New York — THOUGH he's no stranger to the spotlight, Kevin Spacey bristles when news reports on the Olivier Awards focus on his film connections: " 'The Hollywood contingent was represented by Kevin Spacey.' I go, 'What are you talking about? I come to work at this theater every day.' "
The actor, now in his third season leading London's Old Vic, isn't the only celebrity artistic director who has found that fame is a double-edged sword. Following a long tradition of actor-led theaters, numerous companies across the country boast notable television and film stars as artistic or executive directors, among them: LAByrinth Theater Company (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Actors' Gang (Tim Robbins), Purple Rose Theatre Company (Jeff Daniels) and Studio Dante (Michael Imperioli), with Cate Blanchett set to take over as co-artistic director of the Sydney (Australia) Theatre Company in 2008, with her husband, Andrew Upton.
And this spring, three members of the "Hollywood contingent" are starring in plays in New York that were produced by the theater companies they run: Spacey, in "A Moon for the Misbegotten," Hoffman in "Jack Goes Boating" and Imperioli in "Chicken."
Few would argue the appeal of an A-list name when it comes to selling tickets, although most of the actors maintain a relatively low profile -- their names are no bigger on marquees than those of their fellow company members.
"Our audience wasn't a traditional off-Broadway theatergoing audience. It was 'Sopranos' fans in the beginning," says Imperioli, who founded Studio Dante with his wife and co-artistic director, Victoria, in 2004. It doesn't hurt that he's lured such "Sopranos" costars as Sharon Angela and John Ventimiglia to appear onstage. Still, he says, "Now it's becoming more mixed."
Raising funds, then curtains
EVENTUALLY, of course, the work has to speak for itself. "The novelty of 'Will he be in the lobby tonight?' was good for a year or two," says Daniels. The actor, now appearing in the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of "Blackbird," used his film earnings to found the Purple Rose Theatre Company in 1991. He is still executive director of the theater in Chelsea, Mich., about an hour's drive from Detroit.
Timothy Busfield, who became a household name with "thirtysomething" and now appears in "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," says his fame helped him book school groups for B Street Theatre, the Sacramento children's theater that he founded in 1986. He turned the theater over to his brother around 2001.
After booking his first big role on "Trapper John, M.D.," he says, "My first thought was, 'Now I can start my theater. Now I'll have what it takes to get past school secretaries.' That's the single biggest problem for anybody trying to put up children's theater."
Fame can help in unconventional ways. Steven Van Zandt, longtime guitarist for Bruce Springsteen's band, and his wife, Maureen -- both of whom appear on "The Sopranos" -- recently formed a commercial producing company for classic American plays. They hope their Renegade Theatre will benefit from their relationships with big-name actors, allowing them to make deals to film the plays for television.
"Coming from my background, which is music, we're just so used to things being documented," Van Zandt says.
But most of the celebrities running theater companies were stage actors before gaining fame in movies or television. Robbins founded the Actors' Gang in 1981 with fellow students from UCLA. Spacey studied theater at Juilliard. Hoffman received his BFA in drama at NYU. Both Spacey and Hoffman made their names with stellar New York stage credits -- each played James Tyrone Jr. in Broadway productions of "Long Day's Journey Into Night."
Hoffman's status as an actor made him a "cornerstone" in an ensemble company of about 100 members, according to Florencia Lozano, LAByrinth's associate artistic director. "He has oftentimes, whether or not he's directing, come in and is able to artistically really pinpoint what is the question the actor can ask himself," she says. "He has very strong opinions."
LAByrinth member Sam Rockwell ("Confessions of a Dangerous Mind") credits Hoffman's productions of Stephen Adly Guirgis' plays such as "Jesus Hopped the A Train" and "Our Lady of 121st Street" with turning an ensemble organized around drunken Wednesday-night improv sessions into a major off-Broadway company.
Rockwell says that Hoffman directing him in Guirgis' "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" was a "life-changing experience." When Rockwell was getting laughs in one scene, he says, Hoffman told him that instead, " 'I want the audience to get uncomfortable when you come onstage. You are a danger to yourself and others.' Now, when he said that, it set a standard for me that would propel me every night."
