Act 2 opens for Stage Alliance

It was put up or shut down time at the downtown office of the LA Stage Alliance, Los Angeles’ biggest arts service organization, last fall. The president- chief executive had resigned amid talk of soaring debts. No replacement was in sight. There were undeniable cash flow issues. Members of the executive committee of the board of governors -- usually a once-a-month-meeting job -- were in the office supervising the staff and writing checks.

A handful of the board members even made interest-free loans to the group totaling about $50,000. They called this cash infusion “the Phoenix Fund.”

As organizational immolations go, the LA Stage Alliance appears to be rising from its ashes relatively unscathed. It got a new name -- it was widely known as Theatre LA and formally as the Theatre League Alliance -- in July. It’s looking to hire a new executive director to replace the departed president-chief executive. And the finances are starting to stabilize.

Vice chairman Larry Aldrich, who will become chairman of the board in January, said the group “has become extremely strong in just a couple of months.” The Ovation Awards ceremony last month went off with no more than the usual number of hitches. An interim executive director, Terence McFarland, has been promoted from within the staff.

But some questions remain about the long-term financial health of the group and whether it can expand in the ways it has planned. In addition to producing the Ovation Awards, LA Stage Alliance promotes local theater through the Internet, a magazine and newspaper advertising.

The Internet site, which will change from www.theatrela.org to www.lastagealliance.com in January, offers half-price theater tickets and e-mails weekly notices to about 20,000 people about what’s available. The glossy bimonthly magazine LA Stage, distributed to subscribers, theaters and newsstands, has a circulation of 25,000. The organization also serves as the agency that creates the Theatre Times advertisements in the Los Angeles Times, mostly for mid-size and smaller theater productions that receive discounted rates.

Almost all of L.A.’s professional theater companies are members and pay dues ranging from $225 to $1,800 a year. In addition to those 203 theaters and producers, the organization has 861 individual subscribers who pay anywhere from $15 to $1,000 annually.

The organization wants to move beyond its theatrical roots to become a broader-based advocacy and support group for more of the performing arts.

This goal was discussed for years, said outgoing chairman Paula Holt, and was part of the reason for dropping the Theatre LA name. “Stage Alliance” is meant to embrace a wider range of performing arts.

Terry Knowles, executive director of the L.A. Master Chorale, doesn’t think that will make a big difference. “ ‘Stage’ doesn’t mean ‘concert stage’ to most people,” she said. Still, she joined the Alliance board, as did Leni Boorstin, director of community programs for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “My impression is that the transition is a work in progress and they’re not there yet,” she said.

Rumors denied

The alliance’s financial problems came to a head in August, which, Aldrich noted, is often a slow time in L.A. theater, when advertising commissions that the group collects diminish because there are fewer productions. Those commissions add up to 56% of LA Stage Alliance’s annual budget of approximately $1.2 million, according to board treasurer Charles Rosenblatt.

This year, Holt said, “our past-dues were too far past due,” primarily to The Times.

Five veteran board members had little to say against former president Lee Wochner’s stewardship, and all denied rumors that the board asked him to resign. Most of the board agreed with Holt that his strengths were as an advocate and spokesman for local theater.

According to Wochner, “I had achieved what my strengths and passions were, and it was time to return to the private sector.” He’s now a consultant and recently directed a play.

“But,” Holt said, “both the board and [Wochner] were not paying enough attention to the day-to-day stuff.”

Wochner disagreed. “I was relentlessly focused on day-to-day management,” he said. The organization experienced “metastatic growth over the past three years, and there is no way you have that sort of growth without that level of management.”

Indeed, “the organization grew too quickly,” said board secretary David Logan, who is also associate dean of corporate programs at USC. “The growth got ahead of our resources.” Although Wochner had a strong vision for the group, Logan said, it “needs more of a focus on numbers and fiscal accountability and a little less vision -- for now.”

Members’ resources

Even before any planned expansion, some theater companies wonder if LA Stage Alliance has been doing all it can for them.

The half-price tickets and discounted newspaper ads are wonderful resources, said Julia Rodriguez Elliott, one of the artistic directors of A Noise Within, a 144-seat classical theater in Glendale. She also has appreciated the opportunities to discuss concerns with other theater professionals at the group’s conferences on management and development.

At the much larger Pasadena Playhouse, however, executive director Lyla White said the LA Stage Alliance services benefit smaller theaters more than the larger ones, which frequently advertise on their own and have their own discount ticket programs.

“Larger theaters belong because of a sense of noblesse oblige, to help the rest of the theater community,” White said. She gets more practical information and assistance from national organizations, she said, such as the League of Resident Theatres and Theatre Communications Group.

Bart DeLorenzo, artistic director of the 99-seat Evidence Room, likes the half-price ticket service but doesn’t think the Ovation Awards help the theater community. “I don’t take them very seriously, and I’m not sure who does except the winners,” DeLorenzo said. “I’m perplexed by the nominations. And if the purpose of the Ovations is to publicize L.A. theater, I’m not sure they do that.”

Revenue needed

If the group wants to stay afloat, let alone chart new waters, it can’t afford a rerun of the recent financial crisis. Rosenblatt said the group still has about $130,000 in bills to pay, down from about $180,000 a year ago thanks to the Phoenix Fund loans from board members. But it is catching up on past-due payments. Many of the bills are no more than one month old; earlier this year, bills went more than two months past due.

To grow, the LA Stage Alliance has to find new sources of revenue. The economic climate of recent years has depressed philanthropy in general, and such service organizations don’t often attract deep-pockets donors, who prefer giving directly to arts groups.

The 18 board members are required to either give or raise $1,500 each year. And Holt believes the board -- which originally consisted mostly of nonprofit theater producers -- will soon better reflect the larger community and more varied funding sources. “The board has shifted from being passionate but parochial to being much more sophisticated,” Holt said.

Yet there still is no plan to hire a full-time financial officer, because the group can’t afford it, Aldrich said. Holt said the expertise of whoever is hired as executive director could alleviate the need for a financial officer for the LA Stage Alliance.

The sign on the office door still says “Theatre LA.” But coming soon: a new logo to go with that new name. And, Holt hopes, a new maturity.