Is the plight of the Los Angeles Theatre Center an isolated case, or are there too many theaters for too few patrons? A discussion with the town’s theatrical movers and shakers. : Theater in L.A.--What Does the Future Hold?

The turmoil surrounding the Los Angeles Theatre Center revives the ongoing debate about theater in Los Angeles. There are local and national observers who dispute that L.A. is--or ever could be--a theater town, primarily because of the overweening presence of the film and television industry and the lack of a historic stage culture such as New York’s. Yet there are also those who maintain that the L.A. boards have begun to come of age. Is there a vital theater culture here? What does the possible demise of the city’s largest producer of provocative stage work--one with an avowedly multicultural mission--mean for the artistic community? Calendar posed these and other questions to a group of key players in Southern California theater.

At what stage is the development of the Southern California theater scene?

Des McAnuff, artistic director, La Jolla Playhouse: People who work in the theater don’t consider palms trees and live production a contradiction now. That wasn’t true in the early ‘80s. It has been a wonderful period of growth over the past five or six years. People moving in and out of the area are spreading the word that there is something happening here. Actors look to Southern California as a base, and not just because of the “mechanical reproduction.” It would be very easy to slip back from this position. It remains to be seen what kind of impact the recession will have.

Gordon Davidson, artistic director, Mark Taper Forum/Center Theater Group: We share a pool of artists who are willing to commit to the theater and that’s the beginning, since no one theater has to totally support them. It’s never a good thing to see a theater go under--it’s too much a part of the cultural ecology. If it does happen, it makes it harder for everyone else. People on the outside say, “Too much subsidy is required,” or, “The community doesn’t want it.” But sometimes theaters do run their life spans in order to come back another way.

What is the broader significance of the precarious situation of the city’s largest producer of controversial, socially relevant stage work?

Susan Dietz, former artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse; now developing projects for film and television: It’s the materialization of something that’s been apparent, but not overwhelmingly accepted, for the last five years. There is not enough demand for the supply of theater in this town. Over the last 12 years or so, we went from a one-theater town to a 300-theater town. The Taper blazed the way, I was a pioneer of the mid-size houses, (LATC artistic director Bill) Bushnell moved downtown and the little theaters have become institutional. But if you look at it as a pie, the Ahmanson and the commercial houses used up the theatergoers. There wasn’t enough support for the kind of theater we all wanted to do--experimental, cutting-edge stuff. LATC is a victim of that.

You can’t cram theater down peoples’ throats. Everybody hates to say this, but theater is an elitist art form, and we can really only support a certain number of theaters in this town. Our theater community has been too idealistic. For me, the last couple of years was an eye-opener, which is why I’m not there anymore and why I sleep nights.

McAnuff: There’s simply less breathing room. What’s happening with LATC could happen in a number of places. These are tough times and government support isn’t growing. I’m convinced we’ll get through this, but there are others that are going to have to struggle. It would be a tragedy if we lost an institution, because they take years to develop. When one disappears, it has an impact on many levels.

Sam Woodhouse, producing director, San Diego Repertory Theatre; member, National Endowment for the Arts theater panel: It’s frightening and sad. This kind of bad news makes us all look at the mirror to see whether it could happen to us. But how many theaters in America have closed in the last months? Many established theaters of various sizes have. It’s a signal of looking backward and retrenching across the country. One of the major issues facing the future of American theater is how changing demographics will be represented. Will people from non-Anglo cultures be onstage, in positions of power, in the audience? I would ask the question, “Is it possible to be courageous in these troubled times?” I hope it is.

An LATC board member recently said: “It’s hard to believe we cannot afford a theater on the cutting edge of drama.” Could it simply be true that there is no such willingness?

Gerald Yoshitomi, executive director, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center; co-chair, Mayor Bradley’s LATC study panel: With any event, you can read too much into the fact that something has succeeded or is closing. What you have is a production company that is having financial trouble. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there is not support in L.A. for what that company has been doing or what other production companies have brought into that facility. If LATC is no longer able to operate that facility, the audience that has come before will come again. Hopefully, the city will develop a plan to make certain that that happens.

Davidson: That’s too big a generalization. I refuse to second-guess Bushnell in terms of what he chooses to do. Cutting edge is both an attractive word and it can be a dangerous word if it threatens those who are capable of supporting artistic activity. Probably for every one who’s driven away by it, there’re some who are attracted. I don’t think that’s the whole issue. It may be part of it.

Is there resistance to having an artistic vision shaped to match the economic and social realities of Los Angeles?

