Theater Center Is Again Out of Cash : Drama: Six weeks after a reprieve from insolvency, the LATC can’t meet its payroll and is consulting bankruptcy attorneys.

Just six weeks after a dramatic eleventh-hour reprieve from insolvency, the Los Angeles Theatre Center is again broke, unable to pay its employees and consulting with bankruptcy attorneys, officials and other sources said Wednesday.

“We are out of cash,” wrote theater artistic director Bill Bushnell in a memo this week calling an emergency meeting of LATC directors and other “interested parties.”

At management’s request, many of the full-time staff agreed to work without pay through Friday “with no guarantee that they will be paid for the most recently completed pay period,” according to the memo.

“The situation at LATC regarding its viability as an ongoing concern has reached critical mass,” Bushnell wrote.

Although the city has spent more than $27 million on construction and operation of the critically acclaimed center, top management is working with several bankruptcy specialists, sources said. No decision has been made on whether to file for protection from creditors.

“You may be writing our obituary this week,” said one trustee who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s as bad as it can get.”

Twenty-five to 30 supporters attended a closed-door meeting Wednesday night at the theater’s Spring Street facility “to discuss solutions to this problem.” The board of trustees is scheduled to meet today and Bushnell has asked to meet with Community Redevelopment Agency Chairman Jim Wood and General Manager Ed Avila this afternoon.

Bushnell, an aide said, was unavailable for comment Wednesday because he was busy auditioning actors for a new production. “The common theme throughout my experience with LATC is that they are always short of money,” Wood said. “And that has not changed.”

In a continuing effort to keep the complex afloat, the CRA has made 15 financing agreements with the center since 1982. Each agreement was supposed to be the last. In May, the city finally bought the building that houses the theater company but required the company to provide the money to maintain it. The company agreed not to ask the city or the CRA for more maintenance subsidies.

Then, when facing insolvency again in August, the LATC managed to keep its doors open by raising $500,000 through a series of benefits and gifts, including an anonymous donation of $100,000.

But financial conditions have continued to deteriorate. Sources said most of the $500,000 raised in August has been spent, much of its to satisfy overdue bills.

“I don’t know how (Bushnell) is going to pull another rabbit out of his hat,” Wood said.

City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who has consistently sought city backing for the group, said LATC will have to look elsewhere for funds this time. “I don’t think it’s realistic that the council will give them any money, and I don’t think it is realistic that the CRA will give them any money,” Alatorre said.

“Maybe, hopefully, someone will come in at the last minute,” he said.

But Councilman Michael Woo said, “I don’t see anyone riding to the rescue.”

“Everyone in town knows this theater is on its last legs, and yet no one has come through with the big check--$500,000 or $1 million, and that’s what it’s going to take,” said the trustee who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Still, Councilwoman Joy Picus held out some hope. “All it takes is eight (City Council) votes to change the agreement.” Picus had opposed the imposition of the agreement on the company in May and said she is confident that the CRA “will find the money for this if the will is there or if someone tells them to do it.”

“The city is moving people and offices to Spring Street,” where the LATC was intended to help foster urban redevelopment, Picus said. “To do that and then to let the Theatre Center die isn’t sensible.”

As part of the city’s purchase of the LATC’s building, the city’s Cultural Affairs Department was instructed to book 30% of the time on LATC stages. The first play to be produced under that arrangement, “Pigs on Passion,” is scheduled to open tonight.

But if the city’s primary tenant--the theater company--closes, Cultural Affairs would not have the money to keep the building open for its own programming, said the department’s general manager, Adolfo Nodal.

In that case, Nodal said, the city would lock up the building and secure its assets.

Actors in LATC’s current productions of “Bogeyman,” “The Night of the Iguana” and “The Lay of the Land” were not affected by the request to work without pay. Payment to them is guaranteed by bond posted with their union, Actors’ Equity. “Bogeyman” is expected to close Sunday.