THE MUSIC CENTER . . . WHAT LIES AHEAD?

From his law firm’s 49th-floor downtown office, F. Daniel Frost has an impressive view of the Los Angeles Music Center. And what the 65-year-old Music Center chairman and chief executive officer sees is a cultural institution wrestling with increased competition on all sides, management changes, a drought of theatrical fare and even its own success.

At the three-theater complex, Music Center Executive Vice President Esther Wachtell grapples with the biggest problem of all: money. Her huge coterie of volunteer and professional fund-raisers has to come up with nearly $2 million by June 30 to meet the fund’s goal this year of $12.3 million--the largest ever set by the Music Center Unified Fund, 29% greater than last fiscal year.

The fund helps pay for productions and community projects of such Music Center resident companies as the Center Theatre Group, Joffrey Ballet, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Music Center Opera. Without it, the Music Center’s performing arts companies would face serious cutbacks because box-office income rarely covers total costs.

“Every house in the Music Center is in trouble,” actor and longtime Center Theatre Group board member Charlton Heston said at a generally upbeat 20th anniversary ceremony for the Mark Taper Forum in early April. “We have to find a way to get more money.”

Heston and others saluted the past, wrung their hands over the present and talked about expansion in the future. Several plans are in the works to ease crowded conditions by building one-to-three more theaters. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion alone wedges in 420 events annually.

Like other arts groups around the nation, the Music Center and its resident companies are pinioned between increasing costs and decreasing access to philanthropic dollars. Nobody knows the impact of tax law changes on arts patronage, but dancers and actors are already jostling with hospitals and universities for donations.

The 53-year-old Oakland Symphony last fall became the first major American orchestra to declare bankruptcy, while the San Francisco Opera has canceled its next three summer seasons.

Problems are not strictly financial, either. At the same time the Music Center is launching a major opera company, the Metropolitan Opera’s artistic director, James Levine, is confiding to New York Magazine that “this is a terrible period for opera . . . an art form in decline.” And at the same time that the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson has 13 weeks of stage time this summer to fill, theater producers around the country are wailing that there are fewer and fewer plays they can produce.

Among the 23-year-old Music Center’s immediate concerns:

Getting the bicoastal Joffrey Ballet back on its feet financially. (See story on Page 6.)

Meeting increased competition for funding dollars, audiences, plays and performers. Dozens more theater organizations have begun since the Mark Taper Forum opened 20 years ago. And the new Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, which has already hosted such prestigious attractions as the New York City Ballet, is offering an attractive alternative to the Music Center.

For instance, when it became known that the Joffrey’s new production of “Nutcracker” could not be booked this December at the Music Center, Orange County center executives approached the Joffrey. But Joffrey general director Penelope Curry says she told the Orange County center that the Joffrey thought it was important for the West Coast premiere to be in Los Angeles, so the ballet would wait until Christmas, 1988, to perform “Nutcracker” locally.

The Civic Light Opera, once a dominant and self-sustaining producer of musical theater, will play only 12 weeks this summer, then leave the Music Center for good. At one time its combined playing weeks at the Pavilion and Ahmanson numbered 32 and its subscriber base was reportedly as high as 160,000. (It is about 50,000 today.)

Center Theatre Group for years was able to generate enough money via the operation of the Ahmanson Theatre to help support the Mark Taper Forum’s less mainstream projects. This year, however, the Ahmanson is expected to lose at least $1 million.

The Music Center “family” has expanded to include two expensive new siblings--the Joffrey and the year-old Los Angeles Music Center Opera.

Many of the artistic and administrative leaders have changed. Francis Dale last year was named to the newly created position of Music Center president, succeeding the Performing Arts Council president, the late Michael Newton. Sandra Kimberling this month assumed the long-vacant presidency of landlord Music Center Operating Co.

Martin Manulis has joined--and will succeed--Robert Fryer as artistic director at the Ahmanson, and John Currie last September took over direction of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from founder Roger Wagner.

The Pavilion has four weeks’ worth of short-term rentals to line up for this summer--some of which has already been done--and the Ahmanson is still struggling to fill its 13 weeks (the result of the Civic Light Opera’s decreasing time at the Music Center.)

