Lonny Chapman, a stage and screen actor who was the founding artistic director of a theater company that is one of the oldest in North Hollywood and now bears his name, has died. He was 87.
Chapman, whose television and movie career spanned more than 50 years, died Oct. 12 of heart disease at Sherman Village Healthcare Center in North Hollywood, said Janet Wood, a founding member of the Lonny Chapman Group Repertory Theatre.
As a new graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Chapman hitchhiked to New York City in 1947 with his best friend from college, actor Dennis Weaver. By 1950, Chapman had originated the role of Turk in the Broadway production of William Inge's first play, "Come Back, Little Sheba." Weaver was his understudy.
Chapman performed on the New York stage for more than a decade and had two plays produced off-Broadway, "The Buffalo Skinner" and "Cry of the Raindrop."
After moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s to pursue movie and television roles, he helped found a local branch of the Actors Studio.
In 1972, 13 actors gathered to practice scenes in a laundermat they had converted into a tiny Hollywood theater, and Chapman sought them out after hearing about them from a friend.
Impressed by the company then known as Group, Chapman told them: "This isn't a theater yet because you're not doing plays. . . . I'll work with you if you start doing a play," he said in a 1998 Times story.
They quickly named him artistic director, a title Chapman held until his death.
Under his direction, the nonprofit 99-seat theater staged more than 350 productions and at least 45 premieres of original works, Wood said.
"We are one of the longest surviving small theaters in Los Angeles . . . . and Lonny was totally the glue that kept us together," said Wood, the group's last original active member.
Group made its public debut with Arthur Schnitzler's "La Ronde," which Chapman adapted into an Americanized version called "Round Dance." He chose the play because it had parts for five men and five women -- the number of members available to perform.
The Hollywood Reporter praised the "top-notch cast," and Variety said the troupe looked like it would become "a major group."
The performers soon outgrew their first space and moved twice, opening their present location in 1983 with a series of original one-acts called "Motel 66."
