For those of you outside of the LA area, or who have managed to avoid the firestorm around this already, you might be shocked to learn that Center Theatre Group, LA’s largest theater producer, and operator of the Ahmanson, the Taper, and the Kirk Douglas theaters, announced sweeping layoffs last week, including a complete disintegration of its new play development programs. Included in this are the New Work Festival and all the labs for Latino, Asian American, African American, and disabled artists. This comes shortly after new Artistic Director Michael Ritchie announced the Taper and Ahmanson’s 2005-2006 seasons, which I, for one, thought were less than groundbreaking. The Kirk Douglas season is yet to be announced.

After getting my foot in the door through the New Work Festival in 2003, I worked fairly consistently for CTG at all the theaters for almost two years. Needless to say, it saddens me to see this avenue of entry into CTG being closed. One of the main challenges of working in theater in Los Angeles is the difficulty in moving from waiver theater to LORT. It’s always been difficult for young or innovative artists to work on mainstage productions for CTG. And while the CTG development initiatives ended up being the furthest most artists could get, at least it allowed a broader swath of local talent access to the city’s largest producer. There was a relationship of some sort, which will no longer be there.

Ritchie played up the concept that CTG will partner with smaller companies to develop works. A lovely thought, but one that I hardly think will be executed effectively. Being new to Los Angeles, and having just laid off most of his staff who do frequent the local theaters, it seems hard to believe that this move would allow companies (rather than individual artists) to rise through the ranks and wind up producing large-scale theater to many hundreds of patrons. How would he even know where to find the appropriate productions? The only solution that would please the community, I think, would be to give over the Kirk Douglas entirely to co-produced works with local companies, a move which I doubt the stuffier folks in CTG administration would allow. As nice as it is to think of companies like SOSE co-producing with CTG, it just seems unlikely. Barring that, though, Ritchie has already taken a step backward, by creating a divide between CTG and the local artists who should be its bread and butter. While unknowing audiences may still keep the seats filled, the artists who should be growing up into working on Douglas and Taper productions may not be able to find that path, and look elsewhere.

The LA Times has coverage here, and noted local critic Rob Kendt analyzes the situation on his blog, The Wicked Stage.