You can tell a lot about a leader by the way he or she communicates. In conversations with the artistic directors of Pasadena Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse and Center Theatre Group last month, I encountered three talented and hardworking practical idealists confronting the same problem: how to make theater a vital part of the cultural life of Los Angeles in a period of grave economic, political and technological turmoil.
The challenge of figuring out a workable business model as production and personnel costs rise while old revenue streams dry up is bad enough. But the quagmire is made worse by the question of what audiences want in an age of abundant at-home entertainment options, tighter budgets and general fatigue from the merciless grind of modern life.
No one has to remind Pasadena Playhouse’s Danny Feldman, Geffen Playhouse’s Tarell Alvin McCraney or CTG’s Snehal Desai about the seemingly impossible nature of the situation before them. But the way they address their herculean assignments reveals the priorities and guiding principles of their artistic visions.
Feldman, who as producing artistic director oversees both the artistic and the business sides of the operation, exudes a high-octane brainstorming energy, ideas begetting ideas as he moves from the macro to the micro level in describing the mission of dynamically shoring up his historic venue, the official State Theater of California. McCraney has a more pastoral style, as though he’s not so much building an audience as assembling a congregation, leaving no soul behind in his charismatic quest to offer salvation through creative community. And Desai, at the artistic helm of the city’s flagship theater company (comprising the Ahmanson and the Mark Taper Forum at the Music Center and the Kirk Douglas in Culver City), gives off the quiet intensity of a mathematician working out a problem that has so far eluded the greatest minds in his field.
Lofty and pragmatic in equal measure, these leaders are reconstituting Los Angeles’ theater culture, fighting for the survival of nonprofit theater in America and shaping the future possibility of the art form, here and beyond.
These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Danny Feldman, Pasadena Playhouse
A lot has happened since we last sat down for an in-person interview. Pasadena Playhouse won the Regional Theatre Tony Award and bought back its historic building. But these are difficult times. How are you managing?
I’ll be radically candid with you. I’m having a very hard time next season. Other people are ready to announce their seasons. But it’s taking a while to respond to the world. Everything is changing so fast, and we’re slipping into authoritarianism. Can’t say it a different way.
I’ve been wondering about the impact of the political situation on arts institutions.
I’m privileged to sit in a seat where I have a platform. We’re the State Theater of California. That has meaning that we’re imbuing into everything we do. But how is that in conflict with an audience base that’s like, “The world sucks. Just give us something fun.” In these times, I don’t want to see “Mamma Mia!” necessarily. I love “Mamma Mia!,” for the record. But what are the plays that predicted our current situation? What are the plays to shake people and wake them up? We have to keep saying this isn’t normal. We are not just in George Bush-9/11 times. We are on the brink. I know that’s scary to say, and no one wants to hear that coming from a theater. I’m sorry. The challenge is that playwrights of today haven’t had the time to catch up. Just the length of time it takes to write a play, and we’re only a year into this moment. We have really not put into historical context the pandemic, how that’s changed us fundamentally. I want plays to engage with how we got here and what we’re going to do about it. Don’t just tell me what I already know.
How has your job changed?
There was a time when an artistic director could pick five things they wanted to do and then do them. We are so far beyond that. It is this matrix of diverse playwrights and stories, and this audience wants this and that audience wants that — just to keep it all going. Why I think I’ve had some success navigating all of this is that my dream producer is someone like Hal Prince. It’s not just artistic direction, because you’re thinking about the marketing while you’re making a thing. I’ve been here 9½ years. Now Season 1 was not my season. And Season 3 was a pandemic for two years. So it’s a weird journey.
How big is your house?
643 seats.
That sounds like a good size for plays.
Here’s the problem, Charles. What off-Broadway theater produces new work in a 640-seat space? Zero. The Public Theater’s largest space is about 300. There’s this burden regionally, not just here in L.A., but regionally. Why aren’t you doing the edgy new work? It’s like you can’t even do this in New York and we’re here. My production shot of the month [pointing to a screen in his office] is of “Sanctuary City.”This is the production [presented in the fall of 2022.] that broke my heart, that fundamentally changed me as an artistic director. I love my musicals, but this was the favorite thing I ever did. I was very involved in the process, and it was the lowest-selling play of my time here by a mile. And it was also the first play that our young staff fell in love with. We loved these young actors, we put our arms around this play and made it with care. In the final week, we were giving away free tickets. It was more important for me to have people see it.
