Banking on one last 'Bash'

What: "Bash: The Latter-Day Plays"

When: 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday (additional performances Nov. 16-20 and Nov. 23-27)

Where: Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave., in Commercial Center, near Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway

Admission: $15; 732-7225

What: "Bash: The Latter-Day Plays"

When: 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday (additional performances Nov. 16-20 and Nov. 23-27)

Where: Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave., in Commercial Center, near Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway

Admission: $15; 732-7225

Here in the Onyx Theatre Johnny Miles is shredding our hearts in Neil LaBute's chilling "A Gaggle of Saints" from "Bash: The Latter-Day Plays."

Miles plays one half of a young conservative couple recounting an evening anniversary in New York with friends. Like the other two one-act plays in "Bash," it's suffocating and hard to swallow but completely engaging.

The rehearsal is for New American Theatre Project's fifth production since April 2006 , when a few "Le Reve" performers teamed with old friends in hope of invigorating theater in Las Vegas: No more "Kiss Me Kate." No more Neil Simon. No more of the same ol', same ol'.

They brought in works by LaBute, Kenneth Logan and Eric Bogosian , and even a vaudeville-esque talk show.

But something happened during their shake -'em -up, rattle -the -norm, feed-the-alternative effort.

Despite a lot of media coverage and mostly solid reviews, the company wasn't filling seats.

Thus, "Bash" is its make -or -break performance.

"If the support isn't much bigger than it has been, then it obviously isn't the right time and right place," says Will Sturdivant, associate artistic director of the New American Theatre Project, who moved here temporarily from Minneapolis to be part of the project. "We're broke. That's the bottom line. It's at a point of, come here (to Las Vegas) or go to New York. There's a lot of work in New York."

Sturdivant is hoping the Onyx, and the weekend showtimes, will draw larger audiences.

The 96-seat theater, with sound, lighting, comfy stadium-style seats, a charming lobby with concessions and clean restrooms, has become the hub of alternative /socially progressive theater.

Its ticket counter and entrance, both housed in The Rack , a sexual fantasy store in Commercial Center Plaza, add to the alternative ambience.

Like Las Vegas Little Theatre, the Onyx is one of the few local theater spaces not run by the county, area cities, library districts, colleges or UNLV. To have followed the New American Theatre Project is to have taken a cursory tour of these independent theater spaces: Las Vegas Little Theater, a dance hall at Aruba Hotel and now the Onyx.

Not many options.

Walter Niejadlik, president and artistic director of the Las Vegas Little Theatre , attributes the lack of theater space to money and strict building codes.

Niejadlik says rent (more than $6,000 a month), insurance and utilities make up more than 50 percent of the Las Vegas Little Theatre's operating budget. The company , in its 30th year , is looking to purchase a facility. With 10 shows a year - six on the main stage, four in the " black box " theater - the company would struggle without a home. Besides the 155-seat main theater and the smaller black box , it has a scenery and costume shop.

"I definitely don't think we would be around 30 years if we hadn't invested in (leasing) our own space," Niejadlik says, adding that changing locations leads to a 50 percent drop in subscriptions.

Other companies that have had their own facilities in recent years include the Test Market Theater Group, which closed SEAT (Social Experimentation and Absurd Theater) in the Arts Factory in 2005. That same year the Nevada Theatre Company, which had a tiny strip mall space on Lake East Drive near Sahara Avenue and Durango Drive , shut down altogether .

Super Summer Theatre offers family -style shows at the Spring Mountain Ranch. Other companies do the community center circuit.

Cockroach Theatre, around since 2002, performs "environmental theater" - site-specific productions in which the environment is integral to the plot. It performed in a junkyard, in the back lot of the downtown Funk House and more recently in the Red Barn at the ghost town of Goldwell, just outside Beatty.

Ernest Hemmings and Francine Gordon of Test Market Theater Group also performed in junkyards, art galleries and parks. SEAT was secured as the venue for the second annual Beckett Festival , and stuck around , churning out performances seemingly nonstop to afford the space, often to empty seats.

The recently formed Lion Heart Theatrics, run by Jim Slonina, is scouting for space - any space. "We're trying to figure out ways to use art galleries," Slonina, formerly of the New American Theatre Project, says. "If we're going to continue here, we're going to have to be more flexible about scheduling or nontraditional spaces."

Lionheart is one of several groups participating in the fifth annual Beckett Festival in two buildings behind the Arts Factory that Wes Myles, owner of the venue, renovated for temporary theater space.

Myles, who purchased several properties behind the Arts Factory, says permanent theater space should come to fruition within two years. Hemmings wants to stick around to watch that play out.

Whether anyone will attend the Beckett Festival is always a guess in this town. Many believe alternative theater is just too hard of a sell.

John Beane, manager of the Onyx Theatre and artistic director of Insurgo Theater Movement (Onyx's resident company), says local theater audiences must first be cultivated: "Theater has the additional burden of having to sell the concept of theater itself. Sometimes what you end up with is an inbred artistic community on a local level."

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