Artistic Deficit Reflected in the State of Nonprofit Theater; La Jolla Playhouse Makes It to 40 After Some Dark Years

In these days of catch phrases and buzz words, the most serious and most abstruse may be the term artistic deficit .

The Theatre Communications Group’s 14th annual survey on the economic health of the nonprofit professional theater in America attempts to shed some light on it, but not until it takes you on a roller-coaster ride of facts and figures only a dedicated statistician could love.

For example: Did you know that last year 201 theaters in 115 cities collectively gave 52,727 performances of 2,944 productions that were seen by 14.8 million people? Put that in your useful-information-I-may-never-use file.

Joshing aside, “Theatre Facts ‘86,” as the report is called (highlights are in this month’s American Theatre magazine, published by the Theatre Communications Group), does eventually get down to the more serious business of drawing some truths from its facts.

It tells us, for instance, that while operating deficits in professional nonprofit theaters across the country continued for the fourth consecutive year, the problem was significantly lessened by increased attendance and growth in contributions by individuals, corporations, foundations and government agencies (federal, state and city).

In addition, Robert Holley, former director of management services for TCG and now executive director of the California Theatre Council, lifted a sample group of 45 theaters from the 201 and drew up a five-year trend analysis.

That analysis concludes that, for the second consecutive year, contributions grew faster than earned income and improved--even if they did not eliminate--the deficit picture. Sound encouraging?

Not so fast. “What can’t be quantified,” said Theatre Communications Group director Peter Zeisler (and here comes the explanation we were waiting for), “is the ‘artistic deficit’--the amount of development time sacrificed (to fund-raising activity), the insufficient rehearsal time, the selection of simpler and less complicated work (read less expensive to mount) in order to reduce costs.”

And there’s the rub.

An example of such cost-cutting is the Mark Taper’s decision this year to go from a three-play classical rep, involving large casts, to a contemporary two-play rep of small-cast Joe Orton comedies. (“Loot” and “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” open July 11/12.)

“Certainly the growth in contributions from corporations came from educating them, getting better at asking and at communicating the need,” Holley said Tuesday. “In a funny way, the Reaganomic idea kind of worked.” But at what price?

He cautioned that going after money is a time-consuming and debilitating affair and that there is no scientific way of measuring its real cost in creative energy lost--energy better used at making theater than figuring out ways to pay for it. Artistic deficit, again.

An interesting sidebar to this is the role played by California theaters in the survey. Of the 201 participating theaters, 27--roughly one-eighth--are Californian, yet they represented 18% of total expenses ($45 million).

“They are a major player,” Holley emphasized. “Fifteen percent of all production activity (number of performances and total work force) was based in those 27 theaters, and 15% of the audience was also theirs. While earned income remained roughly the same (62%), individual contributions covered a greater proportion of the season’s expenses.”

So what needs to happen now?

“There’s an extraordinary diversity of work in California,” Holley said, “and while the regional theater movement is very young, it’s even younger in California.

“The challenge is to increasingly refine (the theaters’) ability to communicate their need for support in terms of artistic possibility--what can be accomplished with increased resources--and in terms of what that would do to improve the quality of life.”

And artistic deficit?

“It’ll be some time before we can retire the phrase. But there’s been progress and we can continue to build.”

YOUTH AND AGE: Believe it or not, the La Jolla Playhouse is celebrating its 40th anniversary Saturday--a sort of nominal event.

Yes, it’s been 40 years since it came into existence under that name (founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer), but it spent roughly the first 18 of those years as a fancy summer stock theater where film stars could refresh their talents while on hiatus from the movies, and another 17 totally dark.

Still the trustees had the tenacity to hang on to the name and the entity, putting their money and their dreams into the construction of the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts on the UC San Diego campus, where the La Jolla Playhouse was resurrected.

The current playhouse--a vastly different operation under the artistic leadership of Des McAnuff--is just entering its fifth season, but it has done more to put La Jolla on the national map than anything that was done in the previous 35.

After four rigorously iconoclastic seasons, it is settling into a semi-classical fifth one, with rehearsals under way for “The Matchmaker” starring Linda Hunt as Dolly Levi and McAnuff directing.

“It’s the kind of play that might have been done here in the early days,” McAnuff reflected Tuesday. “Spiritually, it feels good to be doing it. They used to stage these productions with one week’s rehearsal. Peck grew up in La Jolla. Starting the playhouse was his idea. There’s a story that David O. Selznick contributed $10,000 because he thought it was important to have it not in Los Angeles where it might distract the actors from the business of making movies . . . . “

“Matchmaker” opens May 31, with Kenneth MacMillan (“American Buffalo”) as Horace and also features a rather well-known playwright, Keith Reddin (“Life and Limb”), as Barnaby.

The playhouse, by the way, also needs hundreds of hats from the 1880-1915 era for this production. If you have some in your attic, send them to the production department, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla, Calif. 92037--but don’t expect to get them back. They’ll be permanently glued to the set.

ONCE MORE, EN ESPANOL: Eduardo Pavlovsky’s potent “Camaralenta/Slowmotion” at Stages begins two weeks of performances in Spanish tonight, 8 p.m. The cast includes Castulo Guerra as the punched-out fighter, Dagomar; Paul Verdier as his trainer Amilcar and Aixa Moreno as Rosa. English-language performances resume May 7, with the Spanish version playing on special dates.

THE RUMOR MILL: Look for Maxwell Caulfield to reprise his role in “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” for the Mark Taper’s repertory.