Would this inhibit you from producing work like this in the future?
No, I’m crazy. But if that’s all I did, we’d be bankrupt, right? I have a really good leadership team around me, and we think that productions like “Amadeus” and our musicals put pennies in the piggy bank with our patrons. So then we can do something like Julia Masli’s “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,” producing weird Estonian performance art in the largest theater it’s ever been in. Where does that belong in our definition of regional American theater? It does not. Some of our audience members were like, “What the hell is this? Get me out of here.” But I would say 50% of our subscribers were like, “This made me feel good. And I can’t even explain what it was. It was bizarre.” That’s because we started building an audience with things like the Sondheim Celebration. I have to do enough of that, so that they’re more open to different experiences that stretch them, that stretch me.
Have people become more reluctant to take chances on theater because they’d rather stay home?
That’s the fundamental pandemic change. The organizing principle of what a night out is has also fundamentally changed. There’s a generational divide. The boundaries you and I put on work — this is performance art, this is theater, this is music, this is opera — for younger audiences, it’s just a night out. It’s a thing to do. The passive arts experience is less interesting to them. The trend is that they’re makers, content creators.
So the old way isn’t going to work anymore?
I’m on calls with theaters all around the country on a weekly basis. Everyone agrees that the business model doesn’t work. Costs are rising, ticket sales can’t keep up. OK, who’s doing something different? Who’s trying a new thing? That is the charge now of being an artistic director.
How are you adapting to these changing times?
We’re telling a story over time. And I think seasons, which we’re so often judged by, are really a marketing tool, designed to sell subscriptions. A big chunk of my audience has been here since my first show and is growing with me. We’re having this conversation about what is a classic, what is a new play. One of the things that differentiates us from the Pantages and from other touring houses is that artistic directors are building a body of work. We’re trying to change our organizing principle from a place that produces five things a year to a place that is building a long-term relationship with a community. The Sondheim Celebration was really an experiment in saying that for six months of a season we’re going to explore someone’s work through community productions, through contemporary artists doing cabarets, through our own revivals. It was about shaking up the organizing principle and separating ourselves from the Pantages.
I think we have the opportunity to have new conversations and really redefine what a regional theater is, particularly in contrast to a commercial theater. Particularly in contrast to tours. They’re fundamentally different animals. At Pasadena Playhouse and other nonprofit theaters, it’s the body of work, the longer-term conversation we’re having with audiences that connects the dots. I don’t look at seasons. I look beyond seasons. This isn’t just the theater that did the Sondheim Celebration and this cycle of American musicals. It’s the theater that’s putting “Brigadoon” next to “Mexodus” deliberately. The American musical is our legacy and this theater is celebrating that and giving audiences over a long period of time a chance to explore that. And we’re doing the same thing with classic plays, from “Amadeus” to “Inherit the Wind” to “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
So you have faith that you’re on the right track.
The health of the organization is stronger than it’s been in a very long time, probably ever. We are still dealing with what everyone is dealing with, the separation of the hits and the not-hits, balancing what audiences are asking for while trying to expand our audience. We have radically changed our business model. Ten percent of our revenue is now coming from education. That’s not nothing. When I look at the health of the American theater, it is not smaller or more elite. The founding idea of this building was not about world-class theater. The founding idea was that this was the first theater in the world built by a community. They paid for it and they were onstage and they made the costumes. The theater was a place for civic engagement. What does that look like if you transpose that to our world today, a world in the midst of an isolation epidemic? Our role is not just to create a new play that gives you a great night. Our role is to bring people together.
JUMP TO: Pasadena Playhouse | Geffen Playhouse | Center Theater Group
Tarell Alvin McCraney, Geffen Playhouse
How would you characterize the health of the Geffen Playhouse right now?
