Ahmanson to Try New Plan on for Size

The renovated Ahmanson Theatre has been open since January. But it still hasn’t operated at the reduced seating capacity that was one of the main reasons for the $17-million renovation.

That’s about to change.

Beginning with the $2.3-million revival of “Candide,” opening Nov. 8, all of the shows in the Ahmanson’s 1995-96 subscription season will at least start their runs at a seating capacity of 1,626--compared to the 2,048 in use for “Miss Saigon,” the hall’s only occupant since the renovation, and the long-running “The Phantom of the Opera,” the hall’s last occupant prior to the renovation.

Depending on demand for tickets to particular shows, Center Theatre Group might--in the midst of a run--open the rear of the mezzanine or even the rear of the balcony. These are the seating areas that normally will be closed in order to shrink the hall. However, the current CTG/Ahmanson budget was planned on the assumption that there will be only 1,626 seats to sell.

Attendance in the pre-”Phantom” years averaged around 1,500 anyway, said Gordon Davidson, the CTG’s artistic director/producer. “The extra seats were unsold.”

The Ahmanson originally “carried the concept that it could pay its own way” with its larger capacity, as opposed to the smaller, subsidized Mark Taper Forum, Davidson said. “But the truth is it can’t do that, and it didn’t in the eight to 10 years before ‘The Phantom.’ The hemorrhaging was there. Sometimes it was covered over by income from Neil Simon premieres, but those days are gone.”

So now the Ahmanson too requires a subsidy. It has been allocated $676,425 of the approximate $2 million in Music Center Unified Fund money that goes to Center Theatre Group in the 1996 fiscal year (the Taper gets the rest). And Davidson said CTG is “trying to build a profile, a consensus, a support structure” for the Ahmanson that matches the one at the Taper.

“For this to be an important theater,” Davidson said, “it has to generate new work and also be the repository of the repertoire. But it costs more to do the good stuff than you can take in at the box office.”

The new Ahmanson isn’t “generating” new work for its initial subscription season, but it is co-producing August Wilson’s latest play “Seven Guitars” with four other nonprofit theaters--three of which will have hosted it before the Ahmanson--plus a group of commercial producers. Wilson’s play will be the first by an African American at the Ahmanson.

“Generating” has begun for the future, though. This month CTG will host a workshop of a new musical by Debbie Allen and James Ingram, “The Legend,” loosely based on “Peer Gynt.” Though Taper staff is helping develop the show, any future CTG production of it would have to be at the Ahmanson instead of the Taper because of the show’s size and the Ahmanson’s proscenium stage, Davidson said. “It’s emblematic of the new way of interacting between the two theaters.”

Besides “Seven Guitars,” the new Ahmanson’s initial subscription season includes revivals of “Candide” (which will mark Davidson’s Ahmanson Theatre producing and directing debuts), “An Inspector Calls” and “Carousel.” Only “Candide” is solely a CTG production.

“An Inspector Calls” and “Carousel” originated at the Royal National Theatre in London and now have a variety of other producers attached to the tours. CTG is one of the co-producers of the “Carousel” tour, advancing some money to help get the tour off the ground; Davidson said it would not have appeared in Southern California without the Ahmanson gig. But CTG is a presenter, not a co-producer of the “Inspector Calls” tour, which will visit California Center for the Arts in Escondido after it leaves the Ahmanson.

A fifth production, “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” is being offered and promoted as a bonus for Ahmanson subscribers, but on paper it’s strictly a booking, using no CTG money and returning only the rental fee (said by one source to be $400,000) for the use of the hall next spring.

Davidson had earlier told subscribers that a new production of Brecht’s “Galileo” might be on the season, but CTG can afford only one major production of its own, he said, and “Candide” got the nod this season. Davidson hopes to do “Galileo” next season, closer to the 50th anniversary of the first production of “Galileo” at L.A.’s Coronet Theatre in July, 1947. His plan to do Shakespeare at the Ahmanson also was postponed.

While an average show at the new Ahmanson will cost about $1.9 million, Davidson said, Shakespeare and large-scale period plays will run closer to $2.1 million and musicals like “Candide” cost about $2.3 million.

Since the new Ahmanson opened, several physical alterations were made. Davidson said the most serious complaints were about the sight lines from the first three rows of the balcony. The problem was rectified by raising the seats slightly, removing lighting pipes and installing a thinner railing, Davidson said, “and now I’m not getting any complaints.”

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THE DOOLITTLE DEAL: With all these plans under way for the new Ahmanson, what will happen at the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood? That’s where Ahmanson subscribers have seen shows during the past six seasons while the Ahmanson itself was otherwise engaged by “The Phantom of the Opera,” renovation construction and “Miss Saigon.”

Center Theatre Group will continue managing the Doolittle during the 1995-96 season, according to an agreement recently reached with UCLA, the Doolittle’s owner. This doesn’t necessarily mean that CTG will present shows there. Neither UCLA nor CTG has any specific plans for the theater, said CTG general manager Douglas C. Baker, and “we’re under no obligation to produce or present there. But we’ll work together to bring about bookings at the theater.”

CTG will receive what Baker called “a modest management fee when there are bookings” from outside producers. The arrangement also puts CTG in an ideal position to produce some of its own shows there if they don’t fit into the Taper or the Ahmanson, or to move a big hit from one of the other CTG theaters.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have moved ‘Master Class,’ ” said Baker of the recent Taper hit.

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JEKYLLS AND HYDES: “Jekyll and Hyde” left Orange County Performing Arts Center just last Sunday. “Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde” plays in movie theaters. And now “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is about to arrive at Hermosa Civic Theatre, opening Friday and playing through Sept. 30.

Like the Orange County show, the one in Hermosa Beach is a musical. But with a history dating back to a Connecticut production in 1968 (under the title “After You, Mr. Hyde”), Hermosa’s show predates “Jekyll and Hyde.”

Hermosa artistic director Anne Hulegard denied that the scheduling of her show was designed to capitalize on the profile of the bigger-budget projects: “If that was the case, I would have bumped my opening date up. But this has been on the books for over a year.”