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| Steve Cisneros |
Steve Cisneros
by Tom Provenzano
www.LaStageTimes.com
In Southern California the Phantom Projects Theatre
Group has a long history of touring schools with
important issue-driven productions. Over the past
decade Phantom has developed a solid relationship with
the La Mirada Theatre of the Performing Arts. The
company has created youth programming while also
building a broader based season to appeal to all ages.
Since its inception in 1996 and under the constant
guidance of Producing Artistic Director Steve Cisneros,
who founded the company at age 17 with his partner,
playwright Bruce Gevirtzman, Phantom has been a
remarkable success. But nothing compares to the
excitement the company has witnessed over its upcoming
production of The Giver.
Cisneros explains they had originally planned only two
performances – still a large number of tickets to sell in La
Mirada’s 1300-seat house. “We announced the show
back in September and sold 3000 tickets in about two
weeks. It was just the response to the title. We planned
two shows, now we have five performances and three are
sold out!”
This event marks the maturing of the 16-year-old
company from both artistic and business ends. The
company started as a dream of the teen-aged Cisneros
who was extremely confident in his abilities and already
boasted a very intriguing professional resume. However
he was just out of high school and the business refused
to take him seriously. He explains how he had to find his
own way.
“I’ve been very lucky to have had a good deal of legit
experience in theater. I was a stage manager; I had
directed shows. I started submitting resumes to legit
companies and would always get the interviews because
my resume was so good. But they had no idea I was a 17
year old until I walked in – at that point I looked more like
15. There was no way I’d get work at that point. I realized
I’d have to do it on my own.
“We started off by taking theater into schools. I called a
lot of local schools. We did message based shows: drug
and alcohol prevention, teen pregnancy, racism. We
booked a five-month tour of Southern California schools
in our first year. After two years we got involved in
partnership with La Mirada Theatre who gave us funding
to go beyond that and do other theatrical pieces. We
started doing classics being read in schools: Our Town,
To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men.”
The relationship with La Mirada was born out of Cisneros’
pure fearlessness. “I just approached them. At the time
La Mirada had plenty of children’s shows as well as adult
plays and musicals but nothing filling that teen gap. I
knew as a young person I couldn’t afford the adult shows
and certainly wasn’t going to go see Charlotte’s Web. We
wanted to see what we could provide to that late teen to
early 20s age. As part of that series we bussed in middle
school students to see our fully staged productions at a
dirt cheap price.” The theater and the City of La Mirada
that owns it agreed and provided generous funding.
Though he is Artistic Director and loves staging
productions, Cisneros discovered in running a growing
operation he couldn’t do everything. Fortunately he
found a great artistic surrogate in director Janet Miller, to
whom he has entrusted The Giver among other major
productions including Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye,
which was a big hit for the company and will soon move
to Santa Monica to begin a planned expansion into
regional and national tours. The upcoming tour is the
beginning of the next step for the company.
“Our goal is to start duplicating our season from La
Mirada to other venues. We are trying to break out of the
‘niche’ of youth theater. We did The Bluest Eye last
February at La Mirada and it was amazing. It was the
greatest show artistically we have ever done and we are
so excited to bring that to another area.”
While the company was growing artistically, it also landed
a deal that would help it financially. “Kathie Gillespie, who
for years ran her own business [The Costume House],
made a generous donation of her immense costume
inventory, appraised at about $500,000. So we have
been renting them out across the country and in just 12
months we’ve had thousands of dollars in rental income.
The costumes are all handmade or vintage. It is a huge
element of our funding. With so many major theater
companies struggling, for us to have this avenue of
income has been fantastic. In addition we got federal
funding of about $60,000 that allowed us to update all
our technologies.”
Even with the success, Cisneros often finds himself torn
between his producing self and his artistic self. “They are
always fighting,” he laughs. “I hate having to balance
those two things. It’s tough. The more we grow the more
work the business side has to do. That’s difficult for me
because I wish I could go back to directing more. Six
years ago my days didn’t consist of researching liability
insurance and property taxes. That just wasn’t what I was
about. But now I surround myself with people who
understand my vision for the company – delegating to
them and seeing the excitement.
“Though I m not directing as much, I am still involved in
casting, production meetings, all the elements. Trusting
people to carry on what the vision was in the beginning
satisfies my artistic soul. Seeing people get excited about
our productions makes me happy. Recently I went into a
yogurt shop. I had a Phantom shirt on. The guy behind
the counter looked at my shirt and said, ‘Oh are you with
Phantom Project? I just saw the show. I thought it was so
great – it’s a really good company.’ He had no idea who I
was. That made my day.”
He does make it clear he will be back in the director’s
chair from time to time. “The great thing about having a
company is if I have the artistic itch I can just do it. There
have definitely been times along the way where I was
ready to throw in the towel. I just didn’t think I could
handle the stress anymore. But the success we’ve had in
the last three years has kept me going. Whenever I may
be tired, I think about the fact I would let somebody else
down who so believes in the company. I could never
leave it in that way.”
by Tom Provenzano
www.LaStageTimes.com
In Southern California the Phantom Projects Theatre
Group has a long history of touring schools with
important issue-driven productions. Over the past
decade Phantom has developed a solid relationship with
the La Mirada Theatre of the Performing Arts. The
company has created youth programming while also
building a broader based season to appeal to all ages.
