A theater that has become the mainstay of Los Angeles’s arts community has announced that it is cancelling its upcoming season amid financial concerns as regional theaters across the US struggle in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Center Theatre Group (CTG) in Los Angeles announced on 15 June that it had canceled its programming in July and would pause 2023-2024 programming at the Mark Taper Forum, its 739-seat house, amid financial woes exacerbated by the Covid shutdown. Programming at CTG’s Ahmanson and Kirk Douglas theaters will continue.
“We are still facing a crisis unlike any other in our fifty-six-year history,” said CTG in a statement, referring to diminished revenue from ticket sales and donations.
The LA arts community mourned the decision, in particular since CTG had recently committed to platforming diverse playwrights. The group’s 2022-2023 season specifically featured the work of women and non-binary playwrights, after pushback at the company’s male-dominated season the year before.
The theater group added that 10% of its 200-person staff also will be laid off.
The Taper has long been a home for innovative theater. The forum opened in 1967 with John Whiting’s controversial play The Devils, which helped to set its tone. The theater has hosted world premieres for several lauded works, including Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.
The disruption in programming has been met with widespread disappointment from artists who have had their productions affected and admiring audiences.
The theater postponed the world premiere of Fake It Until You Make It, a play by playwright and choreographer Larissa FastHorse, and a tour of Cambodian Rock Band, by the TV writer and playwright Lauren Yee.
FastHorse responded to the suspended season in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.
She expressed disappointment at the postponed opening, the first time a Native American playwright would have premiered at the Taper.
“This cancellation is part of a legacy that constantly reasserts that we have no power here. That we are never safe. Once again, our stories are disposable or just not relevant,” wrote FastHorse, who added that she was only given three hours’ notice about the cancellation before the published announcement.
Yee also shared her disappointment and surprise at CTG’s announcement.
“I found it extremely disappointing and shocking,” she said.
“We were really looking forward to bringing this show back to where it was birthed and fulfilling that relationship with the community, and that’s just something we’re not going to be able to do,” Yee said, referring to the Cambodian community in southern California.
CTG has not committed to bringing back Yee’s play, despite the tour being in the works since 2020.
“It’s basically a double blow,” said Yee, referring to the cancellation of the play and the lack of commitment to bring it back.
Yee acknowledged that the Taper was facing financial troubles, but pointed out that the theater made promises to artists, particularly artists of color.
“They have chosen not to fulfill that promise when they return to programming. I’m just very disappointed by that,” she said.
CTG, like many theater groups, has faced an onslaught of financial troubles.
The theater faces an $8m deficit in 2023, exacerbated by the lack of federal pandemic-era aid, reported the Los Angeles Times. Season subscriptions at the theater’s Taper and Ahmanson stages are significantly below their pre-pandemic levels, the New York Times reported, dipping by 35% and 42% respectively.
But many US theaters have been contending with similar financial challenges – namely decreasing donations, low attendance rates and high production costs.
The historic Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago announced last week that it would be laying off 50% of its staff and pausing programming until 2024.
New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music has made similar cuts, reducing its staff by 13% and cutting its programming.
Smaller theaters and institutions such as the Oregon Shakespeare festival and the Dallas Theater Center also have dealt with similar cuts and cancellations.
Teresa Eyring, executive director and CEO of the Theatre Communications Group, said the Taper’s announcement is a stark reminder that even larger institutions are still dealing with pandemic-era financial challenges.
“These challenges existed before the pandemic, but not at such an extreme level,” said Eyring.
“[Theaters] are starting from no one coming for a very long time to try to bring the audience back to the levels where they were before,” Eyring said, and added that rebuilding audience takes time and financial resources that some theaters do not have.
Meghan Pressman, managing director and CEO of CTG, said that the decision to suspend the Taper’s season was a collaborative decision given the theater’s financial troubles, with plans to bring back some of the postponed work.
Pressman said that CTG hoped to have a season in the Taper next year, as the group’s incoming artistic director, Snehal Desai, joins the company this summer.
Pressman emphasized that time was needed to figure out the theater’s business model moving forward, but noted that CTG officials would be working on special fundraising to support next season’s rollout.
“What we’ve done for the past year and a half since we reopened is say, ‘We’re back to normal. Please come back to the theater,’” said Pressman.
“The message we’re trying to send right now is: ‘We’re not back to normal and if you really want to make sure there’s this important part of your life moving forward, now is the time to show up and show that that’s meaningful to you.’”
Eyring added that support from patrons of the arts and federal and local government is key to the theater’s survival.
“There needs to continue to be an investment in making sure that this very important part of our communities is able to continue and to continue to grow back and to transform.”
• This article was amended on 13 July 2023 to clarify that CTG canceled part of the Mark Taper Forum’s current programming, which specifically featured the work of women and non-binary playwrights, and paused the 2023-2024 season.
