L.A. Theater in ‘Crisis,’ a Gloomy Producer Says

“We are a theater community in crisis,” declared Susan Loewenberg, keynoting the West Coast Theatre Conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center last weekend.

“In a nutshell,” said the L.A. Theatre Works producer, “we never developed the infrastructure, managerially or artistically, necessary to producing theater.”

She cited the lack of “a cadre of investors” and movie industry support. Furthermore, she said, the city and county put all their energies “into that mega-institution known as the Music Center and an ill-conceived debacle known as LATC. There has been no money spent on artistic R&D.;”

The L.A. Arts Endowment? “It has become a politicized process. The guidelines are ill-conceived and misleading and based on political correctness without differentiating between professional arts producers and worthy but amateur community groups, pitting one against the other.”

The L.A. Festival? “Stop wasting money on expensive multicultural festivals run by white males, no matter how glamorous and persuasive.”

She floated an opinion about who should run the downtown municipal theater complex: “The only hope for that building is to attract a top artist of color like George Wolfe or Luis Valdez. . . . Fund them properly and let them do their thing. Don’t hire a white male to run a multicultural program on Spring Street.”

Despite her gloomy tone, Loewenberg listed a number of “assets” that Los Angeles has as a theater town, such as the giant-sized talent pool and the high-profile precedents for private support of local art museums and Music Center Opera. She said the Olympic Arts Festival proved audiences would emerge, in the right circumstances.

She urged her listeners to “think about other neighborhoods which would welcome an important theater/cultural center and could support it. For years, I’ve been asking anyone who would listen to build an alternative to the Music Center on the Westside, but one whose spirit would be the ‘90s and beyond instead of the ‘60s.”

Loewenberg produced 10 shows in Los Angeles in 1984 but recently has produced almost entirely for radio. The costs have become prohibitive, she said.

VALDEZ AND WOLFE RESPOND: Luis Valdez and George C. Wolfe were asked to respond to Loewenberg’s tossing of their hats into the ring of those who might run LATC.

“I am willing to be very instrumental in the revival of LATC,” said Valdez, speaking from San Juan Bautista, where he runs El Teatro Campesino. He said he “absolutely” would want to produce on Spring Street and serve on the board of directors. But he rejected the idea of running the whole institution. “It’s imperative that the leadership must come from a broad cross-section,” he said.

The financing? Citing federal, city and private possibilities, Valdez replied, “The money will be there if the belief is there.”

Wolfe’s agent Wiley Hausam responded with the assurance that Wolfe (“Jelly’s Last Jam,” “The Colored Museum”) would “love” the opportunity. Wolfe--a resident director at the New York Shakespeare Festival--”really wants to produce, to run a theater,” said Hausam.