Ron Sossi, the founder of L.A.’s experimental and boundary-pushing Odyssey Theatre, has died. He was 85.
Sossi died of congestive heart failure March 19 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, an Odyssey spokeswoman said. Sossi, a legend in the local theater community, was known for challenging conventional thinking and creating a space where new ideas would 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,” said Bart DeLorenzo, director of more than a dozen plays at the Odyssey, who noted the theater’s early history of premiering important 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 University of Michigan and graduated with a degree in writing for theater and television. He moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, where he won the Samuel Goldwyn award for screenwriting. As an MFA student, he supported himself as a wedding photographer and water filter salesman.
He also worked as an actor and singer. While in school, he traveled to Korea, Japan and Guam for a college production of “Carousel.” On that trip he met Bonnie Franklin, and the classmates and co-stars were later married from 1967 to 1970.
After graduating from UCLA, Sossi got a job as a program executive at ABC overseeing shows such as “Bewitched,” “The Flying Nun” and “Love, American Style.”
When working in television lost its shine, Sossi redirected his artistic efforts to the theater. In 1969 he opened the Odyssey on an unglamorous part of Hollywood Boulevard, next to a porn theater. Sossi started to push his creative 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 mix of new work and reimagined classics, the Odyssey found its niche with L.A.’s theatergoers. This creative hub soon became known for welcoming the avant-garde of the past and present.
“I think my approach is a little different than most people’s,” Sossi told The Times 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 various dinner gatherings with other directors. “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 said. “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 several years he developed the venue into a three-theater complex. In 1989 the building was sold and Sossi relocated the Odyssey to its current location on Sepulveda Boulevard. That complex officially opened in 1990 with Brian Friel’s “Faith Healer.”
In recent years, as the Odyssey welcomed the work of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, María Irene Fornés and Gertrude Stein, Sossi connected a new generation of theater-makers with their audacious and influential forebears. For more than 50 years, Sossi’s admirers said, the Odyssey artistic director provided a platform for those committed to reimagining what a theater could be, no matter the prestige or pedigree of an artist.
Instead of a service or ceremony, Sossi’s wish was “that the ongoing vibrancy of the theater he built would serve as his only memorial,” according to a press release.
Sossi is survived by his wife, Séverine Larue, and his sister, Nancy Foley.
L.A. Times theater critic Charles McNulty contributed to this report.
