WHY A MONEY CRUNCH AT LATC?

The news from the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Tuesday that it made a $250,000 emergency loan to the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) to help it through to the end of its fiscal year (April 30) was the first sign of trouble at the new center. It may have thrilled no one but comes as no particular surprise.

Major reason for the shortfall is the theater’s failure to raise enough funds from the private sector to meet its first season operating budget ($5.3 million)--a problem LATC producing/artistic director Bill Bushnell, citing an uncertain business climate, says he is taking steps to lick in the coming year.

New theaters are prohibitive to start. No one expected it would be easy or cheap for LATC, a formerEquity Waiver company modestly lodged in Hollywood, to make the quantum leap to a $16-million four-theater downtown complex.

It’s been seven months since the center opened its doors at 514 S. Spring St. In its truncated initial season, it will have presented 16 shows and a number of special events--lots of product for so short a time. “Because of building delays,” said Bushnell, “we’re doing in eight months what we needed to do in 11. I’ll never do that again.”

In that time, too, the center has been finding its sea legs and mending start-up glitches. The most major was a deeply troubled (and costly) computer system that seriously affected subscriptions and reservations. New railings have gone up to assist patrons in scaling the theaters’ uncommonly steep aisles. And seats are still too high for people with short legs.

Such snags are not uncommon with a new venture, but they can be expensive and the CRA, the center’s prime supporter, has pumped close to $10 million into the project (including a $1.3-million operating subsidy for 1985-86), more than it ever intended.

On Monday the CRA spent another $1.3 million settling a suit brought against the center by subcontractors (“due to work order changes”). The commission is now poised to take a vote on the amount of money it will contribute to the center’s 1986-87 operating budget--a figure it won’t discuss. (Total budget for the upcoming first full year of operation: $7.3 million.)

Some CRA commission members question the growing extent of this involvement, though not commission Chairman Jim Wood, who feels the CRA (which now carries the mortgage on the complex and owns an option to buy it) has protected its investment. He remains confident that the enterprise, which is at the heart of a master redevelopment plan for Broadway, Spring and Main streets, is viable.

“It’s not $10 million that’s gone,” he said Tuesday. “Our investment is secured by the building and fixtures. It’s an asset. Many of us have some concern about the way the structure was built and that’s legitimate. There was no waste, but it could have been handled better. I’d like to tell you that we put $8 million in and got $10 million. I can’t. We put in 10 and got 10.

“If you take the theater in isolation, you won’t see the design for the street. The center sits in the middle of a $200-million plan for the redevelopment of Spring Street. It offers a nighttime activity that commits the city to the revitalization of City East. Some of us--I’m one--see Spring Street as the hope of Main Street.”

But nagging questions remain.

Why, for instance, hasn’t the center been able to raise more funds from the private sector?

“It’s not just one thing,” said Bushnell. “City East is brand new. Business is not as good as this Administration would like to think. Banking is not as healthy as it was. The oil companies are all in trouble. Banks and oil companies, who were the strongest supporters of the arts, have withdrawn or reduced many of their contributions programs.

“From our side, we’re going through a major board of trustees transition. Most of it has now occurred. The new board, which is a mix of the old and the new, is much stronger. I have high hopes it’ll make a difference.

“Attendance (at the center) has exceeded expectations. We’re up to almost 68% of capacity and in the last four weeks it’s been 80%, 87%, 84% and 76%. My concern has always centered on unearned income--the money we have to raise. Dia Dorsey (head of the Dorsey Group) has taken on the Theatre Center to do hands-on fund-raising. She’s based in the building and has hired some excellent key people. For the first time, I feel confident we’ll meet our goals.

“The most difficult part of this,” he said, striking on a key issue, “has been convincing people that it takes three to five years to deepen the work and to stabilize.”

One of the strings attached to the CRA’s willingness to assist with the 1986-87 budget is the hiring of an independent theater consultant.

Asked if he minded that, Bushnell was quick to reply, “They’ve hired two other independent consultants in the past and they do it with our blessing. It helps very much for them to verify a lot of what I’ve said and to interpret theatrical jargon for the CRA.

“My only recommendation is that they get someone who understands the not-for-profit.”

Chairman Wood claims they understand it and the need for time, even if the CRA may not be able--or willing--to give Bushnell as much as he’d like. It’s the reason Wood wants to secure the next season, so Bushnell can channel his energies into artistic planning.

“We’re taking a big bite now and giving Bushnell a shot at the golden ring,” Wood said. But he also made quite clear the reality of the situation:

“The fact of the matter is that we can’t stand a bad season right now. Bill (Bushnell) understands that. So while the pressure’s on Bill to perform, we’re going to give him the ability to attempt to do so.”

On Wednesday, Adele Shank’s “Tumbleweed” opens at the center. On April 2, “Diary of a Hunger Strike” by Irishman Peter Sheridan begins in Theatre 4. Both are Los Angeles premieres. Both are serious plays about serious subjects--precisely what the multicultural center was designed to do.

The last show of this initial season opens April 10. It is Nicholas Rowe’s 18th-Century “The Fair Penitent,” adapted and directed by Charles Marowitz, who staged one of the center’s top grossers of 1985-86, “The Petrified Forest.”

The other top grosser--”I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges,” a seriocomic play about Chicano life in California--is still running. Written and directed by Luis Valdez, author/director of “Zoot Suit” and artistic director of El Teatro Campesino, it typifies the Center’s cultural mix.

Not every show can be a hit, but many a flawed attempt on the right track can offer a richer experience than a perfect play. The center is, to date, the only Los Angeles theater that presents a variety of classical, ethnic and experimental theater as a matter of routine.

New York’s Mabou Mines did a residency there last fall (though the shrinking dollars preclude another visit until the money’s more abundant). It houses the Black Ensemble Theater, headed by Edmund Cambridge, which recently noted Black History month with a weekend of black theater. It has a Latino workshop run by Jose Luis Valenzuela, and Bushnell is currently talking to Valdez about collaborating on two major pieces.

Timing is crucial now, but if the Center gets its financial act together, Los Angeles stands to gain more than just another theater.