In the midst of the devastating Eaton fire, a particular wooden picnic table remained fully intact at 2553 Fair Oaks Ave in Altadena, Calif. This was the address of the microcomedy theater, Public Displays of Altadena, known rather lovingly as “PDA.”
The Eaton fire began last Tuesday just over three miles north from the small strip mall PDA called home. It was that night that the 35-seat venue and its surrounding businesses burned to the ground. Except for the picnic table — a gathering place for performers, audience members and PDA’s employees, before and after shows.
PDA’s co-owners Claire Woolner and Kevin Krieger are fixtures of the Los Angeles clown scene. They created PDA in 2022 as a place to incubate their work, not knowing the vast community they would draw in almost instantly.
“The vision came after the selection of space. We found the best use was to make it available at an affordable rate so people could make their dream come true,” Krieger said. “People that are wanting to be creative for their own personal well-being and growth, not just trying to make a career out of it.”
“Altadena is home to a lot of artists, and because of the location of our theater, it allowed people to do really weird stuff,” Woolner added.
PDA’s calendar primarily featured clown shows and workshops, though its carte blanche mentality also welcomed in sketch, improv, stand-up and readings. The creativity was fostered around the clock; sometimes shows began as early as 8 a.m.
Comedian Maria Bamford was one of the major players of the early slots, often working out new hours as her audiences drank coffee. Bamford has been a champion of PDA since its inception— even before its existence, for that matter.
“I drew a picture several years ago, after moving to Altadena, of my ideal comedy community: small and filled with love,” Bamford recalled. “And in true Los Angeles-vision-board-magic, Claire, Budd [Diaz] and Kevin did a massive amount of work rehabbing a strip-mall office space into a gorgeous, tiny clown theater. Ridiculously, a request from the universe in crayon was answered.”
It was PDA’s small team that took out the floors, painted the walls, installed the lights and hung the pink and green curtains. All at once, their titles became: artists, carpenters, producers, technicians, bookers, business owners and community leaders.
“That’s what made the theater burning down the most devastating … we put our hearts and souls into turning this strip-mall space into a beautiful, little theater, and it’s gone,” Krieger said.
But not if the people can help it.
Facilities manager Budd Diaz created a GoFundMe to keep employees afloat, refund those with scheduled rentals, assist other Altadena businesses and homes and bring PDA back to its community. Donations quickly came in from comedians such as Bamford, Chris Fleming and Jamie Loftus, as well audience members, workshoppers and all those touched by the place that Bamford described as “punk in the most joyful sense of the word.”
The notifications on Woolner’s phone don’t seem to stop. “The messages I’ve been getting all say, ‘PDA gave me the courage to get onstage and start working out this new idea.’ Which is really moving for me, because that is what I want as an artist.”
Writer, comedian and Emmy-winning actor Alex Borstein was instantly enchanted with PDA, calling it a “raw canvas.” After putting on readings of unpublished works by her and other writers, Borstein is ready to “literally show up [with] hammer and nails, if that helps,” or do her new stand-up hour “somewhere on their behalf.”
Performance in aid of PDA is exactly Lauren Herstik’s vision for her upcoming fundraiser. A television writer, Herstik is organizing a show she originated at PDA. It’s a semistaged script reading of a pilot written by Herstik that never developed further.
“I’ve been reaching out to other venues around town to make it a pay-what-you-can production fundraiser, and if it works out, make it a series of fundraisers, so every couple weeks, another theater can host, and everything would go to PDA,” said Herstik.
It’s big-hearted endeavors such as these that have fueled Krieger and Woolner to keep at it. Just two days after the fire, Krieger was scouting spots in other northeast Los Angeles neighborhoods.
“Claire and I would love to keep teaching and keep creating space for people to create. We get to be the owners of it, but in reality it was really a community effort,” Krieger said. “I am looking forward to doing it again.”
Over the last couple of days, Krieger keeps coming back to the same sentiment: “Theater isn’t the space; it’s the people that come to it and make it a vibrant place to be.”
The picnic table remains standing.
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