Pasadena Playhouse Operator Plans Bankruptcy Filing

Pasadena-based Theatre Corp. of America, which has operated the Pasadena Playhouse since 1981, will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today, it was announced Thursday.

Pasadena Playhouse programming will be unaffected, said Theatre Corp. president David Houk. “Breaking Legs” is still scheduled to open at the playhouse March 19.

Playhouse revenues go to the nonprofit Pasadena Playhouse State Theatre of California, Inc., which hired the Theatre Corp. to operate the theater.

The Theatre Corp. has a total debt of approximately $9 million, Houk said. The company lost $6 million in its failed expansion into five other cities. Pasadena productions were exported to Santa Barbara and Poway, starting in 1992, and in early 1994 an ambitious Theatre Corp. series of musicals that originated at the Alex Theatre in Glendale went on tour to theaters in San Diego and Fresno.

The first season of musicals cost far more than it earned. The company had to borrow $138,000 from the city of Glendale in order to stage its first show of the second season, “Fashion,” last July. In August, Theatre Corp. abruptly withdrew from managing the Alex, and a month later Glendale’s redevelopment agency and the Alex board sued Theatre Corp., claiming they were owed more than $1 million.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy will give Theatre Corp. time to stave off creditors while restructuring, although Houk declined to comment Thursday on what that restructuring might include.

In recent months, a three-member committee of the board of Pasadena Playhouse State Theatre has met every week to review the theater’s cash flow and work closely with the Theatre Corp. managers, said board president Al Lowe. “Prior to that, the board was more passive,” he said. The board and Theatre Corp. have yet to disagree on any decisions, Lowe said, but “we’re just making sure funds (earned by the Pasadena Playhouse) will be spent totally for the Pasadena Playhouse.”

The Theatre Corp. payroll has been reduced to zero, Houk said, with 38 full-time Pasadena Playhouse employees now getting their checks from the playhouse rather than Theatre Corp. At the height of its touring programs, Theatre Corp. employed 130.

Houk and Lowe said the playhouse is doing much better than last year, when the city of Pasadena loaned the playhouse $200,000 as an emergency measure. The recent “Radio Gals” was a hit. Even last year, playhouse supporters raised $800,000 independently of the box office--more than $300,000 above the annual fund-raising goal, theater officials said.