Egan says no to Seattle job

Robert Egan won’t be going to Seattle after all.

The Mark Taper Forum’s producing director, known for fostering new plays and emerging writers, said Friday that he has changed his mind about running ACT Theatre, a major regional company in Seattle, because a worsening fiscal crisis there has nullified the adventurous artistic plans that made him want the job in the first place.

“This is a theater in survival mode,” Egan said Friday, and it is in no position to carry out the artistic “platform” agreed upon when he took the job.

His mission, he said, included expanding the artistic staff and “major new play development and a new work festival that would be national in scope,” to be funded by a three-year fundraising campaign of more than $1.2 million.

His longtime friend and collaborator, Jon Robin Baitz -- whose play “Ten Unknowns” opens March 15 at the Taper with Egan directing -- was going to be hired as writer in residence and, Egan says, “I had commitments from other major artists around the country who were going to come and join the staff.”

Instead, Egan said, “I think they’ve got to raise at least $1.5 million to $2 million quickly to keep the doors open. Everything I went up there to do is no longer on the playing field. I don’t think anybody could accuse me of not being responsible or a lack of courage when there’s no guarantee if I move my life up there I’m even going to be paid on a week-to-week basis.”

In October, ACT announced that Egan would be its new artistic director. He immediately began shuttling to Seattle on some weekends while continuing his duties at the Taper. But news of financial difficulties emerged in January, catching Egan by surprise. He said that since then, the money woes at ACT have worsened, prompting him this week to request and receive a release from his contract.

Egan says he will remain in Los Angeles. He expects to pursue a career as a freelance stage, film and television director after finishing this season at the Taper in June, although he plans to talk to board members and artistic director Gordon Davidson before making a final decision on leaving the theater where he has been part of the leadership team since 1984.

In January, ACT announced that it had run up a $500,000 deficit in 2002 and would have to cut its 2003-04 budget from $5.9 million to $4.9 million. Egan said it has since become apparent that the deficits are substantially larger and that the budget will have to be cut to $3.9 million because of falling donations and revenue in a tough regional economy.

ACT Theatre officials could not be reached before deadline Friday.

Egan read an e-mail he received Thursday from the ACT board’s co-presidents, Kate Janeway and Sheena Aebig: “As our financial position worsened the past days the board deemed it unfair to hold you to your commitment and reluctantly released you from it.” Egan, who established himself on the Seattle theater scene before coming to Los Angeles, said his old friend Kurt Beattie, an associate artistic director at ACT, would take over the top job there.

At 52, Egan says he has attractive options for his next moves and that, as word got out that he would not land at ACT, offers of freelance directing jobs have been coming in. “I would think right now it’s probably time for a change for me,” he said when asked whether he might remain at the Taper. “It might be in all our best interests if I see the season out and then move on graciously and happily, some time at the end of the summer.”

Davidson, the Taper’s leader since it opened in 1967, has announced that he will step down in 2005. Egan said he would like to be a candidate, depending on how the Center Theatre Group’s board configures the job, which now involves running both the Taper and the Ahmanson Theatre.

“Sure,” he said. “I think they know I’m here.”