UCLA alumni haven't hit bottom in theater

Published: Thursday, February 1, 1996

Graduates find jobs, focus on light-hearted comedy in 'Dialogues' production

By Jennifer Richmond

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

They were all theater majors at UCLA.

They were sick of not being able to find theater work just out of college.

They were just a group of guys "mouthing off" - when suddenly it hit them.

Why not create their own theater company that allowed them to act, direct, write and design their own shows?

So that's exactly what they did. And that's how the Bottom of the Barrel Theater Company came into existence.

"The truth was we wanted to create opportunities for ourselves and people that we knew had graduated from UCLA who were saying 'now what do I do, I've got to get a job," explains founding-member Ted Williams.

So, Williams, along with friends Brian McGinty, Jake Gianassi and Dylan White, decided to start doing shows that interested them. None of their shows have deep hidden meanings or preach some issue to their audiences. They wanted to keep their shows light.

"It's not that the theater in L.A. is bad or anything," Gianassi explains, "but a lot of them try to make really big points."

"They're really heavy-handed," McGinty adds.

Williams says they didn't want to go that way. "We just wanted to have some fun."

"We had two goals," McGinty says. "We wanted to create our own opportunities in the professional theater world and at the same time bring some better theater to L.A."

And the entire group agrees with that idea. So, for their second show, Bottom of the Barrel is giving "The Harry & Sam Dialogues" its West Coast premiere. The show follows two friends as they talk over old times and discover their mutual attraction for the same woman. It's a comedy, and that's the genre Bottom of the Barrel prefers.

"I think we're going for light-hearted shows that have some meat," Williams says.

"We wanted people to laugh and have a good time while they're watching the show," Gianassi adds," then, after they leave, they may think about it and discover a point to it."

"But it's not this great cathartic experience," Don Mercer, a recent addition to the troupe, says. "It's not like we kick them in the gut when they're down."

"So, far no one's slaughtered children and baked them into pies," Williams laughs.

But seriously, Williams says the show's fun and that's what Bottom of the Barrel wants to focus on.

Although the group only consists of UCLA alumni, they said they're willing to take others. The only problem is that they don't know anyone outside the university.

"We don't have any friends outside of UCLA," Williams jokes. "It's open to others, but we just happen to know UCLA people and are familiar with their work because we saw them (perform) at school. We felt that we could include people that we had enjoyed working with and who had talent - well, we have some exceptions," he says with a smile referring to his co-star Mercer.

"There's a lot of things you deal with when you work in groups like this," Mercer says as he squirts a water gun at Williams. "There's a comfort level that exists with people you've worked with in the past.

"It becomes a Pandora's Box when you start pulling in other people with whom you've never worked. You're coming up on an opening and suddenly all these problems occur that you've never dealt with before and it makes the situation difficult. So, you generally have a tendency to gravitate toward people who's work you know."

"Yeah," Williams adds, "because we all ready know what your problems are."

Those problems aside, Bottom of the Barrel wants to get a bigger group from UCLA. Although they haven't started holding auditions yet, they have put flyers up for every single one of their shows and would love to add more people to their group.

"We're trying to get students to come to the shows," Williams says. "That way, we can make them familiar with us while we in turn get familiar with them. We'd love for them to send us a head shot or a letter saying they want to get involved. We'd be happy to try and include them."

While Williams, Gianassi, McGinty and White all knew a decent amount about the theater from UCLA, they knew nothing about creating a theater company.

"I think most of us got a pretty good base at UCLA as far as the actual staging of a production goes. You know, the acting, directing, even the lighting and set design," Williams explains. "What we didn't have a base in at all was the business aspect. So, we've learned a lot about advertising, we're learning about making up a budget, getting the money together for the budget and trying to keep within that budget. Things like that were not things we really learned at UCLA."

"They're really into the abstract," Mercer adds. "They don't teach the practical art."

"If we could even just break even on our shows," Williams adds with a laugh, "we would be able to put up more productions. We'd probably have had more than two shows by now."

But not knowing the business side hasn't limited their ambition. They've got two shows under their belt and hope to have two more up and running by the time the year runs out.

Who knows, UCLA could be looking at another Actor's Gang or Buffalo Nights - at least that's what the group is hoping for.

STAGE: "The Harry & Sam Dialogues." Running through March 10 at the Actor's Circle Theater. Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. For more info, call (818) 880-4955.

Don Mercer and Brian McGinty in a production of the Bottom of the Barrel Theater Company.

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