No Nudes Bad News in the End

The curtain has fallen on a new Spanish-language theater that El Monte officials had threatened to shut down, saying it amounted to an adult business because actors had bared a lot more than their souls in recent productions.

An owner of Producciones Latinas Corp., which staged plays at the El Monte Theater, said city opposition to plays with nudity had made the theater no longer financially viable.

“We are closed down. We are taking out everything,” said George Zevada. “The city made us go broke.”

He said the city’s review of the theater’s permit and postponements of a Planning Commission hearing on the issue left the theater dark since September and without an income.

“We have staff, actors and sets. It is all very expensive. We couldn’t arrange for the actors we use to come from Mexico because of all the uncertainty,” he said.

James Troyr, planning services manager, said that as far as the city is concerned, the issue has been resolved because the theater has been vacated. Theater officials did not attend a Nov. 13 hearing on the issue, he said.

In September, city staff recommended the Planning Commission discuss whether to revoke the theater’s permit after it staged “Cuatro Equis” (“Four Xs”), a play with smiling hunky men and curvy women clad in towels, which included one brief nude scene. It followed on the heels of a show that caught the ire of some residents, nearby merchants and code inspectors.

“Solo Para Hombres” (“For Men Only”) was a burlesque revue in which a comic told racy jokes between appearances by strippers. There was no full nudity, but some women removed their tops.

City Manager Harold Johanson had argued that the nudity meant the theater was an adult business and that such businesses are forbidden in that part of central downtown. Like other cities, Johanson said, El Monte provides other places for such businesses.

However, free-speech advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, questioned how a few nude scenes could make a theater an adult business.

Producciones Latinas officials said they invested nearly $500,000 to turn the 63-year-old former two-screen cinema into a Spanish-language playhouse in a city that is nearly 75% Latino.

When the 500-plus-seat theater opened in March, city leaders hoped it would inject new vigor into Valley Mall, an open-air shopping center, where television stores sit between traditional taquerias, Mexican food stalls.

Bob Noparvar, the building’s owner, said he does not know what he will do with the theater. He has already given it a run as a Spanish-language movie theater, and was rebuffed by city officials when he sought permission to use the building for a church.