We are sustainable right now. What we are doing, we are sustaining and able to sustain. But that sustainability is precarious in that if something, when something, happens, we’ll need help and we’ll need it in a big way. And in order to reach our goal of being a world stage, we need the resources to make that happen. [Geffen Playhouse founder] Gil Cates Sr. put a lot of wonderful seeds in the ground and we’re just trying to help make them come to fruition.
Tell me about some of those seeds.
One of the things that we’re really looking forward to is that Westwood will be host to about 30,000 athletes at the LA28 [Summer Olympics]. That is going to draw a lot of folks to this area. We’re thinking of putting theater right outside, so that they can walk right into a festival that is showcasing L.A. theater happening on the street during the summer. We want that to happen so that when the Olympics are over, we can sustain that for our community. But we need the resources to make that mark. That’s a vision that was left here that I’ve just really been excited about.
Has the funding environment become more difficult?
There’s been a pendulum swing. There are moments when folks feel like the art is an inheritance to be passed on to future generations. And so they give with that in mind. But then every now and then, people go, “Well, the butts in the seats should pay for that space.” And we have to remind them that that’s never how not-for-profit organizations have worked. Yes, we want the shows to pay for themselves, but the operation of the organization has never been fully funded by people just coming to see the work. It has always been through great, generous philanthropy, fueled by the understanding that communities need these institutions and organizations to be better societies. Those places where we gather for this kind of discourse are becoming less accessible and more terrifying.
Terrifying?
We were doing shows about folks who speak Spanish, work from a Latiné experience, and were trying to reach out to this audience. But community groups told us that folks were afraid to go into public places where there was advertising for Latiné audience members.
Because of what’s happening with ICE?
Yes. Now, if we are really concerned about future generations, if we really care about the health of our communities, the five miles around this theater, the 20 miles around this theater, we’ve got to make sure that there is accessible, quality work happening that engages us, head, heart and spirit.
Have you been holding on to your audience base?
One of the things that is exciting to me is that when I talk to our marketing team, when I talk to our ticket sales folks, I’m told that our single tickets are continuing to rise. Our subscriptions are staying even, or fluctuating just up and down. But single-ticket sales continue to go up, and in ways that are unexpected and that we’re still having to learn about.
The crowds attending on opening nights seem noticeably younger.
I came at a time when 20% to 30% of our audience had self-selected out of being an audience because of COVID and COVID restrictions. If I survived something as horrific as what the pandemic did to the older population and decide that I must spend more time walking outside, I don’t think you fault that choice. But we’ve opened up a lot to our donors and subscribers, taking them behind the scenes, letting them into the artistic process. People love talking about our sets. We have these donor events where we’re like, “Hey, get to know the designer,” and 90 people show up. They want to talk about the plays in all different ways. When we did “Waiting for Godot,”they came to the Beckett symposiums we had.
The Geffen Playhouse used to have an image as the entertainment industry’s local theater.
We still have a lot of industry folks, and they do tend to be producers, directors and writers. I’ll tell you a quick anecdote: I was at the Sundance Lab program recently, and I started asking some of the other mentors if they had been to the Geffen Playhouse. And they were like, “Oh, I used to go to the Geffen all the time.” And I was like, “Oh, what happened?” They said their house burned down in the Palisades. Six, seven people. That number is not hyperbolic. I think I’m low. This organization lost a whole class of working artists in film and television who were being nourished by what we did. They haven’t come back, and some of them can’t come back. When we convey this to larger donors and corporations, I have to explain that it’s not because they were turned off by the Black kid who’s running the theater. The folks that I met told me that they loved when “Fat Ham”came to the Geffen. But something as sweeping as a fire can change the landscape. The ecosystem is different, and we’re not built for that kind of swift change.
How do you choose your offerings? What’s the collaboration like between Executive Director/CEO Gil Cates Jr. and yourself? Are there Tarell plays and Gil Cates Jr. plays?
Gil is an incredible partner. All he wants to know is, do we think we can do it well, the best of anyone doing it, and, yes, can we afford it. The cabal that makes it happen is the artistic department. We bring in plays, and someone has to be passionate about the work for us to really dig into it. But everything that’s programmed goes through me.