“There is a changing of the guard,” said William Severns, who retired as Music Center Operating Co. chief administrative officer in June, 1984. “You have a whole new change of management and a new generation of volunteers. Michael (Newton) died, I’m out, and Mrs. (Norman) Chandler is no longer active. . . . These are generation pains.”

When Frost first came in as the Music Center’s acting chairman in December, 1985, he considered the Music Center “under-funded,” given the new resident companies and increased needs of the established ones. Frost, who is the son-in-law of Music Center founder Dorothy Buffum Chandler, has said on many occasions that given the importance of Los Angeles in terms of the Pacific Rim, the Music Center must maintain world-class institutions and be willing to foot the bill.

But the former managing partner of the Gibson Dunn & Crutcher law firm was also aware of the difficulties of asking for increased philanthropic funds in a tough economic climate. So among his priorities has been reviewing costs and establishing fiscal controls. And to help him do that, he brought in such people as Arco chief financial officer Ronald Arnault, to serve as the Music Center’s chief financial officer and finance committee chairman.

One change that Frost and Arnault made was to make it simpler for resident companies to do their own fund raising in addition to the general fund raising done by the huge Music Center Unified Fund. (See story on fund raising.) And to guard against unpleasant financial surprises, the resident companies must indicate their spending plans three years in advance.

Extremely complex resident agreements--the Philharmonic pact alone runs 35 pages, not including nearly as many additional pages of supporting documents--often took months of negotiations to conclude. As they progressed, rumors circulated that the assorted resident companies were fighting among themselves and with the Music Center administration.

Frost doesn’t deny those rumors, but he said he thinks the situation has improved. Referring to the inevitability of “some tension between the artistic directors and financial management,” he also conceded that the tension could perhaps be constructive.

Following is a look at the situation for the various resident companies:

AHMANSON FACES RED INK; TAPER SLICES ITS BUDGET

Even a major star like Lauren Bacall couldn’t save the Ahmanson’s production this season of “Sweet Bird Of Youth,” a show that did $500,000 less in business than had been anticipated in the budget. Lately this has been a scenario repeated too often for the Ahmanson, one of two theater companies operated by Center Theatre Group.

And while CTG’s other theater, the Mark Taper Forum, is celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Ahmanson is having trouble finding plays and attracting audiences. After averaging no more than 65% in ticket sales for its 2,071 seats at any show this season, the Ahmanson is scrambling to fill 13 more weeks this summer.

According to William Wingate, theater group executive managing director, the Ahmanson’s loss in the 1986-87 fiscal year is expected to be more than $1 million. CTG in the preceding fiscal year lost $664,000 from the operations of both theaters, according to the theater group’s financial statement.

Reserves accumulated in better years will cover the deficits of both years, Wingate said, so the organization as a whole won’t go into the red. “But the protective cushion we have had will shrink by a substantial amount,” he said.

What can be done?

Wingate said, one priority is “rebuilding the Ahmanson subscription base (now at 46,000 after a high a few years ago of 70,000), and the way to do it is to program a very attractive season for next year. . . . And the second priority is working with the Music Center to find ways to generate more giving.”

Retiring Ahmanson artistic director Robert Fryer and his successor, Martin Manulis, are producing the 1987-88 season together, and Wingate said their four-play roster will be announced earlier than usual. A subscription campaign will follow soon after one under way for the Taper.

What went wrong?

Production costs at the Ahmanson are so high that the selection of plays is limited to begin with, explains one former employee. “And many of the productions--like “Legends” (which starred Mary Martin and Carol Channing) looked good on paper but once their theatrical lives began, went downhill quickly. What’s been onstage for most of the past few years has not been very good. I knew things were bad for quite a while when plays like ‘The Unvarnished Truth’ were even considered, much less produced.”

Fryer blamed this year’s subscriber drop to a late mailing of information about the season and plays “falling out.” Twelve plays didn’t work out for one reason or another, he said, and the theater even had to cancel one musical (“Drood”) because the rest of the show’s planned tour collapsed.

