La Mirada Turns to McCoy Rigby Team to Revive Theater

Some cities--Los Angeles comes to mind--have cut way back on financial support of professional theater. Others aren’t sure which way to turn; in Garden Grove, GroveShakespeare has finally dissolved on paper as well as in practice, leaving the City Council to ponder how to bring its Festival Amphitheatre and Gem Theatre back to life.

But some cities, such as Glendale, with its revived Alex Theatre, have actually increased their support of professional theater in the midst of a recession.

La Mirada is joining the latter group.

Back in 1987, the professional theater series at the 1,264-seat La Mirada Theatre had a base audience of 17,000 subscribers. That figure is now down to 8,000. Last year, the city--represented by the facility’s new executive director, Jeff Brown--took note of the drop and asked the father and son team of Herb and Scott Rogers, producers of the professional series for the last 17 seasons, to submit a proposal for restructuring the operation. They also asked any other interested parties to do the same.

The result is that Rogers Productions is out and McCoy Rigby Entertainment--operated by Tom McCoy and his famous gymnast/actress wife, Cathy Rigby--will take over La Mirada’s professional series next fall.

They’ll have more money to work with--a budget of $1.1 million, up $235,000 from the Rogers budget. The financial deal is structured differently--McCoy Rigby will be paid $100,000 for each season, while the city takes all the profits. The Rogerses received half of the profits, as well as fees, while the city was responsible for losses. This wasn’t a problem until 1991, when the Rogers season was in the red, to the tune of $115,000. Although that loss hasn’t been repeated, it didn’t sit well with the city.

The city expects McCoy Rigby to stir up more community support for the theater. The couple lives in nearby La Habra Heights and works out of nearby Fullerton, as opposed to the Beverly Hills and Venice-based Rogers team. The Rogers team “focused on the 20-mile radius, while McCoy Rigby will focus on the five-mile radius,” Brown said.

Indeed, McCoy and Rigby will “pound the pavements, speaking to every Kiwanis Club” about the theater, McCoy volunteered.

Programming will be “a little more family oriented,” Brown said. Certain members of the audience never forgave the Rogers team for producing “Other People’s Money,” with its dirty words. McCoy Rigby’s first season (their contract is for three years) includes “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Forever Plaid” (pending acquisition of rights), “On Borrowed Time” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

Don’t shed many tears for the Rogers team, however. They’ve lined up another gig similar to the one they had at La Mirada, this time at the new, 1,218-seat Maui Community Arts and Cultural Center in Kahului, Hawaii.

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IF CLOSE IS FAR AWAY: Glenn Close has missed the last two Sunday-evening performances in “Sunset Boulevard.” At press time, she had no plans to miss any other performances. But let’s say--this is just a hypothetical scenario--that you bought tickets for tonight’s (or any other) performance months ago, you get to the theater, and Close isn’t performing. If you must see Close and not understudy Karen Mason, what can you do?

Check the cast board in the lobby before taking your seat. If Close isn’t going on, that news will be posted. Otherwise, you’ll have to leave your seat once the news is announced over the public address system, before the show begins.

Go to the box office and ask for a refund or exchange. If there is a mob scene around the box office and you don’t want to get involved in it, ask an usher to direct you to the house manager, who will sign your ticket stubs. You can then mail them to the theater for a refund or exchange. If Close in the future decides to cut back on regularly scheduled dates, then other rules may apply.

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DANQUAH AT THEATRE LA: Meri Nana-Ama Danquah is the new associate director of Theatre LA, the city’s primary theatrical producers’ organization. The Ghanaian-born Danquah, known primarily as a poet and performance artist, could serve as a bridge between the performance scene and the more traditional theatrical producers who make up the bulk of the Theatre LA membership.

Such a link “may be an extra benefit” of Danquah’s employment, said Theatre LA executive director William Freimuth, but he hired her primarily because of her administrative skills.

Danquah said she does plan to encourage performance producers to join Theatre LA, adding that “it’s hard to put down a line of demarcation” between performance and theater. She noted that she has worked at a few of the Theatre LA member theaters as well as at performance venues.