Has it become harder to sustain the public’s interest in the art form — in plays, in particular?
I believe it’s a calling to do what we do. I believe it has the capacity to change people’s hearts, so that keeps me coming in. I think what’s happening is that there are communities that are absolutely being welcomed in and that there are folks who are showing up and getting the word out. I think word of mouth still is alive in this world.
Have you faced any backlash to your diversifying efforts?
In full transparency, it’s not like I’m trying to diversify the Geffen any differently than the Geffen has been. Quincy Jones was on the board. The people who are stakeholders in this organization have been diverse from the start. I have been focusing on making sure that there is a community celebration, and growing our community means making sure that the stakeholders in the play are here to see the play. My brain doesn’t go, “I have to shake this place up.” It goes, “That’s an incredible play. And we have to support this artist who is an early-career artist, a Black woman, a Latiné woman or XYZ. And how do we do that?”
Do you have faith in these precarious times that you can get the resources you need to realize your communal vision?
I do believe that there is hope. I do believe that it’s an uphill battle. It’s been an uphill battle for 20 years. Yes, and there are things — fires, COVID, economics — that make it challenging. But I see what my forerunners went through and I don’t think I have it any harder. I think it’s different.
JUMP TO: Pasadena Playhouse | Geffen Playhouse | Center Theater Group
Snehal Desai, Center Theatre Group
Since we talked last in 2024, just before the reopening of the Mark Taper Forum, how has the health of CTG changed?
I think the biggest thing is how, as an organization, we’ve come together under this “One CTG” model, allowing us to consolidate resources. We have a smaller staff than we used to, and so the simultaneous programming is something that we have to be very careful about. We don’t have fully dedicated staff at each venue like we used to. But what is happening is that our audience base is moving between the venues, and that’s really bolstering things at all the theaters, particularly at the Taper. And similar to when I was at East West Players, when we were also in a challenging time, it’s both about butts in the seats and the experience of audience members. Folks need to see a theater that is alive, and that helps spur the support that follows. You can’t have one without the other. And so it was important for me to reopen the Taper and for audiences to have a really positive experience. And I see that holding up this season.
Was the Taper audience eager to come back? Or have you had to find a whole new audience?
I have to say, they’ve been very generous about supporting the One CTG model. I’ve been hearing about what things they like and what they don’t like. A lot of folks were like, “I do the Taper because I don’t like musicals. And now you’re doing musicals there,” or “I wanted to see something with local artists,” or “I’m interested in plays that are trying to get at social issues” and that they didn’t feel that the Ahmanson always did that kind of work. So we’re just trying to find the balance. The folks at the Ahmanson want to see stuff that is oftentimes touring or coming from Broadway, and they want fare that can be, I don’t want to say lighter, but entertaining in a different way.
Who determines what’s presented at the Ahmanson?
I’m in charge of the overall artistic decision-making for the organization, and now, with one CTG season, it is all my artistic vision. But everyone plays a role in it, particularly at the Ahmanson, where there are financial considerations. We are programming at the Ahmanson for shows that will provide revenue that supports the larger operation. So [producing director] Douglas C. Baker and [managing director/CEO] Meghan Pressman are very much involved in those conversations. They’re looking at those numbers, and all of us are in conversations with producers and scouting projects. But we’re not going to put something on our stages that is not in alignment with the artistic vision that I’ve set out for the organization.
Are you finding it harder to get the public’s attention these days?
I do think everything has to feel like an event. And then you have to be clear about the times and the dates. For short runs, it always feels like the word is just getting out and then we’re closing. But I do think it’s hard to break through the noise. There aren’t the traditional channels of advertising. You have to hit folks in different ways. And word of mouth is still the biggest thing.
Are we still in a postpandemic malaise, or are the cultural changes about how we consume entertainment just a permanent part of the new technological landscape?