The Ahmanson has long had a tradition of big-name stars on its stage, and neither the old nor the new artistic director indicates plans to break from that tradition. But both acknowledge problems getting long-range commitments from prominent actors and directors.

“That’s very difficult in Hollywood particularly,” Manulis said, “where people don’t want to miss out on a major film or miniseries that could have an enormous difference in compensation and in size of audience for their work.”

Fryer said one solution is to do “newer plays, which we’ll hopefully do next year,” and to take “a new approach to older plays.” The producer said he and Manulis would also like to commission more plays.

Manulis, who started out in theater before turning to TV and film, and new general manager Drew Murphy indicate they would also like to produce musicals at the Ahmanson. While Manulis concedes “a big budget problem,” what with the additional rehearsal time and other costs, he said he’s still “very anxious to do one (musical) per season if we can, and it would be a great audience pleaser.”

At the Ahmanson, as elsewhere, younger audiences often prefer single tickets over subscription series, and administrators plan to woo that market with musicals and more contemporary fare.

“I feel the overall programming has been somewhat slanted, either intentionally or not, to an older group of subscribers,” Manulis conceded, “and I certainly want them to be pleased and happy with the work, because they have been a backbone to the theater. But we must not take for granted that even (they) would not be happy with more contemporary plays.”

The “most hopeful thing” Fryer sees ahead is the possibility of co-productions with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Next season’s four plays, which will be announced in early June, will include one current “huge Broadway hit,” one co-production with Kennedy and Denver, and two plays to be produced here, Fryer said.

“We know our audience wants to see the newest Neil Simon play, and we’ll make every arrangement to bring that here,” Manulis said. “But we have had rather bum luck at the box office and with critics with imports from London.”

Given that the Ahmanson’s profit participation in its many world premieres of Neil Simon plays have brought more than $1 million back to CTG coffers, Wingate was asked why Simon’s last play, “Broadway Bound,” didn’t open here. It was much less expensive to try it out on the Duke University campus, Wingate said, without the expense of unions, promotion or hauling sets across country. Wingate also said Simon’s producer, Emanuel Azenberg, had an existing relationship with Duke.

Azenberg essentially concurred, referring to the lower costs and more relaxed atmosphere of the East Coast tryout.

“The problems of playing the Ahmanson,” said Azenberg, “are, one, it’s too expensive, two, it’s too expensive and three, it’s too expensive.”

CTG also lost money as a result of its now-terminated partnership with UCLA at the James A. Doolittle Theater in Hollywood. The CTG board had approved a potential loss of up to $500,000 at the Doolittle over a two-year period, Wingate said, but the loss hit that figure after a year and a half, “so we pulled out sooner rather than sustain losses beyond what the board had felt prudent to lose.”

“We never want to be in the position of borrowing money for working capital purposes, and have not been in that position since 1970,” he said. “We’re having a tough year, but there have been enough good years in the past so that we can absorb this year’s projected loss.”

There has already been considerable CTG “belt-tightening,” Wingate told The Times in a recent interview. The Taper’s budget dropped about $1 million this year to $8 million, resulting in a reduction of CTG staff, a reduction in the Taper’s repertory season to two low-budget plays and the cancellation of Taper Media Enterprises, a five-year-old in-house production unit which has been concentrating on TV and film projects.

Taper Artistic Director Gordon Davidson and others still want a larger space like the Doolittle, however, while Music Center expansion plans now under discussion also include a 500-seat “black box” theater with flexible seating.

Said Wingate: “We have needed a 300-to 500-seat house for a long time, for New Theater for Now, for the Improvisational Theater Project, and to do those plays that we don’t have time or room for in the Taper or that require a more intimate environment for one reason or another.” Davidson also noted at the Taper rededication that he wouldn’t mind a house with an orchestra pit and more backstage space.

Meanwhile, an ad hoc group was scheduled to have its first meeting last week to consider, among other things, a study done some years ago by the late designer Henry Dreyfuss, which would add a ceiling to the Ahmanson Theatre above the first balcony and rework the resulting new top floor into a film theater.

