Matt's Phone Call and ... the End of an Act

Almost exactly five years ago, right after KCRW Producer, Host, and cheerleader Matt Holzman passed away, I told you about the time Matt texted me. Today, let me tell you about the first time he called me.

Almost exactly 15 years ago, I got this call out of the blue from this guy I’d never met (Matt) who started the call with one of the most exciting questions I’ve ever been asked,

“Would you like to be the theater critic for KCRW?”

No intro, no beating around the bush, straight to the point — like good radio. I was shocked and instantly blurted out:

“I have no idea ... but if I’m not the right person, I want to help you find someone fantastic.”

Being a theater critic was not on my bingo card, it wasn’t something I’d even vaguely considered. Theater was something I’d done my whole life, talked about constantly, and cared about deeply, but to speak about it publicly? Never. I even had a joke walking out of a performance — if someone asked me about a show, I'd say, “Three blocks, three weeks,” which meant I wouldn’t tell you what I thought unless we were three blocks away from the theater or it was three weeks later.

But this was KCRW. KCRW! At that time, KCRW didn’t just report on culture, it made it. Listening to KCRW was my way into loving Los Angeles. Chris Douridas was responsible for the most eclectic and exciting parts of my CD collection, and the then annual pledge drive Sounds Eclectic or Rare on Air CD release was a treasured curation of the moment. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many voices opening up the city: Evan Kleiman at the markets, Kajon telling me to “pack a snack,” the wonderful quirkiness of Edward telling me about some gallery show I was never going to see, Michael with some wonderful author, Rob with some tight vignette about making film and TV, and Joe Frank being broadcast to a whole city midday on a weekend like out of nowhere you were suddenly in the midst of someone’s intimate fever dream and here it was on the radio?!? This was like an invitation to sit at the cool kids’ table.

The reason I knew I needed to find someone amazing (if it wasn’t me) was because of you, the audience. 

Here was a chance to talk to Los Angeles, to reach out and say — "Hey, there’s something happening in the theater and you should know about it!" This was the audience Los Angeles theater needed so badly. Lucky for me, Matt thought I was the right guy for the gig (thank you, Nancy Keystone). And so began almost 15 years of near-weekly theater communications.

Heading to the basement studios of KCRW the first time was like being let into a secret underground clubhouse. Who could believe that all that culture came from such a tiny, dingy basement? That was part of the magic. This delicious sense of compression hid the scope and reach of the station. As you walked in, there was this wall of polaroids with recent guests. Standing there next to the touring gear boxes of your latest favorite band, waiting for a studio, staring at that wall was like a who’s who of the cultural moment. It was intoxicating and humbling in the same instant.

At first, I thought this was the chance to use big, exciting words like verfremdungseffekt and anagnorisis — you know, to sound really smart and cool like the people in the polaroids? But the true gift Matt Holzman gave me wasn’t offering me the gig, but teaching me to let go of all that. I walked in thinking this is all about theater, and I quickly discovered this is all about Los Angeles.

The gift I was given wasn’t an audience of theater people, it was a chance to interrupt All Things Considered for three and a half minutes and talk to strangers about a piece of theater they were likely never going to see. This was a chance to tell them a little story that made them, if I was lucky, think that something cool was happening in the theater, and it was a part of Los Angeles, and wasn’t that a part of what made the city special?

Matt hammered this into me with a weekly patience and intention that (because being a theater critic wasn’t on my bingo card, much less radio) I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. He helped me, one week at a time, become a better writer and a better thinker. He gave me this weekly practice of having to think about theater and consider an audience and shape those thoughts into a story. I am grateful beyond measure to Matt and KCRW for that opportunity.

Sadly, today is the close of this particular act.

In some ways, today began with the pandemic when weekly on-air segments on theater no longer made sense (there was no theater). But once the pandemic ebbed and theater came back, the on-air commentary didn’t. That was a loss for LA theater. Like the loss of the LA Weekly, it meant that fewer people were going to stumble on coverage of LA theater. The diehards would find the new blog or website to get their fix, but the casual listener wouldn’t suddenly discover the theater. In that way, the audience shrinks for everyone.

I get it — there’s no money in theater. We don’t have the big ad budgets of the studios or the popular culture numbers that move the needle. Organizations have to focus on the core and save where and what they can ... but, and maybe this is that naive part of me, aren’t we forgetting to weave one part of that civic fabric we all so desperately crave right now?

Theater doesn’t make sense any more than foreign aid or obscure research or public health make sense. If we’re focused on the bottom line and running things like a business, we’d never come up with theater (or many charitable organizations for that matter). That’s the whole point. It’s what makes theater special and why, despite not making financial sense, it exists in every culture: the need to tell stories to one another in person to try and make sense of the world around us. That’s precious and it’s not going away.

I’m not going away either. That gift that Matt gave me in an unexpected phone call 15 years ago is one I cherish and will honor by continuing to write about the art I love. I hope, especially if you’re not a theater person, you’ll join me at my new site: THEATERfix.LA. Today, you can catch my review of Echo Theater Company’s A Jewish Boy.

Going forward, I hope you’ll not only support KCRW, but I hope you’ll fight for it. For me, it was (and will continue to be) the opportunity to, as August Wilson once told me in a rehearsal room at the Taper, “Tap a stranger on the shoulder and say, ‘there’s something important happening in the theater tonight — you should come.’” In our present landscape, a forum like KCRW in a city as diverse as Los Angeles is a precious and fragile treasure. As the theater teaches us, if you don’t pay attention, it vanishes.

In this format, for one last time...

This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on LA theater for KCRW.