Interview: To Matt Chait, Theatre Is A FAMILY BUSINESS

Matt Chait’s A Family Business world premieres November 17, 2023, at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre (with previews November 15th and 16th). Brian Shnipper directs the cast of Eric Stanton Betts, Alli Brown, Michelle Jasso, Lindsay G. Merrithew, Bruce Nozick and Julie Pearl.

I had the chance to throw out a few questions to Matt, the playwright and man integral to Los Angeles Theatre history.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Matt!

Gil, thank you for taking the time to interview me.

What was the initial inspiration for writing A Family Business?

The initial inspiration was, and you may not understand this until you see the play, a dinner conversation. When your children are growing up you get to meet all sorts of incompatible characters who are the parents of your children’s friends. I was having dinner with one of these characters plus my daughter and his. He kept asking me about the square footage of my house and the square footage of The Complex. When I told him he let me know in no uncertain terms how unimpressed he was. In a way, A Family Business is my sublimated way of dealing with this guy without punching him in the nose.

How long has the gestation period for this play been?

Three years and counting. We start rehearsal on Monday. Early this morning I put an order in at the printers for ten copies of the script. Then, about 10:30 I put in another order to cancel the first order and print this latest version in which I had changed two lines.

When do your words become set in stone? After first public reading? Post tech rehearsals? Following open night curtain calls?

To be fair to the actors, I like to cement the dialogue no less than ten days before opening.

What audience responses are you hoping for with A Family Business? Lots of laughs? Buckets of tears?

Yes, both of those would be good. But my highest hope is that the audience leaves with a sense of the wonder, the miraculous nature, of life.

What cosmic forces first brought you and your director Brian Shnipper together? The casting director, Michael Donovan is helping me with this production. He gave me a short list of recommended directors. Brian was on the list. I met him for coffee. I asked him what he liked about the play, and he told me that he appreciated the things that I wanted appreciated by a director. He also told me of two places where he thought the script might be improved. He told me in such a simple, direct way, that I felt nothing more than appreciative for the opportunity to improve the script. I thought he would probably talk to actors that way and I was sold. I asked him at that same meeting if he wanted to direct it. We shook hands and that was it.

Would any one of your friends or family recognized themselves in one of your characters?

Absolutely! The character Rose is a budding chef as is my daughter Lily. We wanted, at first, to call my daughter Rose, but we already had a son named Ross, and we thought Ross and Rose would be too cutesy by far. The description of Max's experience when his son was born, is my experience when my son was born. Harmony is a therapist, as is my wife. The house is my house. The two main characters, Max and Seth, are drawn from two sides of my personality. I’ve met many Maxes and more than a few Seths, and I drew on encounters that I had with many of these people when writing those characters.

Which of the six characters would you most identify with?

Initially I would say Seth, but, unfortunately, I may be just as much of a Max as a Seth.

It’s been almost a year since you held a rally to The Complex. I see the buildings still standing. What’s its status?

To be determined. We’re still fighting the fight. The L. A. Conservancy sponsored my nomination of the building for Historic-Cultural Monument Status. We’ve had two meetings with the Cultural Heritage Commission, and they are recommending HCM Status for the building to the City Council. Meanwhile, a ZIMAS warning has been put on the building and no renovations can take place until its HCM Status is determined.

You built the Flight Theatre in 1985, then created The Complex in 1990 and started Theatre Row in 1992. What was Los Angeles theatre like back then?

I was an acting teacher back then. I was working at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and came out to teach one semester at AADA West. That was forty-three years ago. I first came to that building when it was the Richmond Shepard Theatre Studios, looking for a place to put on a play with my acting students. Then I moved my classes there. So, I can talk about East Coast acting vs. West Coast acting. Now this was a long time ago, mind you, and things have changed. My main acting teacher in New York was Sandy Meisner, and I was very caught up with being truthful and intimate on stage, with entering the life of the character, and having a full emotional involvement. I was appalled, back then, with the superficiality of AADA West as opposed to AADA New York and the actors that I encountered. There was much more attention and training on auditioning and interviewing for a role and not on developing the character if, God forbid, you actually were cast. There were more cold reading classes than acting classes. In the scene study classes, rehearsing outside of class was discouraged. Scenes were worked on once, occasionally twice. Things are very different now, but back then the inability of actors to focus and focus obsessively, as all the best ones do, on the life of a character and the intentions of the playwright, were shocking to me.

What factors encouraged you to build the Flight Theatre, and subsequently The Complex?

After AADA West, I started teaching acting at UCLA and I started a private class. That class grew and I started attracting more and more experienced actors and the actors in class continued to improve. The next step in their training was to do plays. All our classes were in that building that eventually became ‘The Complex.’ There was a large rehearsal studio up there that used to be of all things, ‘The Beverly Hills Ballet Studio.’ An odd name, considering that we were at least five miles from Beverly Hills. When they left LAAT (Los Angeles Actor’s Theatre) started using that room for rehearsals and public readings. I decided to build a theatre in there and put in a stage and theater seats on risers. I started teaching my classes in there. I called it ‘the Flight’ because it was up a long flight of stairs. I did several plays and showcases with my students in the Flight Theater. Richmond Shepard had been running that building as the ‘Richmond Shepard Theatre Studios’ since 1980. He had been teaching a mime class up there since the early 1970’s if not earlier. He had a hankering to return to New York and when my acting classes started doing well, and I built The Flight Theatre and also turned two empty rooms up there into what later were called the MC Studio and the Shepard Studio, Richmond became interested in selling his business to me. Later, when he went to New York and put his daughter in charge of the business, someone who really wasn’t interested in running the building, I not only wanted to take it over, but felt like I had to take it over because conditions were deteriorating in there very rapidly.

After A Family Business, what’s next in the near future for Matt Chiat?

My first order of business after A Family Business is to teach Gil Kaan how to spell my last name. It’s Chait, not Chiat. You know that mistake was never made on the East Coast, but in L.A. there is the very popular advertising agency Chiat-Day, so Matt Chait often becomes Matt Chiat. Way back when, we were probably related to the Chiats but they were the dyslexic side of the family. I will write. I’ve had a very interesting life, at least I think it was, and I’ve written some very funny short stories based on my adventures and the wonderful characters I’ve encountered. So, I will continue to do that. I’ve also spent years writing a blog about the relationship between science and spirituality. When I was younger, I went on an 8-year spiritual odyssey. At the end of that journey, my understanding of life did not jibe with the understanding of the people around me in New York and Los Angeles. My blog is an attempt to reconcile these two perspectives. I’ve been focused on this task for many years, and I have come up with some enlightening answers. I am definitely writing a book about that. All of this while living off the endless royalties from the productions and films spawned by ‘A Family Business.’

Thank you again, Matt! I look forward to getting into your Family Business.

Thanks so much for the opportunity, Gil.

For tickets to the live performances of A Family Business through December 31, 2023; click on the button below:

To post a comment, you must register and login.