During the same time that the crisis at Le Petit Theatre was mounting, NoDef Drama Critic Jim Fitzmorris notes that the rest of the New Orleans theatre community was shifting courses, and locales.

No matter the outcome of the events at Le Petit Theatre, the state of New Orleans theatre has already been irreparably changed during the institution’s current crisis.

In fact, that change was already in process before the dire straits of New Orleans’ oldest theatrical entity were fully known. Amidst the shouting and recriminations over who will control the property at 616 St. Peter St., a quiet number of trends have continued to develop in the New Orleans theatre community, and they have little to do with the fate of Le Petit. That change has been gradual in its build, and it has occurred because of locals tired of the old model of waiting for turns that never came and outsiders with little concern for supposed traditions. Together, they have gone about the business of building a new model for how theatre is created in this town.

There was a time when appearing at Le Petit was considered the gold standard. That is no longer the case, and in fact, many practicing theatre artists could not care less about what it means to tread its boards. Any interest they might have only stems from what the quality of the actual facilities offer, which as of this writing are limited. Under the proper leadership, that condition may quickly change, but for the time being, Le Petit holds little interest for the majority of actual theatrical producers. You see, whatever incarnation Le Petit takes in the next year, it will no longer find itself the center of theatrical energy in this town. Anyone with knowledge of this city’s theatre can tell you three conditions are now the norm. New Orleans’ theatrical action is located squarely in the Bywater/Marigny area; small independent companies drive the scene all across town; and the future of that action depends on the generation of original work.

The theatre scene thrives in a specific fulcrum between Elysian Fields Ave. and the Bywater railroad tracks. The Allways Lounge, The Shadowbox Theatre, and The NOCCA facility form a trifecta of theatrical producing venues that are responsible for a level of independent theatrical work we have not seen since the demise of True Brew. In my brief time as the theatre critic for NOLA Defender and a committee member for The Big Easy Awards, over half of the shows I have attended, including the show of the year at this writing, have been in this neighborhood. With the continued rise of NOCCA as a producing venue, it is more likely that theatergoers will look towards the railroad tracks, separating two of New Orleans’ oldest neighborhoods, as their weekend destination. Beyond the closing of Le Chat and the upheaval at Le Petit, I believe the reasons for this location realignment are twofold: the reasonable price and quality of the producing venues and the neighborhood where this is being engendered.

Essentially, the Marigny is now the home to a cabaret space, a black box, and a multi-purpose state-of-the-art facility. And all of it has happened in the wake of Katrina. At Allways and Shadowbox, respectively, producers Dennis Monn and Richard Mayer are both dedicated to providing opportunities for challenging material at feasible rates. Furthermore, they continue to upgrade the technical capabilities of their facilities. It allows smaller independent theatre companies like Cripple Creek, InsideOut and Jonathan Mares the opportunity to explore their art at manageable costs to both themselves and their patrons. While considerably more expensive as a rental, the NOCCA facility gives the same neighborhood a chance to attend theatre in not one but two more polished, technically friendly venues that facilitate productions like The 39 Steps and The Trip to Bountiful. The three locales do not duplicate the others in energies. All have ample parking available and each is within walking distance of local watering holes and food venues. Nor does it hurt that they are located in a neighborhood filled with artists, young people, and the adventurous in spirit. As Frenchmen Street becomes the center of local nightlife and local music venues spring up on St. Claude Ave., the influx of young college educated residents into the area will continue to grow and bring with them a desire for further entertainment options.

But to simply claim the demographics drive the action is to do disservice to the responsible parties. Mayer believes Monn’s decision to open Allways to the larger theatre community played a large part in tipping the neighborhood towards the theatrical.

“Moving away from producing exclusively for Gay and Transgendered communities maybe the most important step for all of this development. It was incredibly generous. That decision, coupled with the introduction of The Fringe Festival to the neighborhood, proved it could work," Mayer said.

Mayer’s own Shadowbox has seen itself host shows as traditionally produced as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and as strange as Adult Petting Zoo, which featured Evan Spigelman and Nat Kusinitz in the most wonderfully head-scratching thing I have seen this year. In talking about his selection process, Mayer pointed out, “The only restriction I impose as a producer is not to program too many shows of the same energy too close to one another. I just don’t want to be the place known for only doing one thing.”

It has been a domino effect. Once The Allways took the lead, the action followed. Those producing decisions have opened the door to the second piece of New Orleans’ new theatre paradigm: independent companies. Along with the previously mentioned groups, organizations like Skin Horse, Goat in the Road, Theatre 13, and a host of others have foregone the traditional approach of a season in a singular setting. They instead choose to announce more event driven productions in venues that suit the particular needs of an undertaking. No group better exemplifies this new approach than The NOLA Project. Conceived as a site-specific group, the theatre troupe briefly experimented with a regular home at the former Muriel Cabaret space before returning with a vengeance to their original model. This year’s Midsummer signaled the beginning of a larger collaborative project with NOMA and City Park. It will continue with the upcoming Art that will be staged within NOMA itself. Gone are the days when a few courageous groups like ArtSpot set out on their own with only venues like The CAC to which to turn. Now, the whole city is a theatre. 

If these developments are going to have a future, it is going to be with new work. Despite the cleverness of Art staged in a museum, theatrical reputations are not built realizing the work of others. Theatrical companies develop notoriety based on the work they create or commission. If it is fortune and glory you are interested in, then it has to be uniquely your own. Goat in the Road and Skin Horse have both made a commitment to sui generis projects, and Southern Rep continues to tinker with its models for in-house development with PlayLab, 6x6 and the New Play Bacchanal. The recent work surrounding The Future is a Fancyland Place was a noble effort to create an atmosphere of development that is all too rare in this city. Anyone interested in the future of New Orleans theatre needs to keep a close eye on this particular aspect of the new paradigm. The infrastructure for creating new work is still, with apologies to Christopher Nolan, in its inception, and needs to be collectively nurtured. If every theatrical company made a commitment to create one new work in the next two years and support the efforts of their fellow companies to do so, the potential for breakout work in New Orleans would exponentially increase.

And this returns us to Le Petit. The fight we are seeing right now is less about the future of that institution and more a death rattle for a particular way of doing theatre in this town. Much of the opposition of the sale to the Brennan group is less about challenging the actual transaction and more a protest over the sea change occurring in New Orleans’ theatre.  That deal signifies an end to the traditional, and in this writer’s opinion, smugly exclusive model of announced seasons, appointment auditions, and trickle-down recycling of shows from New York and regional theatre. If you take the time to read the howls of protest in various news outlets, you will see an opposition with a desperate adherence to the past, a lack of tangible proposed solutions, and an insistence on returning to the status quo. They just want it the way it was: a perpetual memory machine of transitory glory. That is not conservative; it is a reactionary nostalgia for something that never existed. In short, much of it comes from theatrical creators and patrons who neither have a place to call artistic home nor syncopation with current artistic trends. These are voices of lament in confrontation with a world where theatre is independent, self-generated, and unwilling to accept imposed hierarchies.

Guess on which side I fall.