Center Theatre Group will stop programing the Mark Taper Forum and lay off 10% of staff.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 4:07pm

This is huge, sad, and yet another sign of the perilous times that we live in. The Taper decision is a "pause," so hopefully at some point they can return to programming it when they have the funding to do so.

Of note, they have a new incoming Artistic Director, Snehal Desai.

For those who aren't aware, the Taper is a 739-seat thrust space (think LCT) ideal for plays and midsized musicals. They also operate the 2,000-seat Ahmanson Theatre and the 317-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre.

 

Statement from CTG leadership is below:

Center Theatre Group (CTG)—along with arts organizations across the country—continues to feel the aftereffects of the pandemic and has been struggling to balance ever-increasing production costs with significantly reduced ticket revenue and donations that remain behind 2019 levels. We are still facing a crisis unlike any other in our fifty-six-year history. It is in this environment that we have to take the extraordinary step of pausing a significant portion of CTG programming beginning this summer and continuing through the 2023/24 Season, as well as taking significant restructuring measures to build a vibrant and sustainable organization that can navigate this new paradigm.

CTG will be announcing a 2023/24 Season in the Ahmanson Theatre and select programming at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. CTG will pause season programming at the Taper beginning this July. This pause will include the postponement of the world premiere of Fake It Until You Make It by Larissa FastHorse and directed by Michael John Garcés, which we plan to feature in a future season. Regrettably, we also need to cancel the previously announced tour of Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee and directed by Chay Yew.

However, though we will not be programming a season in the Taper this year, we hope during this time to be able to utilize this beloved theatre space in innovative, non-traditional ways through special events and community-centered programs starting as early as the fall. 



The LA Times also reports that CTG will lay off approximately 10% of its full-time staff and that "programming at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, which soon will be contending with disruptive construction of a planned affordable housing project in an adjacent building, will be limited."

Updated On: 6/15/23 at 04:07 PM

[Voter]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 4:24pm

Wow. Postponing Fake It Until You Make It and Cambodian Rock Band....

[Voter]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 4:26pm

It's crazy because i know someone just hired for FIUYMI

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 4:28pm

I’ll add:

Smart move to announce this now, so the press cycle about the eventual new season isn’t entirely devoted to the slashed programming. I bet they learned from the Public/Under The Radar situation.

[Dusoleilcanwhistle]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 4:35pm

This has been rumored about in LA Theater Circles for a while - very sad to see the official announcement. It really has never been more challenging for non-profit theater companies across the country - anyone who is in a position to, please donate to your favorite local theater company! 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 5:03pm

What’s sad is the billionaires or the Kardashians could easily swoop in and save them for a fraction of their wallet. But alas. We don’t prioritize the arts in this country. And over the past year, none of the shows I saw at CTG were well sold. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 5:15pm

The vast majority of shows playing the Ahmanson in past seasons have been presented tours or shows that originated elsewhere (such as 2:22, which came from London). So they might be doing just 1 or 2 world premieres a year now.

Updated On: 6/15/23 at 05:15 PM

[alovingfan]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 6:04pm

Very sad to read this.  In addition to the audiences not coming back after the pandemic;  it has become increasingly difficult to venture downtown .  Traffic, street closures, construction, and the horrible parking structure has made us say no to tickets most of the time.  

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 6:19pm

I’m gutted and a bit teary eyed over this. I grew up in LA and my first introduction to the Arts was at the Taper/Ahmenson at the age of 7. In collage, it was the only source of really great and reliable theater in the City. 

I only hope this is a means to gin up donations so that the season can actually happen and if not this season, then next. 

[conealpetterson]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 6:34pm

I am so sad to hear this too.  I am an Ahmanson subscriber - but always see the shows at the Taper as well.  It is such a great space.  Slave Play was well sold and broke box office records - but the rest of the shows this season haven’t been.  

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 7:06pm

I think the parking at the Music Center is so easy! You prepay, park, and just drive out. I saw My Fair Lady at the Dolby and waited a good 45min after to just pay for my parking before even getting to my car. Really made me love seeing shows downtown. Wish La would invest in downtown it’s such a great space. 

