New Tiffany May Become a 200-Seater
The Tiffany Theaters may wind up as a mid-sized venue.
That’s the latest hope of Paula Holt, the proprietor of the Sunset Strip venue, currently the home of two 99-seaters.
Last spring, it wasn’t clear that the Tiffany would even survive. It’s on the site of the proposed Sunset Millennium, a retail/office/hotel project. If the development gets the necessary approvals, its construction will, in fact, require the demolition of the theaters.
However, Holt and Sunset Millennium developer Mark Siffin confirm that they have reached agreement that a new, 7,000-square-foot Tiffany will rise from the debris of the old, as part of the complex. It probably will be located slightly west of the current Tiffany instead of the previously mentioned spot across La Cienega Boulevard on the east, Holt said.
Perhaps of most interest to theatergoers and artists is a change of heart by Holt regarding the size of the new Tiffany. Earlier this year she was quoted as saying that there wasn’t enough market for another mid-sized theater in the neighborhood, but now she’s exploring rebuilding the Tiffany as a single 200-seat space rather than two 99-seaters.
“I’d like to raise the stakes for the producing I do,” she said. She would like to have housed the current Sandra Tsing Loh show, “Aliens in America,” at a 200-seater, and she’d rather do the same with a production she plans to import next winter, the recent off-Broadway all-male version of “Romeo and Juliet,” “Shakespeare’s R & J.”
This from a producer whose original building of the Tiffany in 1985 roused the ire of Actors’ Equity, which was upset that the space was being converted from a larger cinema into two theaters that were under the Equity Waiver--a plan that required no payments for actors (it was the forerunner of today’s 99-seat Theater Plan, which requires at least token payments). But Equity is “much more flexible now,” more willing to shape particular contracts for particular spaces, Holt said.
In 1985, the Tiffany was one of the very few upscale Waiver houses, she added, but “it’s not unique anymore.” So she’s ready to move up--if, that is, the project actually happens. As of now, the current Tiffany will remain in business for another two years, she predicts, and she’ll then operate out of other theaters for at least a year, before the new Tiffany could be ready.
Meanwhile, Holt will receive the C. Bernard Jackson Award, presented by the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, in a ceremony at the Tiffany on Oct. 4. The annual prize is for nurturing and developing Los Angeles playwrights.
