Can the troubled New West Theater direct a comeback?

Melissa Schorr

Friday, Sept. 19, 1997 | 9:16 a.m.

Could it be curtains for New West Theater?

The 12-year-old community theater group has recently lost its second artistic director in all of two years and has canceled its first two productions of the season, "Days of Wine and Roses" and "Witness for the Prosecution."

"I'm disappointed," says UNLV professor Bob Dunkerly, who founded the group and left only two years ago. "It's like the way things go when you're raising a child, eventually, you leave them, and sometimes it doesn't turn out the way you want it to."

Since Dunkerly's departure, the theater has had trouble adjusting. Subscribers dropped from an all-time high of 1,400 to 700. Board members disappeared for months at a time. Three have resigned.

"In the last couple of years, we've had a depleted volunteer force, a turnover in management, and a semi-lethargic board," admits Jim Lauster, the current chairman of the board.

"But New West has been a great theater -- it would be a sin to let that go just because we've had a couple of rough seasons."

The first signs of serious trouble came in February, when the group missed the deadline to apply for their annual grant from the State Arts Council, despite a last minute heads-up phone call.

Then, in June, Artistic Director Laura Tompkins, hired only the previous summer, handed in her letter of resignation.

"I had bitten off more than I was prepared to chew," Tompkins explains. "I wasn't ready for all the administrative work. It's helped me redefine what I really want to do -- act and direct."

Lauster was left with a treasury at an "all-time low," no incoming grant money, no plans for fundraising, and no artistic director in sight.

He suspended production and declared New West on a hiatus until the group could reorganize the board and find a new leader.

But amid the confusion, subscribers were left in the dark.

The group did not realize an ad had been placed to run in this month's City Life, and could not even access their phone to respond to calls from confused patrons, some of whom tried walking into the Charleston Heights Arts center to buy tickets to the non-existent play.

Brian Strom, a co-founder of New West and the interim artistic director for the '95-'96 season, warns that taking a break may be a large gamble for New West.

"You could lose part of your audience and funding," he says. "If you're out of people's minds for a year, they'll find some place else to put their entertainment dollars."

Lauster attributes part of New West's attendance problem to increased competition.

"Ten years ago, there were only three of us, now we have about 10 local theater companies -- which is great -- but now we're all fighting for the same market."

Others felt the problem was with the board, the longtime members of which seem to have lost their enthusiasm. "Some people who have been involved since the beginning don't have the energy to go through this again," says Lauster.

But Dunkerly suggested the problem was with the direction the theater took -- or rather, the lack of it.

"That's what happens when you're not paying attention to what the public wants," he says.

Many audience members expressed unhappiness with Strom's decision to mount an original adaptation of "Moby Dick." Others pointed to the uninspired choice of last season's old standby "Barefoot in the Park."

"New West was always a sophisticated audience, and you're doing things that you might see in a high school school production?" questioned Dunkerly.

Strom, a co-founder of the group, admits that he was partially to blame.

"The failure was in not redefining what it would become after Bob's strong leadership left," he says. "You're always trying to second guess what the public is going to want to see. We needed to move in a direction that gave the audience confidence that it was a direction they want to go along with."

But Strom insists that too much attention was paid to the few shows that were misfires.

"When people criticize, they look at the most glaring example -- but that was only a quarter of [Tompkins'] season, and a quarter of mine. I don't think there was as drastic a change as people thought."

Now, it will be up to the new artistic director to find that visiion -- and make it viable.

Lauster, who is currently interviewing candidates for the position, hopes New West will be back with performances in January and April, possibly producing a road show, possibly adding a summer lineup.

"Yes, New West has stumbled and fallen," he says, "but we're getting up and starting over again. We'll be back. Greater things have fallen and risen again."