A grab bag of ideas for the future of the LATC

Competing visions of the future of downtown’s Los Angeles Theatre Center, outlined in responses to a request for proposals by the city’s Cultural Affairs Department, range from a $5-million theater company to a venue for a contest with a $1-million prize.

Prompted by Cultural Affairs budget cuts, the city intends to shift management of LATC from Cultural Affairs to a private operator. The new manager would take over on Jan. 2.

Five theater professionals and city employees will review the applications. Their choice will be submitted to Cultural Affairs general manager Margie J. Reese whose recommendation will go to the City Council.

The respondents:

* Gilmore Associates, which specializes in renovating downtown structures for modern uses. The company’s Tom Gilmore said he would be “a quasi-landlord” at LATC, delegating programming decisions to two partners: the nonprofit theater troupe Will & Co., which has operated out of LATC for nine years and would continue its educational programming there as well as more shows for the general public, and Garson Entertainment, a for-profit company run by Randy Gardell and Bryan Peterson. Gilmore would install a cafe, street landscaping, extra lighting and security.

* Real estate developer Morris Shaoulian, whose company recently renovated the 1,875-seat Scottish Rite auditorium in the mid-Wilshire district. It’s a model for what he would do at LATC, he said, but he would retain the current mix of three mid-size halls and two smaller performance spaces. He would operate LATC primarily as an educational center.

* The Latino Theatre Company. Run by Jose Luis Valenzuela, it was a wing of the original LATC company from 1985 to 1991. It produced “Dementia” at LATC last year. Valenzuela would create a “multiracial” professional company, with subscription seasons, and also bring in talent and productions from UCLA, where he is a professor of directing. His target budget is nearly $5 million. His company has, “for the first time, a real fund-raising board,” he said. UCLA has signed a letter of intent to assist the fund-raising, though not provide funds, said Bob Rosen, head of theater, film and TV at UCLA.

* Robert Guenette’s Los Angeles Media & Education Center (LAMEC) presented an arts festival at the Ivar Theatre in Hollywood in 2001. At LATC, it would begin with only three productions and a budget of $102,000, along with hopes to operate a public-access cable station out of LATC and send shows on city tours. The former TV producer said his Hollywood fund-raising connections remain strong.

* Coalition for a New LATC, organized by actor Paul Kreppel on the heels of an unsuccessful bid to manage the city-owned Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park. Kreppel hopes to make LATC “a mecca for avant-garde creativity” in theater and cabaret, but he acknowledged that he needed “someone like Eli Broad,” the arts-minded philanthropist.

* Theatre LA, the umbrella service organization for most L.A. theaters, submitted a statement but not an application. Theatre LA president Lee Wochner said the group’s board had not yet decided whether it wants to apply (any group that turned in a submission by last Wednesday can alter it through July 8). He said the building “could be leveraged on behalf of a lot of companies that don’t have a space and could benefit from an infrastructure that allows them to focus on the art.”

* Matt Chait, who operates the Complex, a group of small theaters in Hollywood. His brief proposal suggested devoting LATC to a series of monthly festivals from various cultural groups, including cuisine and crafts as well as performing arts.

* Tony Wilson’s Ask Theater Group would use LATC for an “American Idol”-style contest for new productions. The winner of an audience vote would get $1 million to convert their production into a movie. Wilson has no theatrical experience.