A crosstown volley of words

“Skip the drama of going downtown, come to the Geffen.”

That sentence, plus or minus a word here or there, appeared in print and on radio as part of the marketing for the 2004-05 season at the Westside-based Geffen Playhouse.

“It seemed fun and lighthearted to me,” Geffen producing director Gilbert Cates says.

But when Gordon Davidson, the producer and artistic director of the downtown Center Theatre Group (the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre), heard the message on the radio, he was not amused.

In fact, Davidson says, “I was a bit stunned. It was appalling.”

“Gordon called me and said he felt it was a cheap shot,” Cates adds. “I can understand in retrospect how he might feel that way.”

Cates pulled the sentence from any promotional material that had not been printed or recorded, he says.