L.A. MASTER CHORALE: THE BIG SQUEEZE

Scheduling and financial problems persist for the Music Center’s 140-voice Master Chorale.

Executive director Robert Willoughby Jones explained that during the Christmas season the Pavilion is heavily booked and “there isn’t really much time left for us.” At that time of year, said Jones, the chorale must play on the apron in front of the fire curtain, “which is acoustically not terribly good (and it) takes away the number of seats you can sell, and at Christmastime that’s a very important consideration.”

Jones conceded, however, that sales at last Christmas’ four performances were below expectations. Some have speculated that the reason was Roger Wagner’s retirement.

Chorale subscription sales this year increased 11%, but total revenues declined 4%, Jones said.

According to its financial reports, the Chorale lost $91,820 in the last fiscal year and borrowed $150,000 from the Music Center Board of Governors to maintain a cash flow. Jones said that $50,000 was paid back on Nov. 1, “and we have reached an agreement with the Music Center where they will absorb that loss for us over the next three years.”

While the Master Chorale has frequently provided a chorus for the Philharmonic and Opera, chorale administrators conceded that choral music by itself is more difficult to sell than orchestral music. New artistic director John Currie, in fact, estimated that he has addressed more than 30 groups this year, “doing missionary work” on the joys of choral music.

THE OPERA: A COSTLY NEW VENTURE

Until recently the only major U.S. city without a large-scale opera company, Los Angeles is not wasting time in establishing its own production company. The Music Center Opera’s budget of $5.5 million for the season just ended jumps to $9.5 million next season, making it the fifth largest in the country.

Among events for the 1987-88 season: a $2-million production in association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” conducted by Zubin Mehta, directed by Jonathan Miller and designed by David Hockney.

The opera last year had to turn down 500 subscription requests, and played to nearly sold-out audiences. Public performances, excluding previews and community outreach, will increase by the 1988-89 season to 42 performances of eight operas (compared with its first year’s 22 performances of five operas).

General director Peter Hemmings said that in a metropolis like Los Angeles, “where everything has to make an impact, it was no good trying to start in a modest way.”

And while nobody wanted to level off at last year’s 22 performances, he expects a three-year plateau of about 40 performances that will be established in the 1987-88 season. The performances will also run throughout much of the year to establish what Hemmings calls “a reasonably continuous presence.”

The opera company’s ticket sales generate 50% of its budget, a customary amount for U.S. opera companies. Development director Connie Morgan, there since 1985, said that if Music Center Opera could amass nearly $2 million in donations last year before anyone had even seen the group produce a single opera, she is “very confident” about meeting the upcoming season’s goal of raising more than $3 million.

Hemmings said scenery and costumes from last year’s production of “Salome” have already been rented by four other companies. And, noting that costs can often be kept down by sharing production costs with other opera companies, the London-born executive met last month with colleagues in Geneva, Paris and London. He also has spoken with the Orange County-based Opera Pacific about exchanging productions at future dates.

Do the older companies resent the expensive new kid on the block?

Said Hemmings: “I get the feeling they’ve all just been waiting for an opera company. I think it is perfectly reasonable that for the first 20 years an effort was made to establish and solidify the Philharmonic and Center Theatre Group. Now I think the addition of opera and ballet, in a purposeful way as resident companies, is a natural development, and I think this is one of the few places left in the Western world where this can be achieved. That’s the main reason I came here.”

PHILHARMONIC HITS THE HIGH C’s: COSTS

“Musical problems are practically nonexistent” at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, said music director Andre Previn. “I think the orchestra is a virtuoso orchestra.”

Virtuoso orchestras are expensive, however, and Philharmonic executive director Ernest Fleischmann worries about the organization’s dependence on earned income. A larger endowment, he argues, would provide “the luxury of rehearsing more, performing less, and taking more risks. The only way an arts institution can survive is by taking risks.”

