Ten years in:
“Reality is a harsh teacher at times, but I’m proud of what we’ve done.” — Tom Ormeny, Los Angeles Times, 1990
Forty years in:
“We’re just going to keep doing what we’ve always done. We’re going to do new plays, good new plays, and we’re going to do them well.” — Tom Ormeny, 2020
Maria Gobetti
Maria Gobetti directed the theatre’s first production — and the world premiere — of Beth Henley’s critically acclaimed The Miss Firecracker Contest. She has since directed the Critics’ Choice world premieres of Resolving Hedda by Jon Klein, The Engine of Our Ruin by Jason Wells, and Pie in the Sky by Lawrence Thelan, as well as The Shoplifters and the critically acclaimed West Coast premiere of Ten Cent Night. She has directed over 90 productions at the Victory, including My Old Friends by Norman Sachs and Mel Mandel. Maria continues to serve as Artistic Director of the Victory Theatre Center and Director of the Gobetti-Ormeny Acting Studio, and teaches at the New York Film Academy.
Maria spent two years as Director of Development for The Brillstein Company and worked as both director and coach at Hanna-Barbera. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America, Women in Film, and Women in Theatre, and chaired the producers committee of the 99-Seat/AEA Review Committee.
Her awards include the 1992 WIT Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Award, the Red Carpet Award for Excellence in Theatre (with Tom Ormeny), the 2017 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre and Direction, and the 2017 Stage Raw Lifetime Achievement Award (with Tom Ormeny).
Maria Gobetti and Tom Ormeny co-founded The Victory Theatre Center in 1980.
Tom Ormeny (1946-2023)
Tom Ormeny was born into a theatrical family in Hungary and served as Artistic Co-Director of the Victory Theatre Center from its founding until his passing in 2023. He was instrumental in forming the Los Angeles Municipal Promotions (LAMP) and served as President Emeritus of the Board of Governors of Theatre LA. Tom was the proud recipient of The Los Angeles Theatre Alliance’s James A. Doolittle Award for Leadership in Theatre.
Tom directed the unanimously, critically acclaimed Who’s Your Daddy? by Johnny O’Callaghan, moving the show to the Edinburgh Festival and then to The Irish Arts Theatre in Chelsea in New York in April of 2013. He produced the world premiere comedies The Engine of Our Ruin by Jason Wells, Pie in the Sky by Lawrence Thelan, Resolving Hedda by Jon Klein, and Sex and Education by Lissa Levin.
As a director, Tom received many awards for the Victory’s production of The Mound Builders and directed a world premiere production for The National Theatre of Hungary. His other directing credits included the award-winning Olympic Arts Festival production of Back to Back and the Victory’s original production of Venus in Orange. His producer credits included the Drama Critics Circle award-winning On the Money, and he wrote and produced the world premiere of Life On The Line.
Tom appeared in the critically acclaimed Broken Glass at the Victory as well as a guest starring role in Grey’s Anatomy. He was a devoted acting coach at the Gobetti-Ormeny Acting Studio and taught at Cypress College and the New York Film Academy. He was a member of the Directors Guild of America, AEA, AFTRA, and SAG.
Our History
The Beginning
In 1970, Maria Gobetti and Tom Ormeny formed a small acting studio in Hollywood with a single, defining goal: to develop an ensemble capable of presenting new plays.
They built that ensemble. And then they built a theatre.
In spring 1980, the Victory Theatre Center opened its doors at 3326 W. Victory Boulevard in Burbank — a two-stage complex that Tom, a skilled carpenter and handyman, helped construct himself alongside a dedicated group of theatre artists and student volunteers. The building housed an equity-waiver main stage, a smaller studio for classes and works in progress, and what a visitor from the Los Angeles Theatre Alliance called, at the time, a “Cadillac of a theatre.”
The first production was the world premiere of The Miss Firecracker Contest by Beth Henley — directed by Maria Gobetti. Sylvie Drake of the Los Angeles Times called it “funny, fun, original, and richly personal.” It played to sold-out houses for three months. The play went on to Broadway, regional productions across the country, and a major motion picture. The Los Angeles Times listed it among the Ten Best Plays of 1980, and it earned a place in Otis Guernsey’s Best Plays among the honorable achievements in regional theatre that season.
