LA MIRADA : Theatre Commission Forced to Make Exit

The curtain has closed on the city’s Theatre Commission.

In an attempt to reduce the city’s annual subsidy to the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, about $500,000 after the 1993-94 season, the City Council recently dissolved the five-member advisory committee.

The council meets weekly and can handle theater business in a more timely fashion than did the commission, which met once a month, City Manager Gary Sloan said.

The unpaid commission had advised the council on the theater’s budget, marketing and programming for about 18 years. Commissioners were appointed to two-year terms by council members, but there were no term limits.

Cathy Moses, a 15-year member of the commission and its chairwoman, said she disagrees with the council’s move: “When you lose the commission, you lose contact with the community.”

Jeff Brown, executive director of the theater, said recent changes concerning its operation require closer contact with the council. A new professional acting company, Fullerton-based McCoy-Rigby Entertainment Inc., is starting its first season at the theater in November with a production of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The city decided to hire the group, which is operated by former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby and her husband, actor Tom McCoy, after the former production company, Beverly Hills-based Rogers Productions, suffered years of declining ticket sales, Brown said. Rogers had been with the theater for 17 seasons. McCoy-Rigby was awarded a contract in December, 1993, and was brought on in July.

The theater is working with a $2.2-million budget this year, up $350,000 from the 1993-94 season, Brown said.