Lear Resigns LATC Managing Director Post

Robert N. Lear, who helped forge the deal to have the city buy Los Angeles Theatre Center, has resigned as LATC’s managing director.

A nationwide search is underway for his successor.

Lear spent much of his 18-month tenure crafting a political package that resulted in a March 6 decision by the Los Angeles City Council to buy the downtown theater building and convert it into a municipal theater complex, with the LATC production company remaining as the primary tenant.

He said Tuesday that he “waited until we had gone down the political pike” to announce his departure. “Now that’s done, and it’s time to make the change I planned to do for my own reasons.”

Those reasons include a desire “to get involved in the creative side” of theater and “in international work.” His first project after he leaves LATC next week combines both those interests: he will travel to Italy, where he is “the U.S. translator” of a play by Renato Sarti.

It’s a long way from the City Council chambers where Lear has spent much of his time. Lear said the job involved more politicking than he had expected and that his departure occurs “earlier than if we had not been quite as involved in the political process.”

But he added that he will remain a resident of Los Angeles and hopes eventually to land in “the entertainment industry”--which, at this point in his scenario, does not include theater.

“Anybody who can ride this beast (the managing director job at LATC) for any period of time can do almost whatever they want in management,” said LATC Artistic Director Bill Bushnell.

Lear said he leaves LATC “in a good place.” But the fund-raising challenges that face the theater are daunting; under the new city ownership, the theater will eventually have to pay nearly all of the building maintenance bills.

In other LATC news, the company’s production of Reza Abdoh’s “The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice” will play four performances at the Festival de Theatre des Ameriques in Montreal, May 30-June 2. It will be the first LATC production to go to an international festival. Bushnell credited Lear with raising the money that will enable the troupe to participate.