Dillingham’s Million-Dollar Dilemma

Charles Dillingham’s first challenge in his new job as managing director of Center Theatre Group may well be to save $1 million.

The recent shortfall in fund raising for the Music Center’s Unified Fund will lead to cutbacks at all of the center’s resident groups, and the CTG--which programs the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson seasons--is no exception.

“We face a potential $1-million cut in this year’s (planned $4.4-million) allocation,” said the CTG’s Gordon Davidson. (The fund’s CTG allocation for the last fiscal year was $4.1 million.)

“All of these numbers are floating a bit,” Davidson said. “There is no sense of panic. The fall (programming) is all set and in progress. We’re looking at every aspect of the budget, seeing how to tighten our belts and make trims before we have to do any radical surgery.”

The prospective cutbacks follow a Taper season that saw a 2% drop in overall gross and a slide in average attendance to 82%--the fourth straight decline.

Dillingham, whose appointment as managing director was announced Wednesday, said he didn’t know about the potential cutbacks when he first interviewed for the job. But he knew about the crisis when he accepted the post.

“The arts are facing difficult times in general,” he said. “We’ll surmount it.” He said he had “no trepidation, no second thoughts” about his decision to leave his job in New York as president and producer of Satra Entertainment Corp., which books major opera and ballet companies.

Although Dillingham has never lived in Southern California, he recalled working with Davidson on a number of productions that “went back and forth” between the Taper and American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where he was the general manager from 1969 to 1979, as well as in statewide arts programs.

BABY STEPS: The Taper has announced the programming for the Taper Lab ’91 New Work Festival, to be held at the Taper, Too in Hollywood, Oct. 23-Nov. 24.

Nine two-night workshops and seven one-time-only readings will be presented, free of charge. Reservations are required; call (213) 972-7392.

The workshop playwrights include Peter Mattei (whose piece includes music by Paul Dresher), Luis Alfaro, Jo Carson, Han Ong, Anthony Clarvoe, Michael Henry Brown, Marlane Meyer, David L. Lindsey and the team of Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller.

Directing the workshops will be Peter C. Brosius, Jose Guadalupe Saucedo, David Schweizer, Brian Kulick, Oskar Eustis, L. Kenneth Richardson and Roberta Levitow.

Among the plays to be read will be two scripts already marked with controversy: Ellen McLaughlin’s “Infinity’s House,” a full production of which was canceled at South Coast Repertory in 1988 because of “creative differences,” and Mac Wellman’s “7 Blowjobs,” an attack on congressional critics of arts funding, which is opening today in a full production by San Diego’s Sledgehammer Theatre.

PUT YOUR DAUGHTER BACKSTAGE, MRS. WORTHINGTON: With so many theaters in fiscal straits, it might not seem that theater offers a booming job market right now. Undaunted, Theatre LA will sponsor a Theatre Career Expo at UCLA’s Macgowan Hall Monday from 2 to 5 p.m. Representatives of the group’s 90 members will provide information on potential jobs and volunteer positions at their institutions. Admission is free, but reservations are required: (213) 614-0556.