Ron Sossi, the founding father of L.A.’s experimental and boundary-pushing Odyssey Theatre, has died. He was 85.
Sossi died of congestive coronary heart failure March 19 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Heart in Los Angeles, an Odyssey spokeswoman stated. Sossi, a legend within the native theater neighborhood, was identified for difficult typical pondering and creating an area the place new concepts can be greeted with open arms.
“His theater defied convention — producing work that many of L.A.’s larger stages might shy away from, ignoring financial models in favor of risk, passion and artistic necessity,” stated Bart DeLorenzo, director of greater than a dozen performs on the Odyssey, who famous the theater’s early historical past of premiering necessary work. “His Brechtian sensibility, his belief in theater as a political force to shape a culture, and his embrace of direct theatricality has left an indelible mark on a whole generation of theater-makers and audiences.”
Sossi was born Nov. 22, 1939, in Detroit. He attended the College of Michigan and graduated with a level in writing for theater and tv. He moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA’s College of Theater, Movie, and Tv, the place he gained the Samuel Goldwyn award for screenwriting. As an MFA scholar, he supported himself as a marriage photographer and water filter salesman.
He additionally labored as an actor and singer. Whereas in class, he traveled to Korea, Japan and Guam for a university manufacturing of “Carousel.” On that journey he met Bonnie Franklin, and the classmates and co-stars have been later married from 1967 to 1970.
After graduating from UCLA, Sossi received a job as a program govt at ABC overseeing reveals reminiscent of “Bewitched,” “The Flying Nun” and “Love, American Style.”
When working in tv misplaced its shine, Sossi redirected his inventive efforts to the theater. In 1969 he opened the Odyssey on an unglamorous a part of Hollywood Boulevard, subsequent to a porn theater. Sossi began to push his artistic limits with its first productions — “A Man’s a Man” by Bertolt Brecht, “The Serpent” by Jean-Claude van Itallie, “The Threepenny Opera” by Brecht and Kurt Weill and “The Bacchae” by Euripides.
Presenting a mixture of new work and reimagined classics, the Odyssey discovered its area of interest with L.A.’s theatergoers. This artistic hub quickly turned identified for welcoming the avant-garde of the previous and current.
“I think my approach is a little different than most people’s,” Sossi advised The Occasions in 1989, “in that I’m attracted to metaphysical ideas and philosophical ideas, but not to a lot of sociological and political stuff.”
He recalled numerous dinner gatherings with different administrators. “There was a strong feeling that you were only doing serious theater if you were doing political theater — and everything else was escapist entertainment,” Sossi stated. “I remember saying, ‘Wait a minute! What about theater that deals with the great philosophical questions — you know, the meaning of it all. What’s it all about? What’s life? What’s death? What’s time? What’s space?’ They kind of pooh-poohed me, like, ‘Come on, grow up.’”
In 1973, Sossi moved the Odyssey to a 99-seat theater in West L.A. Over a number of years he developed the venue right into a three-theater complicated. In 1989 the constructing was offered and Sossi relocated the Odyssey to its present location on Sepulveda Boulevard. That complicated formally opened in 1990 with Brian Friel’s “Faith Healer.”
In recent times, because the Odyssey welcomed the work of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, María Irene Fornés and Gertrude Stein, Sossi related a brand new technology of theater-makers with their audacious and influential forebears. For greater than 50 years, Sossi’s admirers stated, the Odyssey inventive director offered a platform for these dedicated to reimagining what a theater could possibly be, irrespective of the status or pedigree of an artist.
As an alternative of a service or ceremony, Sossi’s want was “that the ongoing vibrancy of the theater he built would serve as his only memorial,” based on a press launch.
Sossi is survived by his spouse, Séverine Larue, and his sister, Nancy Foley.
L.A. Occasions theater critic Charles McNulty contributed to this report.