It was a double-edged sword out of COVID. One thing that came out of that experience is that we realized how precious our time is and how much more selective we want to be about things. The other thing we realized, though, is how much we yearn for human connection and being with others. Sitting at home watching Netflix, you just don’t have a transcendent experience. But the other thing with theater is, it’s become harder to take a risk on things that are unknown. That’s why musicals and plays that are familiar tend to fare better. When something is completely new, there needs to be a much longer runway to build an audience.
When I talked with you and Meghan last, just as you were about to announce the reopening of the Taper, the goal was to become a sustainable operation. How far along are you in terms of that goal?
I think there’s always going to be a give-and-take and an ebb and flow. We are still at a reduced staff, so now it’s about building back. As we program more at our spaces, we’re going to have to bring in the infrastructure and the team to support that expansion. So there’s the direct cost of shows and then there’s everything around that. That’s going to take time. The hope is that we build pragmatically, in steps, even if that means we have to stay where we are a little bit longer. I think everyone is trying to figure out how to hold where we are and what the long game is.
What would allow for sustainable expansion? A string of hits? A donor sweeping in with a big check?
I’m very proud, particularly at the Taper, of the audience numbers we have. But we’re a nonprofit for a reason. The amount it costs to mount the shows and the amount of income that’s generated — there’s always a gap. And that gap just keeps getting larger. Even a hit that extends, it can only extend so long given our calendar, so there’s still going to be a gap.
And this gap has been exacerbated by inflation, the tariffs and the cost of doing business.
It’s all of those things. And also trying to find a ticketing model that is accessible for everyone at different price points. I can’t sell, nor do I want to sell, every ticket at $250.
So what would it require to be able to expand again?
It’s two things. It’s the resources to long-term invest in projects that will pay dividends over time. As you know, most projects that are commercial take about five to 10 years. So it’s seed money and support for long-term investment for shows that could pay off for us in the long term. And then it’s just financial support to help fill in that deficit.
Back in the day, the Ahmanson was CTG’s cash cow. You had a strong season at the Ahmanson. Is that funding model still working?
To a certain extent, but we are seeing less revenue at the Ahmanson. And so that gap we have to fill is that much larger.
What’s behind that?
The decline in the number of shows that are touring and what our pick is of those shows. “& Juliet”was a huge hit, but it still didn’t provide the box-office cushion we thought, just because of how expensive it is to tour shows.
So is there a solution?
I think flexibility and nimbleness are going to be the key. My hope with Taper shows, and we’re looking at this at the Ahmanson, is that if we have something that is a huge hit, we could potentially just keep it running long enough to recoup and then pay us dividends. But those are hard shows to come by. I think the riskiest investment is in a Broadway show, because with most of those you don’t see any return. Finding partnerships with other regional theaters is a way to reduce costs. And then it is also about being creative in how you produce. Creating shows that still allow us to rely on our imaginations. But we live in a world where we want everything to be so literal, which can be costly.
Where are you finding hope?
The next generation is what is giving me hope. We’ve expanded our youth programming, and we’ve had a huge response from that, from families, from schools, from community centers. And we’re seeing that those are the places that bring groups to our shows. In some ways, the new subscription model is a groups model. That’s how you’re going to get folks to commit to shows in advance. I’m also looking forward to the 60th anniversary of CTG in 2028, which is then going to feed into the Olympics. That will allow us to have a bigger moment organizationally.
Has the toxic political situation had an impact on how you go about doing your job?
It has. As a company that welcomes L.A. communities into our spaces and onto our stages, we are deeply impacted when those same communities are living in fear and having their rights taken away right outside our doors. The curfews in downtown when all the ICE stuff was happening in June [when CTG had to cancel numerous performances of “Hamlet”] made it very visceral to be here.
What about the government’s campaign against DEI? Has that had any impact?
It’s a great question. What has been unexpected is the ferocity with which folks will go after you for what you are doing. So, coming from East West Players, having been in the city for a long time, I’m in a job where I know I’m not going to be able to make everyone happy. And so there’s a part of me that is just going to have to stay connected to the core of what CTG is for our community, for L.A. and for where we’re going.
JUMP TO: Pasadena Playhouse | Geffen Playhouse | Center Theater Group
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