The Philharmonic’s $12-million endowment ranks 15th or 16th in the U.S., Fleischmann said, and should be closer to $50 million, or double the orchestra’s current $25 million annual budget. Its lucrative Hollywood Bowl season affords the Philharmonic a financial cushion unavailable to many other orchestras. But the cushion’s hardly cushy: Fleischmann said one rained-out Bowl concert, particularly on a weekend, could cut as much as 1.5% of the Philharmonic’s annual earned income.

“We still rely far too much on earned income, more than any other orchestra in the country,” Fleischmann said. “That means we are too dependent on the box office and have to play too many concerts in a place like the Bowl, under really physically difficult circumstances for the musicians.”

Fleischmann also wants what he diplomatically referred to as an “even more open approach to unusual programming.” Attendance at contemporary music concerts is improving, he said--four of seven recent Boulez concerts were sold out--but he remains “very concerned generally about educating audiences.”

“There is as much tolerance here as in most places, but there is always the danger because we’re so dependent on earned income that if we really carry out our responsibility to composers of our time properly we’ll lose ticket sales. And it’s happened. This season we’ve been doing more 20th-Century programming than usual, and ticket sales are down by 3 to 4%.”

(A critical view of the Philharmonic and Andre Previn by Times Music Critic Martin Bernheimer appears on Page 64.)

MUSICALS: CIVIC LIGHT OPERA SINGS A SWAN SONG

The 50-year-old Civic Light Opera’s 12-week residency this summer will mark its last at the Music Center, ending a relationship that began with the opening of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

CLO’s time for presentation of musicals at the Ahmanson and Pavilion was reduced over the years from 32 weeks as pressures increased from other resident companies. By 1986, it was down to 16 weeks at the Pavilion alone. And when prolonged negotiations over this year’s schedule resulted in just 12 weeks, CLO executive James Nederlander apparently threw up his hands and left, saying there was no way to recoup costs in so brief a period.

This summer’s seven-week run of “Cabaret” and three-week run of the Bolshoi Ballet end the CLO tenure at the Music Center.

CLO executives charge that the CLO paid the center’s highest rents, never asked for a subsidy, and wound up getting shoved out because Music Center leadership considered dance, opera and symphony music of far more “cultural importance to the community.”

(Out, too, as of May 30 is the American Center for Musical Theater, a training institution begun by the Civic Light Opera and a Music Center resident since it opened. The Center for Musical Theater was behind about $130,000 in Music Center-subsidized expenses, said director Paul Gleason, when it received word it had to move. The center has no new home yet.

(“Losing the American Center for Musical Theater is one of the biggest crimes that could possibly happen,” said ACMT co-chairman Carlota (Lotsie) Busch Giersch. “The Music Center needs quality artists in opera, theater and dance, and these are performers we provide.”)

Replacing CLO activity and rent is the responsibility of the Music Center Operating Company, the Music Center’s landlord and an independent body set up by Los Angeles County in 1961 to manage the Music Center. The Pavilion will be dark for four weeks beginning May 18, when the Joffrey Ballet closes, Kimberling confirmed. More worrisome is expected dark time at the Ahmanson, where the already financially pressed Center Theatre Group has to pay rent for the hall for 13 weeks even if the hall is empty.

CTG elected last June to pick up summer time relinquished by the Civic Light Opera in 1984 and filled by the operating company’s co-production of “My One and Only” in 1985 and the theater group’s co-production of “Nicholas Nickleby” in 1986, Kimberling said.

What will the Ahmanson present for those 13 weeks this summer? One show reportedly under consideration is the musical “She Loves Me,” a recent hit starring Pam Dawber which closed April 26 at Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre.

Each week the Ahmanson stands empty costs CTG $9,000 in rent, Kimberling said, not to mention restaurant and parking revenues lost to Music Center concessionaires and others.

What went wrong with musical theater at the Music Center?

Among the problems: less product on Broadway and elsewhere on the tour circuit, plus costs so high that the Music Center or CLO couldn’t produce musicals solely for local consumption.

“You just can’t produce musicals for one city,” said Stan Seiden, president of the James Nederlander Companies and the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. “Not if you do a full-fledged professional production.”