Cliff Harper, playwright; chairman, department of theater arts and dance, Cal State L.A.: Of course. LATC’s efforts to allow us to look at what we are as a society--all sorts of people, black, green, orange--are the source of their difficulty. We have a tendency not to want to support the arts, and the kind of place LATC is makes it even more difficult to find the support. On the one hand, I would say there is no resistance. On the other hand, I wonder if it is possible for the new arts--as some of us realize the arts in the 21st Century will be--to get the financial and intellectual support the traditional arts have had in this country. Because of the impact of this tremendous ethnicity, the arts are going to be reshaped.

Jose Cruz Gonzalez, playwright; literary associate, South Coast Repertory: LATC has continued to say (multicultural work is) what they’re doing onstage and in the audience. That’s rare in the large institutions. We’re seeing theaters across the country having to address this multicultural issue. I hope it’s not that people don’t want to support it, but it is a gem that not everyone has caught on to.

I have to be optimistic. I always feel the theater is going to survive. The reason (LATC) has people of color in the audience is the programming. I want that to survive at that high level for the artists of color, because they’ve struggled so long and hard to get there.

Yoshitomi: What will always be difficult is that the work that needs public support is the work that is the most experimental. LATC has done very contemporary and multicultural work. The audience that has gone to Spring Street with all its problems demonstrates that there is support in L.A. for the work that is being produced on those stages. The history has been positive.

How much of LATC’S dilemma is particular and how much of it is emblematic of larger problems in the theater world?

Davidson: A lot of it is particular: the management style, the way it was conceived, the reliance on the (Community Redevelopment Agency) to an overwhelming extent in the early part, problems of board structure.

It’s also a growing cultural and civic problem related to the economic downturn in this country. The merger of banks, layoffs and the changing dynamics of the superstructure has an effect on fund raising through private, individual and corporate giving and through city, state and national arts councils. All of them are under severe restrictions and dwindling resources.

Ron Sossi, artistic director, Odyssey Theater: While I don’t think the LATC is indicative in general, one way in which it is is the lack of local funding for theater organizations other than the first one--the Music Center and the Mark Taper Forum. They captured a lot of the obvious money in town, both corporate and private. One of the uphill battles is trying to tap into new funding sources. In L.A. we don’t have any large corporate or foundation support.

What must be done to continue the development of a vibrant theater scene?

Harper: The obvious need in L.A. is a new support base, a new audience. The old audience is no longer involved in downtown--with the Music Center, yes, but not with LATC. We have a three-sector economy: public, private and nonprofit. The public has parameters they can’t go beyond. The private is motivated by profit. But we need some agency--the nonprofit--that steps in when the public and private are not able to provide. Also, it’s difficult for an adult in society to say that the arts are important, if the arts haven’t been available throughout his education.

Yoshitomi: Some things can be done that should have been done before. There needs to be good public underpinning of the arts. The organizations that have survived well in L.A. are primarily the ones that have city or county funds: the Music Center, the County Museum of Art. The hope is that, with the new relationship with the city, LATC will have that.

The second thing is, even though a great deal of multicultural programming has been produced at that theater, it has not been produced in collaboration with those communities. The new plan is to encourage more groups to come in and independently produce their work on LATC stages. That will decentralize the fund raising and support and that would be positive. In the banking community, people are telling us that bigger is better. In the arts, we’re needing more modest sized operations, not one conglomerate with one artistic director who sits and chooses. You want a lot of voices with many choosing. The problem for the producer is that collaboration means giving up control.

Davidson: One of the things (Bushnell) and I are talking about is new ways to do old tricks: possible collaborations, shared facilities, joint productions, new kinds of funding opportunities. At the same time, many small groups, each representing ethnic diversity, are struggling to get on the first rung. There doesn’t seem to be enough money to help that and to continue to contribute to the larger organizations.

We are pretty good at tightening our belts, but you really want to strive for more, not less: better pay, longer rehearsal, more sense of a home in which artists can work and have the right to fail. We talk the language of commerce, but we live the life of artists. That’s what’s getting harder.

McAnuff: We have to gather together to share ideas. I’d hate to see it turn into a feeding frenzy, and that’s what’s happening. From an institutional standpoint, the answer isn’t to raise ticket prices. We need to continue to get people in, to make sure that we don’t shut them out through price.

It’s important to look down the pike, and not get caught up in the day-to-day trauma. It’s about more than money. We mustn’t let any of our institutions go down quietly. The important thing is to create public awareness that our nation’s cultural health is being threatened because of the financial challenges facing many arts organizations. Culture is linked to the spiritual health of a nation, as vital to our future as defense or education.