From the outside, the Center Theatre Group’s headquarters, a nondescript construction across from the Music Center, is spectacularly mediocre, the kind of position your brain wouldn’t even register as existing. But inside, the buzz of puzzle-solving power might make you think you stumbled upon the set of “Oppenheimer. “
Meghan Pressman, CTG’s chief executive and lead executive director, and Snehal Desai, artistic director, aren’t cracking nuclear codes, but they’re crafting a theatrical Rubik’s Cube that’s harder than ever to solve.
An announcement related to CTG’s new season will be announced in the coming weeks, and the big news is that the Mark Taper Forum, which suspended its programming last summer amid an unfolding budget crisis, will resume operations (likely until next winter and in (probably as early as the fall). The exact schedule and number of productions are still being worked out, but the idea is to consolidate the offerings under a single CTG banner rather than highlight separate seasons at each of CTG’s three theaters.
This strategy is a sign of moderation, but it also indicates that old behaviors and expectations want to give way to strict new realities.
Gordon Davidson, founding artistic director of the Center Theatre Group, built Los Angeles’ flagship theater organization in a very different era. All three venues — the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theater at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles and the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City — with their unique profile and fans don’t coexist seamlessly in the most productive moments, and this is one of the most challenging times in the company’s history.
In recent decades, Ahmanson has been faithful to touring Broadway productions, with an emphasis on musicals. The Taper, home to the two-part world premiere of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” has long been the city’s most coveted tier for audience-facing drama. And Douglas Fir, the smallest of the three theaters and the one with the shortest history, is the Westside’s most hospitable outpost for theatrical risk-taking.
As a lucrative operation, Ahmanson helped make the artistic ambitions of his less practical brethren imaginable. But those days were over even before COVID-19 wreaked unfathomable havoc on performing arts institutions.
The post-pandemic scenario is improving, but from such a low point that no one can feel confident that we will be able to move forward. Theatre attendance has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, production and management prices have skyrocketed with inflation. And donor fatigue has turned to burnout.
Nonprofit theaters across the country are dealing with this better storm, but CTG faces an additional set of demanding situations stemming from its disparate three-part structure.
The Ahmanson can no longer be considered a source of revenue, as the subscription style has become less reliable and the festival for Broadway tours has become more intense. When CTG gets involved as a manufacturer in its competitive position, as it did with the withered revival of “The Secret Garden,” it exposes the entire company to a seismic financial surprise when the series turns out to be a flop.
Gambling has suffered greatly since the reopening of cinemas. Serious dramas without celebrity appeal are an incredibly hard sell in the age of on-demand entertainment and social media hypnosis. For a giant venue like the Taper, with exorbitant built-in prices and an audience that has become understandably fickle after seasons of vision and severe mediocrity, the symbol of production may seem like a fast track to insolvency.
Eventually, the Douglas faced its own temporary closure. A nearby structure assignment on a neighboring asset will force the theater to shut down its operations for a few months next year, making programming incredibly difficult to plan, as anyone who has had to deal with the conversion schedule of a renovation task knows.
Not surprisingly, Pressman and Desai look like emergency responders who have adapted to the lengthy daily tasks of rebuilding after the initial phase of the disaster. When I met with them last June, after CTG announced it was postponing the Taper’s programming, the verbal exchange was tense and at times chaotic and contradictory.
The newly appointed Desai, baptized with fire, had not even signed his contract at that time. Pressman, struggling to keep the lights on, dodged questions about artistic decision-making and monetary control that were reminiscent of the leadership disorders that preceded the pandemic’s fallout.
Nine months later, they presented a quieter façade. The atmosphere of the interview is sober. Progress was made on the projected $8 million budget shortfall that led CTG to postpone the premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s play “Fake It Until You Make It” and suspend plans for the 2023-24 season at the Taper. But this is not the time for false exuberance.
It seemed almost daring to ask if they imagined a sustainable future for CTG to be feasible in this dubious environment, but the question had to be asked. Pressman replied in the affirmative, but before doing so, there was a pause as long as any Harold Pinter. piece.
“I think it’s possible, otherwise I wouldn’t need to ask other people for money right now,” Pressman replied with quiet conviction. “I’m in the art we make. I think [a sustainable path] is possible, but I don’t know exactly what it will look like.