Some Music Center executives would like to launch musical consortiums, and they say they have been talking with officials at performing arts centers in Washington, New York and other cities. The lack of musical productions “isn’t a problem created by the Music Center,” said CLO board member James Ludlum. “The Music Center is a victim of this situation.”

Among future possibilities, for instance, is a shared tour circuit with the new Orange County Performing Arts Center. Pointing out that the CLO production of “Cabaret,” starring Joel Grey, will play the L.A. Music Center and Orange County’ Segerstrom Hall, Orange County arts center president Thomas Kendrick said, “If it’s successful, and I think it will be, it will help allay some of the concern people have that (a show) could only be in one city or the other.”

Nobody expects lights out forever at the Music Center for musical theater, particularly with expansion.

“Somebody will be back,” Ludlum said. “They’ll need light opera to support (expansion), because it produces large grosses plus uses the facility to the maximum.”

TAKING THE SHOW ON THE ROAD--TO THE KIDS

The Music Center’s education division this year became a resident company for the first time, an action that increased its stature and funding within the Music Center family. Begun in November, 1979, with $52,000, the division today has an annual budget of more than $1 million. Its “Music Center on Tour” program alone reaches nine California counties through 3,400 workshops and performances each year.

At the end of April, thousands of disabled children and young adults filled the Music Center plaza for the eighth annual Very Special Arts Festival. And right now, said Education Division director Joan Boyett, the program is busing 32,000 fifth-graders to the Pavilion for performances by the Joffrey II Dancers.

The Hollywood Bowl hosts “Open House at the Bowl” for children each weekday morning for six weeks in July and August. Listing assorted programs offered by the Philharmonic, CTG, Joffrey and Chorale, Boyett figures that the Music Center complex as a whole spends about $2.5 million on educational programming for students each year, “and I know the community doesn’t recognize the significance of that. . . . All the resident companies are interested in long-range audience development.”

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

Internally, chairman Frost has set up regular staff meetings with resident company representatives to address current and future concerns. And externally, the executive has repeatedly said that the Unified Fund will have to raise at least $100 million over the next seven years to create and maintain the institution’s “quality world-class performing arts.”

“The Music Center is not just important to Los Angeles, it’s critical,” said Jane Pisano, president of LA 2000, an organization whose goal is to encourage the city to take a longer-range look at itself.

“It is extremely clear that the arts and culture will draw people downtown (in the future), and we must have that in mind when we make decisions . . . .”

Looking ahead, the Music Center is also seeking to expand its endowment of $45 million. (Lincoln Center’s endowment is reportedly more than $50 million, excluding the endowments of its resident companies).

Kennedy Center and the National Symphony Orchestra recently merged many activities in a cost-cutting efficiency measure, and Music Center plans call for more interdependency as well. Besides increased Center Theatre Group efforts to combine services for the Taper and Ahmanson organizations, a Music Center task force has been established to review possible duplicated expenses in the various resident groups.

Music Center President Francis Dale is meanwhile trying to organize a national advisory board for fund raising, while Esther Wachtell reports there has been an increase in contributions from corporations based elsewhere. Among the out-of-towners who have increased their commitment to the Music Center in recent years: Ford Motor Co., CBS, IBM, Xerox Corp.

Said Jack Shakely, president of the California Community Foundation: “The bright side for groups like the Music Center is they’re finding that East Coast philanthropies and corporations which never would have supported them before are now doing so. They see Los Angeles as a national arts center and not just a local one.”

MUSIC CENTER ORGANIZATIONAL CHART LOS ANGELES COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MUSIC CENTER OPERATING COMPANY (Maintenance and booking of the three Music Center Theaters) Charles Schneider, Chairman John Dunavent, Executive Vice President Sandra Kimberling, President RESIDENT COMPANIES Music Center Opera Los Angeles Master Chorale Music Center Education Division Los Angeles Philharmonic Center Theater Group (Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre) The Joffrey Ballet THE MUSIC CENTER BOARD OF GOVERNORS F. Daniel Frost, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Francis Dale, President Esther Wachell, Executive Vice President Times librarian Tom Lutgen contributed to the research in this article.