Theaters like Ours in Los Angeles

Theaters in Los Angeles Like Ours

There are 325 small nonprofit theater companies in Los Angeles. These small theaters are often described as "intimate" and struggle to operate financially in the city. One theater that caught my eye is called Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater in North Hollywood.

Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater presents original horror, experimental, and avant-garde plays. My actress niece, Brandi Aguilar (x_brandiaguilar), performed there. When I asked her about the seating, she mentioned it only has ten seats. In other shows, there can be as many as 40 seats. A review noted that seating is sometimes available on the floor. I surmise they have removable chairs like we do at HMTC’s Lil’ Brick Theater space.

Brandi reports that many of these small theaters are essentially rooms reconfigured for a stage and an audience. This reminded me of a very small theater in New York City that used an office in a high-rise building. In Phoenix, there was a theater in a warehouse where old sofas were used for seating. 

My fondest memories of small theaters come from Chicago. One was the Firehouse Theater, which was actually a firehouse converted into a theater; the fireman’s pole was in the middle of the stage. There was also the Torso Theater and Annoyance Theater, which produced unforgettable plays that ran for years. One unforgettable play was Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack, and another was Co-ed Prison Sluts.

The closest our theater came to those types of plays, which I would call avant-garde or experimental, was “T (for Torture)”, which I wrote. The other was “Death of a Social Security Benefit,” where a fake corpse was part of the play; I also wrote that. You might say I was influenced by Chicago theater.

I’d like to take on some riskier plays—risky in the sense that they border on experimental or avant-garde. This past March, Clean by Emmet Spaw was produced, where one character kept having a bloody nose on stage. We used stage blood to achieve that effect.

If you’ve got something you want to try on our stage, contact us. Maybe we can produce it.