Since its inception in 1996 and under the constant
guidance of Producing Artistic Director Steve Cisneros,
who founded the company at age 17 with his partner,
playwright Bruce Gevirtzman, Phantom has been a
remarkable success. But nothing compares to the
excitement the company has witnessed over its upcoming
production of The Giver.
Cisneros explains they had originally planned only two
performances – still a large number of tickets to sell in La
Mirada’s 1300-seat house. “We announced the show
back in September and sold 3000 tickets in about two
weeks. It was just the response to the title. We planned
two shows, now we have five performances and three are
sold out!”
This event marks the maturing of the 16-year-old
company from both artistic and business ends. The
company started as a dream of the teen-aged Cisneros
who was extremely confident in his abilities and already
boasted a very intriguing professional resume. However
he was just out of high school and the business refused
to take him seriously. He explains how he had to find his
own way.
“I’ve been very lucky to have had a good deal of legit
experience in theater. I was a stage manager; I had
directed shows. I started submitting resumes to legit
companies and would always get the interviews because
my resume was so good. But they had no idea I was a 17
year old until I walked in – at that point I looked more like
15. There was no way I’d get work at that point. I realized
I’d have to do it on my own.
“We started off by taking theater into schools. I called a
lot of local schools. We did message based shows: drug
and alcohol prevention, teen pregnancy, racism. We
booked a five-month tour of Southern California schools
in our first year. After two years we got involved in
partnership with La Mirada Theatre who gave us funding
to go beyond that and do other theatrical pieces. We
started doing classics being read in schools: Our Town,
To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men.”
The relationship with La Mirada was born out of Cisneros’
pure fearlessness. “I just approached them. At the time
La Mirada had plenty of children’s shows as well as adult
plays and musicals but nothing filling that teen gap. I
knew as a young person I couldn’t afford the adult shows
and certainly wasn’t going to go see Charlotte’s Web. We
wanted to see what we could provide to that late teen to
early 20s age. As part of that series we bussed in middle
school students to see our fully staged productions at a
dirt cheap price.” The theater and the City of La Mirada
that owns it agreed and provided generous funding.
Though he is Artistic Director and loves staging
productions, Cisneros discovered in running a growing
operation he couldn’t do everything. Fortunately he
found a great artistic surrogate in director Janet Miller, to
whom he has entrusted The Giver among other major
productions including Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye,
which was a big hit for the company and will soon move
to Santa Monica to begin a planned expansion into
regional and national tours. The upcoming tour is the
beginning of the next step for the company.
“Our goal is to start duplicating our season from La
Mirada to other venues. We are trying to break out of the
‘niche’ of youth theater. We did The Bluest Eye last
February at La Mirada and it was amazing. It was the
greatest show artistically we have ever done and we are
so excited to bring that to another area.”
While the company was growing artistically, it also landed
a deal that would help it financially. “Kathie Gillespie, who
for years ran her own business [The Costume House],
made a generous donation of her immense costume
inventory, appraised at about $500,000. So we have
been renting them out across the country and in just 12
months we’ve had thousands of dollars in rental income.
The costumes are all handmade or vintage. It is a huge
element of our funding. With so many major theater
companies struggling, for us to have this avenue of
income has been fantastic. In addition we got federal
funding of about $60,000 that allowed us to update all
our technologies.”
Even with the success, Cisneros often finds himself torn
between his producing self and his artistic self. “They are
always fighting,” he laughs. “I hate having to balance
those two things. It’s tough. The more we grow the more
work the business side has to do. That’s difficult for me
because I wish I could go back to directing more. Six
years ago my days didn’t consist of researching liability
insurance and property taxes. That just wasn’t what I was
about. But now I surround myself with people who
understand my vision for the company – delegating to
them and seeing the excitement.
“Though I m not directing as much, I am still involved in
casting, production meetings, all the elements. Trusting
people to carry on what the vision was in the beginning
satisfies my artistic soul. Seeing people get excited about
our productions makes me happy. Recently I went into a
yogurt shop. I had a Phantom shirt on. The guy behind
the counter looked at my shirt and said, ‘Oh are you with
Phantom Project? I just saw the show. I thought it was so
great – it’s a really good company.’ He had no idea who I
was. That made my day.”
He does make it clear he will be back in the director’s
chair from time to time. “The great thing about having a
company is if I have the artistic itch I can just do it. There
have definitely been times along the way where I was
ready to throw in the towel. I just didn’t think I could
handle the stress anymore. But the success we’ve had in
the last three years has kept me going. Whenever I may
be tired, I think about the fact I would let somebody else
down who so believes in the company. I could never
leave it in that way.”
