MOVE ‘EM OUT

I read in your Aug. 28 Theater Notes column that Theatre Corp. of America President David Houk has done a fairly bang-up job of fouling the subscription waters of both the Pasadena Playhouse and the Alex Theatre in Glendale, this by what appears to be an unfortunate combination of bad play and musical choices and “cash flow problems.”

These allegations infuriated producer Irv Kimber of South Bay Cities CLO enough for him to send Houk an admonishing letter, part of which I quote: “With theater in general being in the rather precarious state that it is in right now, we certainly do not need someone ‘spooking the herd’ by bailing out on subscribers.”

If these “producers” would spend less time mounting the tackiest revivals and spend more of their time and money ($200,000 borrowed from the city of Pasadena, for one) developing first-rate theater and especially stop thinking of the audience as cattle, then we all will fare a lot better than we have been.

AL ALU

Los Angeles