CTG monitors the moniker issue

The Center Theatre Group, which welcomed a new boss in January, has been quietly polling playgoers on possible new names.

But before anyone gets too alarmed or excited or starts campaigning for “Rosebud,” CTG marketing director Jim Royce hastens to say “there is nothing imminent. In fact, my life would be hell if this place decided to change its name.”

The name-related questions, Royce says, are merely one part of a broad effort to assess the public profile of the organization, which runs the Ahmanson Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum in the Music Center complex downtown and the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.

The effort began in January, the same month artistic director Michael Ritchie took the reins from longtime CTG head Gordon Davidson.

After gathering about a dozen name possibilities from focus groups, Royce says, the organization’s research consultants began e-mailing playgoers questionnaires that include various name combinations.

Royce is unwilling to supply, confirm or deny any alternatives, but one playgoer says she received a questionnaire that included “Los Angeles Public Theater” and “Los Angeles Center Theater” -- a provocative pair, given the prominence of New York’s Public Theater and the ongoing struggles of the city-owned Los Angeles Theatre Center building downtown.

The research effort is to conclude this month. The results, Royce says, will go to the CTG board, which will decide what, if anything, to do next.

One of the organization’s aims, Royce says, is to make sure audiences understand that the same nonprofit parent is behind the Ahmanson, Taper and Douglas venues. The Center Theatre Group has carried its name since its creation in the 1960s.

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Christopher Reynolds