You don’t need to have worked in a nonprofit theater to relish Jonathan Spector’s hilarious behind-the-scenes (but not backstage) new comedy, “Best Available,” now in a world premiere at Shotgun Players.
But if you have, you know just how realistic—how just barely exaggerated—Spector’s sharp-eyed observations are.
At the heart of the play, about a professional nonprofit company somewhere in America that is trying to find a new artistic director, an existential question lurks: Who is theater for? The artists? The staff? The board? The community? The public at large, even those who’ve never gone to theater? The artistic leadership? The donors who help keep it alive? And to what extent must the theater’s present be dictated by its future—if indeed it has one?
The former artistic director of City Rep, Gary, has left in disgrace after some sort of scandal; no one is supposed to mention his name. Helen (Sarah Mitchell), the beleaguered managing director tasked with the company’s nearly insolvable financial concerns, is hoping that the former associate artistic director, the forward-thinking Maya (Regina Morones), who quit—or perhaps was fired—will return as interim artistic director while the search committee looks for candidates.
Helen is hoping the board, headed up by the bloviating president (Steve Price) — who’s always trumpeting that the theater needs fresh ideas, without specifying what he means exactly—will not hire intrusive (and expensive) outside search consultants.
Maya agrees to the temporary post, but with trepidation.
Inevitably, things get more and more complicated. Maya and Helen, seemingly bonded by an understanding of what City Rep needs now, turn out to have conflicting goals.
In fact, the entire theater is wracked by hosts of differing agendas, from the top leadership to each individual board member, to its prime donor, the elderly Dolores (Denise Tyrrell), to the trio of wonderfully gossipy young box office workers (Austine De Los Santos, linda maria girón and Storm White) who are planning their own futures as they man the phones.
Structured neatly in a series of shortish scenes, all set, sparingly, on a (sometimes clunky) rotating platform, the play gets more and more complex.
As seen in his award-winning play “Eureka Day,” which premiered at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company and is now headed for Broadway, local playwright Spector excels at cleverly intricate, interwoven dialogue. Here, there’s even a sort of in-unison chorus at times, and the actors, some of whom play multiple roles, are well up to the task. The two-and-a-half-hour play races seamlessly along.
What’s so wonderful about Spector’s even-handedness is that viewers will sympathize with just about every character, each with their own viewpoints about the role of theater in society and in their own lives, including the two overly enthusiastic and platitude-spouting search consultants (Dave Maier and Price), the wealthy and self-centered donor (a brilliant Tyrell, who also plays, equally brilliantly, her own grumpy sister) and each of the three box officers.
Some scenes are downright hysterically funny, in particular a series of Zoom interviews with prospective artistic director candidates (seen on a large screen) and an in-person interview in which Maier again is terrific as a frighteningly intense Romanian dissident.
Director Jon Tracy is, as always, a master at comedy, but in this case he falters somewhat, allowing (or directing) some of the actors to play comic caricatures, others to inhabit their characters more realistically, so there’s an unevenness among the cast.
And one other thing: Some playwrights have trouble coming up with suitable endings. But Spector has the opposite problem: too many endings, all wonderful, but, well, too much of a muchness.
Amid all the funny business is an almost sinister little scene, set on a darkened stage with a ghost light, a crew member and a lurking figure in the wings.
Spector is full of surprises, and Shotgun meets his many challenges tenfold.
Shotgun Players’ “Best Available” continues through June 16 at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets are $26 to $40 at shotgunplayers.org.