Now What? : With the Demise of LATC, the City Faces Some Big Decisions

What next?

That was the question heard again and again Sunday as crowds swarmed through Los Angeles Theatre Center for the final performances of the insolvent company that had operated the four-theater downtown complex since 1985.

“It has to stop,” said artistic director Bill Bushnell as he took in the scene, which seemed busier than ever on its closing night. “It has to stop so that the political powers-that-be can sit back and see if they have the power to (keep the theater running) in a less chaotic situation. I don’t believe they have the will to make it happen.”

Last Thursday, when the company’s board overruled him and voted to go out of business, Bushnell submitted his resignation, which was to take effect at 6 p.m. Monday. He plans to take a vacation in Mexico, write an article or maybe a book about LATC, and perhaps eventually to begin another theater company.

But the fate of the building itself is more difficult to sort out. Although the locks were scheduled to be changed at 9 a.m. today, with no more performances scheduled, some observers were hoping the closing wouldn’t last long.

Members of LATC’s Latino Theatre Lab vowed to sleep in the building overnight Monday and remain until they received assurances from the landlord--the city’s Cultural Affairs Department--that they could continue their work there.

“We’re not going to kick them out,” said Cultural Affairs General Manager Al Nodal. “But we need a clean break with (the LATC company). If (the Lab) re-organizes, we’d love to involve them.”

In fact, he said the Lab will be an element in the “caretaker” plan he has devised for the building--which also includes the possibility of some self-produced shows in the small Theatre 4 and the hiring of “a skeleton staff of people who are already there with LATC” to maintain the theater and its equipment.

City Councilwoman Joy Picus, speaking by phone from San Francisco, said she would try to find city funds that would permit performances of “The Night of the Iguana” to resume long enough so that 4,000 high school students, who had been scheduled to see the show beginning today, would still have that opportunity.

This would be “the minimum” the city should do, she said. Picus pointed to $450,000 that was set aside for capital improvements at LATC when the city purchased the building last May.

“If we’re going to spend money,” she declared, “let’s put it into performances.”

She acknowledged, however, that she doesn’t know whether she has the eight City Council votes necessary to pass such a measure. The earliest that a vote could take place is Friday, she said.

Any continuation of the season, originally scheduled to end Feb. 16, would have to be under city sponsorship or under a reorganized LATC management, which would temporarily keep the facility open until a permanent solution is worked out.

Under one frequently discussed scenario, a consortium that could include the Center Theatre Group, the Latino Theatre Lab, and at least one educational institution such as CalArts or Cal State Los Angeles would be developed under city auspices.

“The idea of shared use of the facility has in it the kernel of a good idea,” said Center Theatre Group’s producer and artistic director Gordon Davidson, who was on hand Sunday at the LATC closing. “I sensed that an obstacle to that was that the fate of (the LATC company) was unclear. Well, now it’s clear. So let’s start.

“We have to lay out what the real finances are,” added Davidson. “The city has to be a real player” not only in providing building maintenance costs, which have been estimated at $1 million a year, but also in cleaning up the neighborhood.

“I wouldn’t touch it unless (the condition of the neighborhood) was worked on,” said Davidson. Will the city be willing to invest more money to achieve that goal? “Only if someone comes to them with a good idea. I don’t know if the city can do it.”

Davidson added that the Music Center’s own recently disclosed fund-raising problems would “very likely” affect CTG’s ability to join the consortium in the near future. CTG is facing potential cutbacks amounting to roughly $1 million.

In the short term, “the city must decide what’s more important,” said Moctesuma Esparza, a board member of both LATC and its Latino Theatre Lab. “Capital improvements--like a new rug for the lobby--or a creative, vibrant, artistic theater.” In the long term, he added, “this building will always require a subsidy. The reason the consortium has not moved faster is because no institution can assume that burden (of paying maintenance costs).”

If the city simply locks up the building without ensuring its use as a theater center, Esparza predicted, the building will become “the biggest crack house and fire trap on Spring Street.”

Even if the building is used sporadically by community arts groups, sound designer Jon Gottlieb expressed concern about the safety of the technical equipment. “Without full-time staff here, you’ll see a pillaging of the equipment. There are a million little pieces that could just go out the door. They were all purchased with a little money and a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

“There is nothing that tells me the city can take care of this place,” Gottlieb added. “It’s an illusion that all you need is a barn and your mother to sew costumes in order to put on a show.

“It’s like the city is saying: ‘Yes, I want the Tonka toy. Now, where do we drive it?”

The shows that played at LATC on Sunday faced more immediate what-next questions.

Actress-director Lee Grant, whose staging of “The Lay of the Land” was scheduled to open Thursday, following 11 previews, said talks were going on about whether the show should go elsewhere in Los Angeles or wait until a New York opening is in sight. With LATC gone, the play has no producer, but “people are banging on the doors,” she said.

“After having our kid thrown out on the street,” she added, “we have to be careful.”

James C. Doolittle, co-producer of “Oil City,” which was being prepared for an Oct. 29 at LATC, said his show won’t open, because of the difficulty of finding both another presenter and rental space. So far, roughly $20,000 had been invested in “Oil City.” Doolittle said he heard of LATC’s imminent demise Wednesday, too late to cancel ads in the Sunday paper.

No one has promised compensation to current-season LATC subscribers. But discussions may yet yield an arrangement that would enable LATC tickets to be used at another theater such as the Mark Taper Forum, assuming the LATC season itself isn’t somehow continued, observers said.

Most advance ticket sales for next season had not been processed, and the checks will be destroyed, said general manager Lee Sweet.

Employees have organized a committee to sort out matters ranging from their W-2 forms to the theater’s archives. Many of them declared that elements within LATC will continue in one form or another.