New York Times on art in Los Angeles

I know this is a bit bigger than Pedro, but as the 15th District has five of the Department of Cultural Affairs twenty or so facilities, it's in our local interest to know what's going on at the general city level. The DCA is still without a permanent head, and has been struggling for years. New York, London and Paris get 10-15 million cultural tourists per year, and we get 2.5 million. There's nothing shocking or groundbreaking in the article, but it's worth reading for those of us of an arty bent.

Read the article here. Both the New York Times and the New York based arts magazines have been paying a certain amount of unusual attention to Los Angeles lately, as they try and puzzle out exactly what's going on out here on the West coast.

What's Going on at the Warner Grand?

As some of you may know, I used to be part of a group called the San Pedro Film Society, and we were one of the groups doing monthly programming at the Warner Grand Theatre. After about a year and a half of ongoing frustrations we decided to call it quits - there were too many uncertainties and problems with putting on events at the theatre.

During my time at working with the theatre, it became clear and obvious that the whole operation was off track. I don't care to speculate on the City's motives in purchasing the theatre, but I guess I am glad that they did - I don't know where it would be today otherwise.

The immediate failure of the City in its management of the Warner Grand is that it apparently had no plan or intention regarding the operation of the theatre, other than to do some basic restoration work and install what I hear was a $250,000 ADA compliant bathroom (the original bathrooms were all either upstairs or downstairs). Not once since acquiring the building has the City apparently contemplated programming the theatre in a professional or centralized manner.

Who to Blame?

I can't blame the management of the theatre for it's failings - they have never been given the tools, mandate or independence to do much besides handle it as a rental house and make sure the equipment is in working order. I can't really blame the Department of Cultural Affairs, either. How can a department that's been de-budgeted into irrelevance be expected to aggressively revitalize a 1500 seat movie house? They haven't even been given the opportunity to fail. Like most of the DCA's problems, I lay this one at the feet of the City itself - You bought it, and now you're responsible for running it, so get on it.

But there's stuff going on at the Warner!

Sure there is - but what kind of stuff? Is it filling the theatre? Is the theatre competing with the other single screen houses in Los Angeles? If a movie falls in the forest and nobody sees it did it happen?

What I can say is despite the great programming that occasionally graces the Warner Grand the theatre is dark most of the time. A theatre should be a center of daily activity - the kind of place you can go on a whim, not somewhere that you have to plan weeks in advance to see a movie. Movies usually only play for a single showing - if you're busy on Saturday night, then you missed it.

The theatre isn't designed as a concert house. It doesn't have wings that would make it appropriate for the performing arts. The seats don't come up, so you can't really have performances where people might be inclined to dance or stand up.

What this comes down to is that the city has managed to become responsible for running a single screen revival theatre with 1000 too many seats. Sure the stage allows for some non film programming, but unless you're going to spend millions redesigning the whole building - that's the situation at hand. So why isn't there a movie playing at the Warner every night?

What to do?

I've probably said this on here somewhere before, but the City needs to get its shit together and fund the ongoing programming of the Warner Grand Theatre. If the Warner Grand actually employed a professional booker/programmer, it wouldn't have the kind of anything goes, open door policy that allows things like the Bone Thugs-H-Harmony situation to happen. I highly doubt that the theatre has anywhere near the level of on hand personnel required to safeguard the beautiful art deco building and the half million dollars in seating that just got installed. When we premired We Jam Econo, which I warned them in advance would sell out the theatre, I was never asked to provide security personnel of any kind.

Face it - despite the welcome addition of new seats, the sound upgrade and other improvements, the one area that routinely goes unmentioned in discussions about the theatre is the serious need to bring all theatre programming under direct control. I don't care if the City wants to do it itself, or if a new non-profit should be formed to take over the programming operations of the theatre. What I do know is that it comes down to money, a fair amount of money, and that money needs to come from somewhere.

When I was working with the theatre, I figured it would take a couple hundred thou a year for several years to get the operation rolling. But here's the great part - the city can start slashing that budget pretty quick, since theatres make money. They sell tickets! And chow! And if the City is really smart, beer! The theatre needs to be able to keep the money it makes selling tickets and chow or renting the house so that it can fund future programming, unlike the system right now where the money just whirlpools its way into the general fund. That's how a theatre works! It's not difficult to understand.

A theatre isn't about its architecture, or the pattern on the cushion under your ass. The place could be a plain black box with a McDonald's exterior and do a better job of serving the community's needs than it does now. A theatre is about the daily life of the community, and the City has a responsiblity to contribute to the quality of life in the community by operating the theatre in a professional manner. Right now the city just looks at the theatre as an occasional source of general income, and that's so far away from how they need to operate it that it's not even funny.