Antaeus Company's current co-artistic directors John Sloan, Tony Amendola and Rob Nagle; Photo by Geoffrey Wade

Last year’s forced departure of Jeanie Hackett as the sole artistic director of Antaeus, the 21-year-old classical theater ensemble in North Hollywood, challenged the company to develop a new leadership model. Rather than look outside, leaders emerged from within. Members will vote in early March on whether to approve a trio of co-artistic directors: John Sloan, Rob Nagle and Bill Brochtrup.

Tony Amendola, one of the group’s founding members who has occupied one of the co-leadership seats since Hackett left seven months ago, will step aside so that Brochtrup can step up.

Tony Amendola

“This is not a new announcement,” Amendola says. “It was part of my acceptance. It has to do with my own sort of leadership philosophy that we need to bring as many people as we can into this mix. It’s worked surprisingly well so far, and Bill is an associate artistic director now, so he’s really primed to do it.”

Amendola, Nagle and Sloan relax around a table at Antaeus’ offices inside the Deaf West Theatre space in North Hollywood.  They’ve known one another for years, although none is a native Angeleno.

Amendola came to Los Angeles after growing up in New Haven, attending college in Philadelphia and moving to New York “like all back-east actors do.” He began his West Coast sojourn in 1978. “I was hired to do the summer season at Ashland [Oregon Shakespeare Festival]. I went to Seattle for a year and then joined Berkeley Rep for about 10 years, worked at ACT, then came down to LA permanently in the early 1990s.”

He was drawn to Los Angeles in part by his “old, old friend” Dakin Matthews, another co-founding member and Shakespeare scholar. “And I thought, as a contemporary actor, it was foolish to ignore television and film. My experience has been most people regret having done that.”

Nagle, who moved 15 years ago to Los Angeles from New York via stops in the Midwest and South, hoping for more experience on camera, kept meeting actors from Antaeus at other theaters and studios. “John and I met in a show at the Taper several years ago, The School of Night. I met Dakin Matthews the first time he was dramaturging a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Old Globe and then acted with him the following year in a production of The Merry Wives. I think Tony was in the other space with Peter Van Norden doing Cymbeline. The circles kept colliding. It naturally evolved for me to become part of this company and have an artistic home in Los Angeles.”

John Sloan

Sloan (TV’s CSI: New York and Happy Hour) grew up in Cleveland and studied English and French at Skidmore College in upstate New York. He worked as an actor in New York while also performing regionally in Denver and Seattle. “I came out to LA about eight years ago mainly because I lost my New York apartment and didn’t have the energy to find a new one,” he jokes. Sloan says it took three years before he learned of Antaeus. “As luck would have it, they were auditioning for Mother Courage. One of the best things that happened to me in LA was to find this home and start on a show like that.”

Having shared space with Deaf West worked well for a while, Amendola says. “We’re grateful, but it’s certainly not our dream home by any means. Yet it provides us aspects for what would be our dream home: a library, a stage, a communal area. Frankly I think we’ve grown out of this.” (The Deaf West company is not producing a show in the space this year. Antaeus has taken over the lease and its associated costs until December 31. Deaf West will produce elsewhere this year.)

A large table in the library serves as a fine space for table reads, but the facility has no rehearsal space other than the stage. “So what do you do when there’s a put-in? We can’t be here then. It’s awkward and the actors feel out of sorts,” Amendola admits.

The Antaeus Company's home at Deaf West featuring its 2011 award-winning "King Lear"

Space is not the only challenge. While Antaeus was founded in 1991, initially to feed new works to the Mark Taper Forum where rehearsals were first held, it’s only now in its third full producing season. Sloan says, “On one level, the company is still in its infancy and defining itself.”

Actors pay $300 a year in dues at Antaeus. There are just over a hundred members and another 50 or so “emerging artists” in its A2 troupe.  “I was thinking,” Nagle says, “about what the future of Antaeus will be, and we’re not yet sure. You’ve got a company of actors, some of whom very strongly believe that the future lies in the current [99-Seat Plan] code of the Actors’ Equity Association.”

Others, he says, want to be paid beyond the nominal earnings provided by the 99-seat plan by moving to a Hollywood Area Theater contract. Others believe it should be a LORT [League of Resident Theatres] contract.

Nagle adds, “There are diverging opinions about what Antaeus should be, just as there are about what shows we should be doing or what classes we should be teaching. We have to listen very carefully to all the different sides of the arguments and then try to walk the line that keeps the company together and keeps them all willing to sacrifice and keep the vision of Antaeus on track.”

Hackett’s departure last summer trickled down into the membership. Nagle counts three actors who left the company, but several more who have returned. Sloan says, “I think people are still digesting what happened and making up their minds [whether to return to the company].”

Rob Nagle

Nagle adds, “Once people see the ship is sound and that all hands are on deck to make sure it doesn’t sink, they’ll see we’re going to be all right. I feel much more confident now than I did six or seven months ago about the future of this company. I know we’re sturdy and sound and repairing any divisions that were there.”

Opinions of why Hackett lost her leadership role vary. “If you polled the company,” asserts Amendola, “certain reasons were ideological and some were artistic. Others had to do with not feeling fulfilled and some were probably personal. What it all boils down to is, at this theater, it’s about sharing power.”

