighting. We wanted to invest in people. The majority of the revenue goes to the artists.”
The current Chalk production, McKee’s Hell Money, fits perfectly with these goals. The comedy was selected by David Hare as a runner-up for the 2009 Yale Drama Series Award. It explores the plight of two young women who have graduated from the foster care system, trying to make a life for themselves in Los Angeles. “We’re trying to reach younger audiences with this show, college students and college age people.”
The title Hell Money refers to a kind of joss paper that in Chinese traditions is burned in order to give money to their ancestors in the afterlife. In the play, one of the characters receives some of this “hell money.”
Ewan Chung and Elia Saldana
Two of the four characters were raised in foster care: Julie (Jennifer Chang, a Chalk Rep founding member) and Katie (Elia Saldana, an Ovation Award Nominee). They’re now on their own and working to save money for college. “Those first years out of the nest are fraught with struggles as you fumble in the dark to figure out how to survive in the adult world,” McKee adds. Another character is Tony (Burl Moseley) a USC foreign student from Nigeria. The fourth character is Norman (Ewan Chung), the next door neighbor, a young Asian man who works at a coffee house. The play is directed by Jen Bloom.
“What I want to emphasize with Hell Money,” McKee says, “is that it’s about some serious subjects but it’s a very funny comedy. It won’t bore you for a second. It’s a roller coaster ride.
“I wrote this play,” she continues, “after leading a playwriting workshop in a foster care group home. It’s a program called Unusual Suspects. They send teaching artists to foster care group homes and probation camps to get a group of young people to create a play and perform it. I was the writing mentor. They were an interesting group.
“Also, this play came out of a phase in my life where I was thinking a lot about parenting. Children and responsibilities have been a big factor in my life so that filters down into the stories. I think all of us at any moment in our lives have questions we try to answer.” McKee is expecting her second child shortly after the play opens. McKee’s husband is a film, television and graphic novel writer.
The action of Hell Money unfolds in Julie’s and Katie’s downtown apartment over one intense night when their luck turns to hell and all of their plans come crashing down around them. A fashion photography studio/loft is doubling as the apartment. With seating for 33 audience members, the play is performed without an intermission. “When we found this space, the layout worked perfectly. The bathroom will be used as a bathroom. The front door will be used as a front door. The big challenge for this space is to make this gorgeous loft look a little crappier.”
McKee was born in Canada. When she was a teenager, she moved with her parents to Bangladesh and then Kenya, moves dictated by her father’s UNICEF career. With her parents still in Kenya, she moved to New York to attend NYU, where she received a BFA in dramatic writing — and later, an MFA from UC San Diego.
“The themes in this play of being trusted and actually not knowing what you’re doing are very personal to me,” McKee says.
Probably her best-known previous work so far is Stray, which Chalk produced in 2009 at the Black Dahlia Theatre. She had received the received the 2008 Stanley Drama Award for it, and it was produced in New York as part of the Cherry Lane Theatre’s Mentor Project.
In keeping with its mandate to “. . . stimulate community discussion,” Chalk Rep will hold a post-show discussion about the foster care system with California Youth Connection. Scheduled for April 8, the discussion will involve CYC Southern policy coordinator Rebecca Leach and a youth involved with the organization. CYC is guided, focused and driven by current and former foster youth, with the assistance of other committed community members to improve the foster care system.
Hell Money, presented by Chalk Repertory Theatre, opens April 1; plays Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 7 pm; through April 24. Tickets: $15-$25. Agenda Loft, 400 S. Main St., Studio 601, Los Angeles (street parking and nearby pay lots available); 323.274.7737 or www.chalkrep.com.
Patricia Foster Rye is a theatre critic for the Larchmont Chronicle and has her own website www.patryereviews.com. She has produced local theater. A native New Yorker, she is a graduate of the High School of Performing Arts and the American Theatre Wing and has appeared on Broadway (a while back).