[DCS]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 8:08pm

Being an LA native, I have always loved seeing shows at the Taper (I tell my NYC based friends that the Taper is like a mini version of the Vivian Beaumont).  Coming out of the pandemic, CTG really should have programmed some well known works starring some Theatre/TV/Movie veterans (of which there a LOTS living in LA) to get audiences back in to the theatre and boost tickets sales (as we all know, a star name in a familiar property can do boffo box office), but instead they have continued to program new or experimental work which doesn't have broad enough appeal (I posted in another thread that I saw Transparent at the Taper last Friday and the audience was only about 25% full -- that is HORRENDOUS for a Friday night!).  I am sad to see programming at the Taper put on pause and hope things will turnaround enough for them to get a season in place for next year.  The Ahmanson will be fine since it is mainly used for big touring productions (like Into The Woods, which is coming next) and tends to attract more of an audience.

Updated On: 6/15/23 at 08:08 PM

[bear88]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 8:14pm

That’s not good. Aside from the larger reasons why this is awful, the production of Cambodian Rock Band was outstanding at the Berkeley Rep. 

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 6/15/23 at 9:27pm

The question now is… which theatre is next? 

[B212323]

Posted: 6/16/23 at 2:46am

But there are touring shows coming in the next year that would fit better in the Taper than the Ahmanson. 

[DCS]

Posted: 6/16/23 at 9:16am

B212323 said: "But there are touring shows coming in the next year that would fit better in the Taper than the Ahmanson."

That may be very true, but the seating capacity of the Taper is only 736 seats, which is not enough seats to generate enough in ticket sales to make it profitable to house a touring production unless it's a small scale show with low running costs like What The Constitution Means To Me.

[DAME]

Posted: 6/16/23 at 8:16pm

RippedMan said: "I think the parking at the Music Center is so easy! You prepay, park, and just drive out. I saw My Fair Lady at the Dolby and waited a good 45min after to just pay for my parking before even getting to my car. Really made me love seeing shows downtown. Wish La would invest in downtown it’s such a great space."

I hate driving there.  It is a pain to get there.  We switched for a short time to afternoon shows and the metro... But it was such a sketchy experience getting there.  And then Kate got mugged and hit coming home from a Secret Garden performance.  And the parking is also a pain a lot of the time.   But you are right about the Dolby.  

[bk]

Posted: 6/16/23 at 8:59pm

DCS said: "Being an LA native, I have always loved seeing shows at the Taper (I tell my NYC based friends that the Taper is like a mini version of the Vivian Beaumont). Coming out of the pandemic, CTG really should have programmed some well known works starring some Theatre/TV/Movie veterans (of which there a LOTS living in LA) to get audiences back in to the theatre and boost tickets sales (as we all know, a star name in a familiar property can do boffo box office), but instead they have continued to program new or experimental work which doesn't have broad enough appeal (I posted in another thread that I saw Transparent at the Taper last Friday and the audience was only about 25% full -- that is HORRENDOUS for a Friday night!). I am sad to see programming at the Taper put on pause and hope things will turnaround enough for them to get a season in place for next year. The Ahmanson will be fine since it is mainly used for big touring productions (like Into The Woods, which is coming next) and tends to attract more of an audience."

Exactly right. This has nothing to do with the pandemic - they sold out the one show people actually wanted to see. Programming an entire season of stuff nobody knows at this particular theater is not good strategy, not if you want to fill the house.. Gordon Davidson knew how to program a season. New plays, challenging plays, classics with interesting directors and casts, small musicals, comedies - if you didn't care for one, you'd probably love another. You don't program an entire season of stuff that can be perceived as being niche, whether it is or not. They've needed a new artistic director and now they have one and hopefully this person will understand how to program a season that will get people in the theater. Also, spending a gazillion bucks to renovate when it didn't really need it, at least not to that extent, was perhaps not the wisest move.

 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 6/17/23 at 12:39am

bk said: "Gordon Davidson knew how to program a season. New plays, challenging plays, classics with interesting directors and casts, small musicals, comedies - if you didn't care for one, you'd probably love another. You don't program an entire season of stuff that can be perceived as being niche, whether it is or not."

I agree that there's a disconnect between the programming and the audience, but what you describe is their 22-23 season on paper. New plays and challenging plays, (Clyde's, 2:22, Kristina Wong, Our Dear Dead Drug Lord) classics with interesting directors and casts (Woods, Secret Garden, 1776), small musicals (Transparent), comedies (Cecily Strong in Search for Signs, Play That Goes Wrong). Plus some play revivals (Twilight LA, Soldier's Play).