However, a war plan is being refined. The Taper did not remain inactive during this hiatus period. Experiments have been attempted in the form of special events, networking meetings, and legacy celebrations. Alex Edelman’s solo exhibition “Just for Us” has been such a success that he has already had two previous engagements.
“We’re introducing shorter, more agile programming models,” Pressman said. “We explored other tactics to engage with the community. I think those are all elements of a long-term, sustainable Center Theatre Group, but we just don’t know how it works. “It’s all going to play out.
“I think the price tag for what we’re doing is clear,” Desai said. “I just think it’s going to be very different. “
“And yet it will have to be the same,” Pressman interjected. “We’ve been given those theaters that promise superior production value, wonderful American theater, the most productive new play — it’s all still part of the DNA. “
Exceptional work, Desai acknowledged, will have to be the raison d’être of their collective efforts. He is drawn to theatre that is “timely, applicable and urgent”, even if it provides a well-deserved escape. Laughter and fun, he said. Theatregoers do not live by ethical instruction alone. But for him, the crux of the challenge is to know “how” they produce this art, the diversity of artists they invite, the openness to new bureaucracy and modalities of collaboration.
“When we announce the season, let’s see what the priorities are,” he said. His roster, which he rolled out spontaneously, includes centering Los Angeles artists, adjusting the balance between CTG production and presentation, expanding co-productions, and transforming the Taper not. only in a writers’ theatre but also in a directors’ theatre. Its first season, he said, will give audiences a smart indication of where they need to go.
The creation of the Desai-era audience would arguably not be achieved overnight. “It will take three to five years to establish itself,” he said. That’s how long Danny Feldman [artistic director and artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse producer] told me he took it.
Pressman added, “That’s what it takes to teach them their tastes. You have to give them one element at a time. If you need to replace two or three things in the way you produce or in the vocabulary you teach the audience, you can don’t do it all at once. They’re going to panic.
Winter production at the Taper is more or less planned, but there is still the question of whether there will be autumn supply. When I asked him what it would take to open the Taper before next year, Desai asked if he could write a check for $3 million. . I was joking, but fundraising is one piece of this complex puzzle.
CTG’s multibillion-dollar budget hole is smaller but not zero. “This is a multi-year effort,” Pressman said. And that’s still the story of recovery. “
How much CTG would you like to be total?” We’re in active fundraising mode for our upcoming season and we’re a few million dollars shy of our goal,” Pressman said. What we’re looking for is long-term sustainability, which means a change in the way we operate and more support. “
“It’s a marathon and I would say we’re getting to a great relay point,” Desai said. “As we announced the upcoming season, we need other people to be there and us, especially those who said they were so disappointed in the Taper. I hope that they will be the ones to touch us without delay and subscribe. We hope there’s something for each and every one at CTG, that’s our purpose every season.
“Our partnership has been really rewarding,” Pressman said of his relationship with Desai. “And you know it’s hard work. We feel a lot of confidence and understanding in each other’s vision and strategy. And that’s part of the solid foundation that we’ve built to be able to accomplish those hard things with a wonderful senior team and with wonderful community members. We’re about to make a big announcement and it takes a lot of brainstorming and planning.
And is the board doing all it can?”Our board of directors is perfect!” Pressman responded, enunciating theatrically into my DVR.
Desai echoed this diplomatic sentiment in his own remarks: “We’ve had internal conversations about what we want and board members have been the first to step in. They have been delegated.
What about the level in general?” I asked candidly about an issue that has been an obstacle for nonprofit theaters to undergo their institutional and cultural evolution. But the last thing a leader should do is alienate those who control the rescue force. at this critical moment.
Desai, a staunch proponent of the “important civic role” of the CWG, needs the Taper to ever endorse a forum for public dialogue, but he knows he can’t do it alone.
“We were just in London,” he said. And they told us that the theater in London. The numbers are higher than before the pandemic. But they don’t have to compete with 405s, right? It is also cold and rainy there. We simply have another ecosystem. I hope we live in a city where theater can play a central role.
If I could write that $3 million check that Desai was apparently joking about, I would. Not because good fortune is guaranteed. But because the control of the CTG is rigorously grappling with its fate, testing new odds, and pledging to move forward with as much integrity as is financially imaginable.
And because I don’t need to live in a town that turns its back on those cultural pillars that took generations to build.
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