But Can He Afford to Hire Himself ? : Publicist Rick Miramontez Takes a Break to Focus on Cabaret Career

Midway through the Los Angeles Festival of 1987, Rick Miramontez, the event’s publicist, sensed a press backlash to printing more festival-related photos. He realized he had to create a photo opportunity so enticing that the press couldn’t resist it.

He found the perfect moment at the Playboy Mansion, during the opening night reception for the Lyon Opera Ballet. Miramontez stripped off his clothes and jumped into the pool. Within two minutes, he said, every member of the dance troupe had followed suit--sans swimsuit. “I thought for a moment I would get fired,” Miramontez said. But then his boss, festival director Robert Fitzpatrick, took off his clothes, too, and joined the fun.

“We got worldwide coverage,” Miramontez said.

Now Miramontez, 35, one of the busiest of Los Angeles theater press agents, hopes to make a different kind of splash. Next month he’s closing his company for at least a year in order to concentrate on a career as a cabaret singer.

“I told myself 10 years ago that if I was still doing this in 10 years, I’d take a break,” he said.

Although Miramontez has no formal training as a singer, he began performing in 1992 and last year produced his own cabaret act on Saturday nights at the Gardenia nightclub--for 10 weeks last summer and six weeks at the end of the year, drawing mixed but friendly reviews. He plans to spend much of the next year “singing Mexican songs in the cabarets of New York,” he said. He also would like to make a recording.

Miramontez formed his Los Angeles-based public relations company in 1988, after cutting his teeth at the Ahmanson Theatre and the L.A. Festival. His firm has represented 172 productions and events, including such big ones as “Sunset Boulevard” and, until recently, “Beauty and the Beast.”

*

He also promoted most of the shows at the mid-sized Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills (“Love Letters,” “Forever Plaid,” “Ruthless!”) and other mid-sized shows such as “Forbidden Hollywood.”

However, the bulk of L.A. productions are in sub-100-seat theaters, and Miramontez drew about 70% of his clients from these smaller productions, he said. His associate Ron Hofmann will continue to represent one of the more permanent of the smaller clients, the Groundlings.

In the arena of companies that handle both big and small shows, Miramontez’s departure could leave the field securely in the hands of his primary rival--Davidson, Choy, McWorter. Tim Choy, a partner with that firm, said that while his company will probably pick up some of the business, Miramontez will be missed--”having a good competitor keeps you sharp.”

The major publicists in both firms belong to a union, the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers, which has negotiated a minimum pay scale of $1,504 a week plus benefits for shows in the large commercial theaters (the publicists at Center Theatre Group also belong to the union). But the many publicists who tout the myriad smaller productions in L.A. do not belong to the union and generally work for much lower wages. Miramontez estimated that the average pay from smaller clients to his firm is about $350 a week.

Miramontez will continue to keep his office and phone number and do some public relations consulting for the Canon Theatre and other clients during the next year, but he will be a one-man operation.

“In the theater world, the profit margin can be very narrow,” he said. “To keep the business in full throttle without me in the driver’s seat would not be a good gamble.” Besides, he said, “the fun of it is doing the work. Being away from it, it becomes just a business function. I didn’t want to be left with just the ‘unfun’ parts.”

He disputed any interpretation of his departure as a signal that theater publicity is on the wane: “For the past years, we’ve been extremely busy. Gross receipts last year dipped only slightly--mainly because of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ [which Miramontez had represented in 1993-94].”

He said he has “every intention of returning” to theater publicity eventually. “Publicity will still be here.”