The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 568

Valley Calendar Singing an Equity Tune West End Playhouse's Broadway Revue Goes Union, Increasing Costs but Setting a New Benchmark for Area Theater actors' pool and offer high-quality shows," said George Ives, Equity's Western regional director. Four of the seven cast members of "Broadway Sings Out!" who are not Equity members will be eligible to join the union because of the show's new status. "Getting the actors an Equity card is a nice gift we can pass on to them," said director Pamela Hall, who is co-owner of the playhouse and Gaynes' wife. The West End Playhouse is opening its 10th season in its wood-framed build "This is a rare event for the Valley. Very few shows get that far," Van Duzer said.

But the rollicking, socially significant musical of 63 songs written by a USC gerontology professor has survived by word of mouth to play twice a week for almost a year. By becoming an Equity show, costs have increased more than $200 a performance because Gaynes must now pay the actors $50 to $60 a week plus benefits-five times more than what he paid before. Before 1988, when By MICHAEL SZYMANSKI SPECIAL TO Till! TIMES A stage production in Van Nuys has been so successful, it's going to cost the producer a lot more to run. "Broadway Sings Out!" a musical being staged at the small West End Playhouse has run long enough to be forced into an Equity theater contract a first in the Valley. Although it makes the production more expensive for the playhouse, it is a hallmark in the tumultuous 10-year history of the Van Nuys theater.

The musical is the only Valley show to last more than 80 performances since a new 99-seat theater plan was adopted three years ago by Actors Equity the stage labor union. Under the plan, the show had to agree last week to sign sanctioned Equity contracts, or close. "It's a great show and people are still coming to it, so why shut it down?" said Edmund Gaynes, producer and owner of the West End Playhouse. "This show has a lot of life left to it." No other Valley theater has managed to extend a show long enough to require i Equity status, said Michael Van D.uzer, the Equity's 99-seat theater plan sarily in large-scale theaters an hour away," Gaynes said. "They can find It right here, next-door." Almost single-handedly a decade ago, Michael Bell renovated the abandoned, rotting country-Western bar.

After running the theater for six years with his wife, Victoria Carroll, Bell sold the theater in 1987 to another couple: actors Gaynes and Hall. But before deciding to buy the theater, Gaynes was almost killed in a hit-and-run car accident on the San Diego Freeway. A veteran of six Broadway and1, seven off-Broadway shows, including a part in 1963 opposite Liza Minnelli in "Best Foot Forward," Gaynes' throat was slit in the accident, leaving him barely able to talk for years afterward. Gaynes who was also a television actor with credits ranging from "Kojak" and Mary Martin's "Peter Pan" to a recurring role on "The Patty Duke Show" and another on the soap opera "As the World Turns" figured his show business career was over. "I was a year in the hospital.

I couldn't feed myself. I lost the use of my left arm, but I knew I wanted to stay in the business somehow," said Gaynes, whose hoarse voice remains. "We decided to Please see BROADWAY, DAVID DOURER Los Angeles Times Hall and Edrnund Gaynes. West End Playhouse co-owners Pamela ing at 7446 Van Nuys just north of Sherman Way. Sitting near warehouses in a neighborhood where a homeless person wanders in occasionally, the playhouse has established a loyal audience.

"People are realizing that good theater isn't neces- Equity rules for theaters with fewer than 99 seats changed, producers were not required to pay actors and could keep a show running indefinitely without Equity contracts. Now, the union allows small theater operators to hire actors at below-scale wages, but after 80 shows, union wages must kick in. "When a show goes Equity in the Valley, it's good for all theaters because people know suddenly that small theaters can tap into the top professional Safe and Sane Jazz Pianist Tries It Solo Music: After years of making a living by playing with the greats and not-so-greats, Terry Trotter wants to be more than a well-kept secret. By ZAN STEWART SIMICIAI. TOTIIGTIMRS Thirty years ago, pianist Terry Trotter got a phone call about a job.

With trumpeter Miles Davis. Trotter, a Glendale native, 21 at the time and one of the key players in the burgeoning Los Angeles jazz scene, was asked by Davis to fly to San Francisco to audition for the piano chair that was soon to be vacated by Victor Feldman. Feldman, who died in 1987, had reepmmended Trotter to Davis and told him to call the trumpeter, who died last month. When Trotter called, he turned Davis down. "It was a decision I had to make.

Even Though I was interested in staying in the jjazz field full time, the lifestyle the night- ciuds, me arugs was not to my liking," says Trotter, now 51. So he opted for another, seemingly more pleasant world, that of studio and commercial AXKI.KOHSTER For The Times! Glno Cabanas portrays condemned killer J.P. Johnson in the Road Theatre Company's production of "In the Name of the People" In Burbank. Last Hours of Condemned Killer J. P.

Johnson music. For 30 years. Trotter, who was capable of brilliantly inventive jazz improvisations as well as crisp Drama: 'In the Name of the People' deals with the death penalty and how the system treats victims and survivors. (readings of classics, made a very comfort-Sable living. And stayed out of the limelight.

