Theater

The New Altarena

Playwright, Troupe Save Christmas with Premiere

By Keith Gleason
Photography by Lane Hartwell

Two world premieres, a gay-themed musical, a Shakespeare play and a recent sold-out special performance of Brian Copeland’s hit one-man show Not a Genuine Black Man. Things are changing at the Altarena Playhouse.
    The 66-year-old intimate Alameda theater is expanding its repertoire with productions of new works, more serious works, special events and a new concert Spotlight Series. Long known for staging plays along the lines of The Odd Couple, the Altarena is a community playhouse where comedy and farce have reigned supreme for years. The new direction is largely due to Altarena’s new artistic director, Fred Chacon, who was hired in April 2005 for his willingness to bring in new, younger audiences. Chacon, who leads the Alameda High School drama department and founded the Alameda Civic Light Opera, also takes artistic risks.
    In December, the theater premieres a new musical, The Man Who Saved Christmas, by Emeryville playwright and performer, Ron Lytle. The musical is about A.C. Gilbert, the inventor of the popular construction toy, the Erector Set.
    Lytle, who has received critical acclaim around the Bay Area, premiered another original work at Altarena in 2005. His Oh My Godmother!, a gay-themed Cinderella story, was the surprise hit of Altarena’s 2005 summer season. The show prompted kudos for Lytle, who was compared to musical theater legends Irving Berlin and Jerry Herman, the composer of such hits as Hello, Dolly! and La Cage Aux Folles. The show won six Dean Goodman Choice Awards, and Lytle received four individual awards for best direction, choreography, original book and original music.
    Lytle first heard about toymaker Gilbert’s life 15 years ago. “I just sort of listened and I forgot about it,” he says. But about the time Godmother premiered in 2005, he was thinking about what he wanted to do next, and the idea of a holiday musical kept popping up. “I was just sort of reminded of the whole story of A.C. Gilbert and the proposed ban on toy sales during Christmas and how ludicrous the whole idea seemed,” he says.
    During World War I in 1918, the Council of National Defense proposed a ban on toy production, believing the money could be better spent on the war effort. Gilbert, as president of the Toy Manufacturers’ Association, fought the idea and met with the Council in Washington, D.C.
At the meeting, Gilbert got members of the council to play with children and toys, which led them to cancel their proposed ban on toys. “From then on, he was always known as the man who saved Christmas. So, I thought, World War I, toys and Christmas and kids; if that isn’t a musical waiting to happen, I don’t know what is,” says Lytle.
    Lytle says the new musical’s style will draw on music from World War I, including Tin Pan Alley, ragtime and John Philip Sousa. “I think people will come out of the theater humming the songs,” says Altarena musical director Armando Fox, who is the arranger for The Man Who Saved Christmas and served as the arranger for Godmother.
    Artistic director Chacon says he’d been looking for an annual Christmas show, and he hopes Lytle’s new musical will be the one. “It’s hard to find new works, but with Ron, we knew him and liked his work, so it was easier.”
    Lytle has worked in and written for children’s musical theater for years, including at a Las Vegas casino, and has recently had two musicals produced by the East Bay Children’s Theater. He’s also worked for LeapFrog Toys, writing books, story ideas and songs.
    Lytle came to the Altarena purely by accident. After he finished a matinee performance in spring 2004, a friend dragged him to an audition for the theater’s production of Company. “I didn’t even know where Alameda was,” he says with a laugh. But he got the lead part of Bobby in the Sondheim musical, so Alameda was suddenly on his radar screen. Then, after entering Godmother in the yearly fall festival contest of Not Quite Opera, a San Francisco organization dedicated to the development and production of new musicals, Lytle made the finals. But when the organization lost its venue, he was out of luck. “I decided I’d produce it on my own,” says Lytle. So he approached Dale Rosen, Altarena’s then-artistic director. Rosen liked what he saw and decided to do a workshop version of it in February 2005.
    When Chacon became artistic director, he negotiated with Lytle to do a full three-week run of the musical, despite its gay twist. “There may have been some apprehension on the board, but I didn’t care. I wanted to do it. It didn’t promote a gay agenda. It was written to be entertaining. It was tuneful. It was a musical and a farce,” says Chacon.
    Lytle brings years of training and stage experience along with talent to his new favorite little playhouse. He studied piano as a child and played percussion in high school and went on to study musical theater at the University of Michigan. Chacon describes Lytle as a “quadruple threat” because Lytle can can sing, dance, direct and write music.
    Lytle is grateful Altarena has given him opportunities as a performer and creator as well as the experience of working with people such as Fox. “Having done Company and Godmother twice, that kind of cemented my feeling about the space, and that’s why I keep coming back,” says Lytle.
The tiny Altarena owns its building on High Street and can only seat 150 people a performance, so the theater can produce new works without the worry of a flop plunging it into financial crisis. The theater’s summer 2006 partnership with ArcLight Repertory Theatre saw its first Shakespeare play ever. As You Like It played to small houses, but it didn’t matter. Part of the appeal of the Altarena is its intimacy, where no seat is more than 20 feet from the stage.
    “We like to say if you were any closer to the stage at Altarena, you’d be acting,” says Fox, who’s also a board member. “That element of connection between an audience and a set of live performers is in danger of being lost. And I think we’re in a good position to do something about that.”
    Chacon, who wants to challenge audiences to see and support new works, says the theater will offer two recent popular musicals, the Tony award-winning Urinetown and The Last Five Years, and bring back Lytle’s Godmother by popular demand in 2007. “We want to provide a place for playwrights to have their work performed,” he says.