Sloan believes the only reason Hackett’s departure garnered public attention is because, during Hackett’s seven-year tenure, the company “grew so quickly. The whole idea of the company is to be experimental in every way: the leadership structure, double casting, how we produce. The fact that this transition with Jeanie didn’t go as smoothly as it could have is because we didn’t have time to put in place the structures to do it.”

The solution, they believe, is the trio of artistic directors, which allows company members to approach the leader with whom they’re the most comfortable when they have ideas or complaints.

None of the three seems to blame Hackett for putting the company in this position. “We all created what happened here,” says Amendola. “It wasn’t just Jeanie. We’ve moved on and just want to provide an outlet for people so it never gets that far again. To be fair, this is such a unique company and Jeanie’s brilliant experience organizationally was tied to experiences in LORT theaters and big, successful organizations. It’s a unique leadership position and that’s what we’re still trying to figure out how that can work and what’s the most effective way.” He adds with a laugh, “I think to go back and run Berkeley Rep after this would be a piece of cake.”

John Sloan and Kendra Chell in the ClassicsFest 2011 presentation of "A Long Day's Journey into Night"; Photo by Karianne Flaathen

Hackett remains a company member and told LA STAGE Times last week the day likely will come when she feels comfortable returning to Antaeus as a performer or teacher. She was scheduled to play opposite Geoff Elliott in the upcoming Antony and Cleopatra at A Noise Within, but left the production, citing a family illness. She is replaced by her understudy, Susan Angelo. (See story here next week.)

Antaeus, Sloan believes, must be member driven. “We’re discovering [how best to run the company] as we go, like the rotating nature of the triumvirate. Leaders and followers should have an equal say and hopefully, if you set it up correctly, the ‘followers’ will feel empowered and feel okay about stepping into a leadership position.”

Naturally there are incumbent traps and pitfalls, Sloan says, “But you set your ego aside and work toward a consensus.” Pointing at Amendola and Nagle, he adds, “These guys may disagree, but if you were to sit down and write a job description of the Antaeus artistic director role, I think it should be to support and guide and shape the artistic energy of the ensemble, as opposed to dictating what it will be. Easier said than done.”

When Amendola lived in New Haven, he remembers walking to Yale Rep in 12 minutes and to Long Wharf in 10. “On a Saturday night, when I was a lost young man, I would just walk to one or the other and buy a student ticket. It didn’t matter what was playing. I realized that theater was medicinal to me. Gradually, through the ‘80s at Berkeley Rep and the ‘90s and 2000s, I realized that theater had shrunk. I found it a very lonely place to be.”

Richard Levinson, Jesse Sharp and Rob Nagle in "Peace in Our Time"; Photo by Geoffrey Wade

Amendola lamented the transition from large casts and sets to simpler productions with few actors. “Plays were chosen for economical reasons. The interesting thing we can do here is a play like Peace In Our Time and put 23 actors on that stage, twice over [with double casting]. There’s something much more basic and fulfilling about that. It would be easier to do smaller shows, but we wouldn’t be serving our company.

“To be fair,” he adds, “I think the Taper and Geffen and South Coast Rep would love to do big plays all the time, but they don’t have our luxury. It’s one of the things that make us different. Not just the number of people here, but the depth as well.”

It’s that depth of professional actors that forces Antaeus to double cast. Their members often get called away for television and film projects. Over the years Amendola has appeared on General Hospital, CSI: Crime Scene Investigations, Stargate SG-1, Once Upon a Time and much more.

There can be a downside to double casting, however, as Nagle, who has worked on various TV shows and films, points out. “Not everyone’s going to be happy with the choices of the shows or projects or casting or directors. Not everyone’s going to like the person they’re partnered with. But if you’re part of a community, these are the things you have to compromise on – bend rather than break. I can’t care about pissing people off. If I did, I wouldn’t be making decisions that were leadership-driven.”

Tony Amendola discusses Shakespeare's sonnets in the Antaeus library

“Actors are very comfortable being in their own cocoon where everything is provided,” adds Amendola. “You only go out of that cocoon when you have a problem; either you don’t like your costume or choice of plays. You think you understand the theater as an actor, but when I had an opportunity to direct I truly understood who the designers were and what the stage manager really did. All of a sudden, stepping into this, it’s an acceleration of learning. You appreciate the marriage to the board and the community presence. You get a much bigger picture of what’s being created here.”

The triumvirate this year will continue to struggle with such internal questions as who should direct their shows. “Through discussions with our membership,” Nagle says, “it became clear that the company is interested in working with our stable of member directors, with actors in the ensemble who are interested in directing and with talented outside directors. And we’re thrilled to say that those desires are being answered with our current season’s directors: company director Andrew Traister (The Seagull), acting ensemble member Gigi Bermingham (You Can’t Take It With You), and guest director Jessica Kubzansky (Macbeth).”

Bill Brochtrup

Brochtrup, Nagle and Sloan are confident, given that no one else really has stepped forward, members will support them in a vote, likely within a week after the February 27 company meeting. It will then go to the board for approval. Meanwhile, actors are preparing for Chekhov’s tragicomedy The Seagull which runs March 1- April 15. Previews begin Feb. 23.

The Seagull, presented by The Antaeus Company. Opens March 1. Plays Thurs.-Sat. 8 pm; Sun. 2 pm. Through April 15. Tickets: $30-34. Antaeus Company at Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood 91601. Call 818-506-1983 or visit www.Antaeus.org.