What the opening night audience couldn’t have known: Henley had written Crimes of the Heart while studying acting in Maria Gobetti’s classes. That play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the same year the Victory opened.
Tom Ormeny said it simply: “This is a beginning. We have exciting plans for theatre in Southern California — plans that will continue to develop and promote the talent of new actors and playwrights; plans for live theatre that truly involve the audience.”
The First Decade
Through the early 1980s, the Victory built its identity as a theatre committed exclusively to new, unproduced American work — a rare distinction in Los Angeles and across the country.
In 1983, Tom Ormeny directed Back to Back, which went on to receive the Olympiad Award at the XXIII Olympic Arts Festival — the ten-week cultural program preceding the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, featuring 400+ performances by 146 companies from 18 nations.
The theatre’s dedication to new voices attracted playwrights of genuine ambition. Kos Kostmayer’s On the Money — which Tom Ormeny stepped into mid-run when an actor had to leave for more remunerative work, then played for five months — was named Best Play of the Year by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. Jon Klein’s T Bone ‘N Weasel premiered at the Victory and went on to a TNT movie starring Gregory Hines and Christopher Lloyd. John Ford Noonan’s Talking Things Over With Chekhov transferred Off-Broadway. The Steven Weed Show by Shawn Schepps traveled to the Edinburgh Festival.
By the time the Victory marked its tenth year, the Los Angeles Times was paying attention. Tom Ormeny reflected on a decade of building: “Reality is a harsh teacher at times, but I’m proud of what we’ve done.”
Growing Roots
In 1997, with the support of its board of directors, the Victory Theatre Center purchased its home on Victory Boulevard — establishing a permanent foundation for its work after years of leasing the space. The acquisition was both a practical milestone and a symbolic one: this theatre, built by hand, was here to stay.
Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, the Victory continued its steady production of new American plays, supporting dozens of playwrights through full productions, staged readings, and dramaturgical workshops. Over 85 workshops across the theatre’s history have given playwrights the room to explore and refine work before it reached an audience. More than 80% of all VTC productions have been previously unproduced plays.
The theatre also became a home for plays with broader ambitions. Catch a Falling Star by Lee Murphy won the Ovation Award for Best New Play. Monkey Grass, also by Murphy, received NAACP Theatre Award nominations and an LA Weekly Award. Donald Freed’s American Iliad was developed over two years before its world premiere on the Victory stage. An Evening with the Egos transferred with its full creative team to an AEA contract production in Chicago.
A Theatre That Travels
One consistent mark of the Victory’s artistic vision: the plays it develops don’t stay in Burbank.
History of Fear by Kos Kostmayer went to regional production and was produced in Germany in translation. Wishing Well by Jon Klein was optioned for regional production. Talking Things Over With Chekhov traveled Off-Broadway. Hollywood Follies by David Mann went to New York cabaret dates. The Steven Weed Show played Edinburgh.
The signal achievement came with Who’s Your Daddy? by Johnny O’Callaghan, directed by Tom Ormeny — unanimously acclaimed by critics in Los Angeles, then taken by Tom to the Edinburgh Festival, and finally to a full production at the Irish Arts Theatre Off-Broadway in New York in 2013. Resolving Hedda by Jon Klein traveled to Washington, D.C.
The Victory was not just producing plays. It was launching them.
Recognition and Resilience
The theatre’s sustained commitment earned sustained recognition. Tom Ormeny received the James A. Doolittle Ovation Award for Outstanding Leadership in Theatre in 2001 — presented at the Kodak Theatre, the Ovation Awards’ most prestigious recognition for a leader in the Los Angeles community. In 2017, both Maria Gobetti and Tom Ormeny received the Stage Raw Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle honored Maria Gobetti with its Lifetime Achievement and Direction Award.
The Los Angeles Times took stock of the theatre’s track record in 2018: “Longtime husband and wife producing team Tom Ormeny and Maria Gobetti have a keen intuition when it comes to scouting worthy new plays — a gift that has been honed over their 39 years in residence at the Victory Theatre in Burbank.”
When Assembly Bill 5 passed in 2020 — a law that effectively raised the cost of a single VTC production from $20,000 to $70,000 — and a global pandemic shuttered theatres across the world, Maria looked at Tom and asked what they were going to do. His answer was the same it had always been: “We’re just going to keep doing what we’ve always done. We’re going to do new plays, good new plays, and we’re going to do them well.”