Trotter played for the greats and the hot-so-greats. He made records with Shrank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, did TV fohows with Glen Campbell and Cher, and, f6r most of the last decade, toured regularly with pop music veterans Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme and jazz-blues- pek guitarist Larry Carlton. He even research by taking the cast on a field trip to the local jail: "We want to see how the guards stand and talk, look in the prisoners' eyes, listen to the sounds and "Name" marks the Road's second entry; its first was a well-received revival of Lanford Wilson's "Balm in Gilead," which closed last weekend. "We chose it for many reasons," says Cabanas, who is also the group's artistic director. "First, money-wise: With a large cast, we got all their friends and relatives, good word of mouth.

Plus it's a hard play; we knew if we pulled it off, we'd get a lot of credibility. We also want to relate to issues. That was about drugs, the homeless. This one also mirrors Please see DRAMA, F23C "Tucker" and "True stressed that the play is not a diatribe, either for or against the death penalty. "It's important to get across both sides of what the death penalty does.

These people are trying to live after a death. The mother of the dead girl starts Parents for Justice; her whole life is about holding onto that pain. Her husband has come to grips with it and is trying to ei. on with his life, trying to finally bury his child." The story is set both in J.P.'s cell and in the home of the victim's parents, the Murphys. P.

has to meet with all these people," Gilbert says. "The day is filled with trauma for him, for the Murphys, for his mother. Everyone who comes to his cell wants something from him." (Cabanas is planning some up-close ijon with such artists as saxophonist Phil of his teen-aged victim. "He's been on Death Row for 10 years," Cabanas says. "He's already had two stays; now he knows he's going to die." Actress Taylor Gilbert, who's directing the 10-character piece, concedes that "a lot of it is about J.P.'s last day.

But it's also about how the system treats victims and survivors, about people trying to take their lives back, how the judicial process has a tendency to use and abuse. It's not a bad system it just is what it is." Gilbert (whose film credits include By JANICE ARKATOV SPUCIAI. TO TNI! TIMliS 44 "1 harming is my through-line," 1 jokes Gino Cabanas, who plays a convicted rapist-murderer in the Road Theatre Company's staging of Tim Boland's "In the Name of the People," which begins previews Wednesday at the Burbank theater. The drama, set in a death house holding cell, follows the last hours of J.P. Johnson, as well as those whose lives he's touched: his mother, his daughter and the parents Voods and vibraphonist Charlie Shoe- nake.

True, these various artists provided otter with some excellent musical mo- ents, not to mention steady me still dos He continues to work about months a year with Lawrence and sorme ana penorms uccuhiuiiui wiui larlton. But he found he missed the hpurishment of making your own art. Trotter, who lives with his wife in Studio Rty, will co-lead a quintet with fellow 1.L..1 t- rt i .1 ,1 RESTAURANT REVIEW fjjruuuruiui vavui vjurnciu Uli vtmay elk ie Room Upstairs at Le Cafe in Sherman kks. He figures that, after years of just. Addictive Rolls and Argentine Pizza Served Above the Smog Line riding the carousel, it's time to reach out bjid make a grab for the gold ring.

greens, an inspired selection of imported "Though I don't regret the things I've ibne, including turning down Miles, ifed of just doing commercial work, full-Ime at least," the pianist says. And he ould like to stop being thought of as a ell-kept secret, he says. know that the drive has been worth it. Argentine-born chef Fernando Grassi has fashioned an interesting menu, sprinkled with dishes that we haven't seen elsewhere, and everyone can sense a good dinner on the way. In fact, the minute we are seated, a waitress brings a steaming basket of what have to be the Santa Clarita Valley's best rolls, yeasty puffs of pizza dough brushed with butter, garlic and sweet basil.

I could make an entire meal of these rolls and a plate of Grassi's antlpasto salad (good distracting aromas. Five of us are dining on the patio of a restaurant called L'ltaliano, shielded from a large parking lot by a screen-like contraption, and all we can smell is the alluring scent of garlic and fresh herbs. It's wonderful. Unfortunately, it's easy to lose patience driving all the Way to Saugus, even before you reach the Valencia Boulevard exit. The Golden State Freeway usually turns into a parking lot on hot evenings with everybody rubbernecking at the spectacular sunsets.

But now that we're all here, we By MAXJACOBSON SPRCIAI. TO Tllll TIMHS Sunsets are gorgeous in Bouquet Canyon. Down below and far away, the smog layer over the Los Angeles Basin looks like an ad for "The Color Purple," mingled with a beautiful array of scarlet and orange tints. This canyon itself is pretty, 'spattered with sagebrush and desert plants, and we couldn't resist sitting outside even in the stifling heat, but there are all these 'I want to set the minor solo career that cold cuts and cheeses). This antipasto, by the way, is brightened considerably by the chef's own picklejj artichoke hearts, olives and cauliflowe The cauliflower is particularly sensationah We scrap over it like alley cats.

We consider sharing an Argentine pizza (ham, sweet peppers and green olives) before deciding on the fugazzetta, and the choice proves to be propitious one. Grassi's fugazzetta consists of a flurry of thinly Please see REVIEW, F23B at this point In my life off the. round," he adds. "I'm looking for avenues a express mvself. I feel, since my strong ireas are jazz and classical music, I want to i id various ways fo play both." I Please see TROTTER, F25D.