The tricky part with being a presenter anywhere is you have no quality control. Sometimes you book without seeing the show itself (1776).

The tricky part about developing new works (or revised ones) is that sometimes you get in too deep on a dud, or need more time than you have to develop it (Transparent, Secret Garden).

Hopefully things will improve with their new Artistic Director in place and overhauled business structure.

[VernonGersch]

Posted: 6/17/23 at 1:53am

This is the most dire news in quite sometime and the "pausing" of the Mark Taper is a travesty on a major scale.  Recent productions like Cecily in Search for Signs and Bibiglia's Old Man & The Pool were exceptional.  The Taper went through a terrific redesign a decade or so and it truly is one of the best stages with some of the most innovative playwrights of all time..how did we get here?  Yes to an earlier poster who said that this season wasn't outstanding ( I loved the TV show Transparent but WOM on the show is less than stellar) and yes maybe programming more names in shows could have helped - but this is an extreme situation.   I know Transparent isn't selling but maybe we can get some beloved theater makers to step with a giant crowd pleaser prestige piece to help those coffers.  

[bear88]

Posted: 6/17/23 at 4:57am

I’m wondering how much of this problem stems from a loss of season ticket subscribers they never got back after the pandemic. A hot show will still sell, but people may feel less compelled to buy an entire season.

I have seen this dynamic at the Berkeley Rep, which used to hardly ever have shows on TodayTix at cheap discounts. But now that happens much more often. As a non-subscriber who sees many shows there, I had trained myself to buy preview tickets, which are sold at a small but meaningfully discount. But it’s not always necessary depending on the show - even some really good plays I have seen this year by snagging cheap discounts. The theater is still pretty full, but revenue must be down.

Clyde’s, which also was part of the Mark Taper season, seemed to sell very well at the Berkeley Rep. I read someone on another thread saying the theater was only three-quarters full at the Mark Taper, which surprised me a bit given the pedigree of the playwright, its recent Broadway run, and the fact that it’s pretty entertaining.

Is there a mismatch between the expectations of theatergoers (who are still mostly older and white) and the plays and musicals being offered? Did the theater offer up too many weak shows that bombed this season? Are advance sales terrible? This seems like an extreme move that wouldn’t have been taken lightly, and I doubt it’s just because of one bad season.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/17/23 at 9:18am

But I don't think you can really blame the programming? I mean, sure it was heavy on smaller shows - mostly one person shows - but Old Man and the Pool sold well on Broadway, Cecily Strong is very much a name, and King James has very broad appeal. The only one I can see not being mass appeal is Transparent, which was a hit show on Amazon so I could see that selling well.

[DaveyG]

Posted: 6/17/23 at 10:40am

I blame this:

https://playbill.com/article/jeremy-o-harris-requests-cancellation-of-slave-plays-los-angeles-bow-citing-gender-imbalance-in-ctg-season

They caved to pressure and now program shows based on who’s working on them - not the quality of the piece or appeal to audiences. Now they’re seeing the result. Shame. 

Updated On: 6/17/23 at 10:40 AM

[Kad]

Posted: 6/17/23 at 10:42am

DaveyG said: "I blame this:

https://playbill.com/article/jeremy-o-harris-requests-cancellation-of-slave-plays-los-angeles-bow-citing-gender-imbalance-in-ctg-season

They caved to pressure and now program shows based on who’s working on them - not the quality of the piece or appeal to audiences. Now they’re seeing the result. Shame."

This was less than two years ago. One or even two less-than-blockbuster seasons does not cause an established, successful theater to go on hiatus and lay off a chunk of its staff. 

And looking at their season lineup, this is hardly out of step with what comparable regional houses have been programming for years.

Updated On: 6/17/23 at 10:42 AM

[MorrisLACat]

Posted: 6/17/23 at 5:02pm

Center Theatre Group productions are lack-luster, at best. Too much "Woke". I come to the theater to be entertained, wooed, and walk away happy. I don't come to the theatre to be informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality. I watch the nightly news on TV for that.

They should stop blaming Covid-19.  Broadway in Hollywood, Pasadena Playhouse, S Coast Repertory, Laguna Playhouse, La Mirada Performing Arts Center, and Geffen Playhouse performs to average of 80% attendance capacity, weekly.