Ron Sossi, who founded the landmark Odyssey Theatre in 1969, has died at the age of 85, the theater announced this weekend.
Sossi died on March 19, the theater announced Saturday. No cause of death was provided.
He was at the helm of the Odyssey for 56 years, and was known for presenting edgy, risk-taking live theater experiences, including an eclectic mix of new work and boldly re-envisioned classics. He was particularly drawn to metaphysical themes and work by German and Eastern European playwrights.
Sossi graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in writing for theater and television before moving to Los Angeles to attend UCLA film school. He supported himself as a wedding photographer and water filter salesman while earning a master’s degree, and was also an actor and singer. He traveled to Korea, Japan and Guam courtesy of the USO with a college production of “Carousel,” where he met fellow student and co-star Bonnie Franklin, and the two were briefly married from 1967 until 1970.
After winning the Samuel Goldwyn Award for screenwriting at UCLA, Sossi was hired as a program executive at ABC, where he oversaw the classic shows “Bewitched,” “The Flying Nun” and “Love American Style” among others.
In 1969, Sossi founded the Odyssey Theatre in a former storefront church on the seedy end of Hollywood Boulevard. With the sounds of the adult movie theater next door seeping through, the Odyssey opened its inaugural productions of “A Man’s A Man” by Bertolt Brecht, “The Serpent” by Jean Claude van Italie, “The Threepenny Opera” by Brecht and Kurt Weill, and “The Bacchae” by Euripides. Long runs of these four plays sealed his reputation as a maverick with critics and audiences alike.
In 1973, Sossi moved the Odyssey to a larger venue in West Los Angeles on the corner of Bundy and Ohio, where starting out with one 99-seat performance space, he gradually expanded it into a three-theater complex. Critically acclaimed, award-winning productions at the theater included “Peer Gynt,” “Woyzeck,” “White Marriage,” “The Adolf Hitler Show,” “The Chicago Conspiracy Trial,” “Nightclub Cantana,” “Tracers,” “Mary Barnes,” “Master Class,” “Edmond,” “Rapmaster Ronnie,” “McCarthy,’ “Idioglossia (later to become the Oscar-nominated movie “Nell”), and Steven Berkoff’s “Kvetch” — the Odyssey’s longest running show at eight years.
During the company’s 16-year tenure in that space, Sossi produced and directed two thirds of the Bertolt Brecht canon, including “Baal,” in which he also starred in the title role.
When the building was sold in 1989, Sossi moved the Odyssey to its current home on Sepulveda Boulevard, a city-owned warehouse formerly used to manufacture gas tanks. The new Odyssey opened its doors in 1990 with his production of “Faith Healer.”
Sossi was twice honored with the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s prestigious Margaret Harford Award for “demonstrating a continual willingness to experiment provocatively in the process of theater.” He won the circle’s Ron Link Award for “consistent quality of direction” and also received the LA Weekly Career Achievement Award.
Sossi is survived by his wife, Séverine Larue, and his sister, Nancy Foley. In accordance with his instructions, no service or ceremony will be held.
“It was Ron’s wish that the ongoing vibrancy of the theater he built would serve as his only memorial. The Odyssey’s curtain will continue to rise, and every future performance will be a testament to Ron Sossi’s enduring legacy,” theater officials said.