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.
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.
Labels: City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs, Warner Grand Theatre
9 Comments:
This was so much more insightful, thought provoking and interesting than that blah, generic, blame the cops/media/scared white people/dangerous minorities post from banditos yanquis.
Kudos, Calamari.
I think part of the problem is that the WG is such a beloved site and everyone is so grateful that it was saved that putting a critical spotlight on it makes people feel uneasy and maybe even afraid that the City will just say screw it and decide that it's not worth running. Our community needs to somehow get into crisis mode and demand more from a place that could and should be the center of a vibrant downtown. BTW this is the type of issue that Janice would easily go into full grandstand mode if she were pressured.
sp1979:
yea? well, that's just like your opinion, man...
Anon - In my opinion, the City has pretty much already decided it's not worth running and that's the problem. They seem absolutely unwilling to fulfill the mandate they created for themselves when they bought the theatre, which is not only to restore the building, but to restore the programming of the building.
This is an issue where council office attention could make a real difference, but I've never known Janice to really address the issue of the theatre's operation.
You seem to be really hot on the idea of top-down programming at the Warner Grand, but I'm curious as to how you would protect against the strong possibility of overly bureaucratic, "safe" and/or insiderish content?
I think that's an important question, in light of the comments made in the paper by Liz Schindler-Johnson of the Grand Vision Foundation where she seems to blame the genre or the band--rather than the fly-by-night promoter who promised and didn't deliver a headliner act--for last Friday's little tempest in a teapot.
Is there a revival theatre somewhere that's governed by committee? I don't know of one. That's the current model.
My biggest concern about a centralised authority running the theatre is that the City would create the new position and then hire from within. This is a problem that requires knowledge and flexibility that the City does not have.
Bureaucratic/stale authority could be avoided by the creation of a new non-profit (although I could imagine Grand Vision transforming to fill this role as well) which would manage the theatre privately. The city would essentially privatise all aspects of the operation, and simply fund the agency while providing oversight. As a non-profit, the entity that would operate the theatre could fundraise outside of the city for additional funds, take out loans to upgrade or replace equipment, and otherwise operate in a much more competitive environment than the City is capable of.
You can't blame the genre, although I feel the theatre is an inappropriate venue for any act where there's going to be dancing. There's a fair amount of blame that both the City and the promoter can share in this case.
I feel the theatre is an inappropriate venue for any act where there's going to be dancing.
OK, now, before we get all Footloose here let's take a deep breath and recognize that there are different kinds of dancing. Some kinds of dancing are just fine for a venue with seating all the way to the stage, and some aren't.
Slam pits, ballroom dancing, swing dancing, anything that requires you to move around or have a partner...well, it ain't going to work at the Warner. No doubt about that. On the other hand, the kind of stuff where people might want to get out of their seats and dance in place--jazz, funk, hip-hop, blues, that hippie jam shit--shouldn't be a problem at all, so long as it's understood (and enforced) that standing on the seats is a no-no.
Look, when they held Arthur Nights a few months ago at the historic Palace Theater in downtown LA, which also has fixed seats all the way down to the stage, people got up and danced during Devendra Banhart's set and the Earth wasn't knocked off of its axis or anything. I know, I've been, I've seen. Theaters are for people to have fun in, you know? I'm not saying be reckless, I'm just saying don't be too uptight.
By the way, Devendra was playing with a full band and they did a pretty uptempo, rocking set. Just so you don't think I'm talking about people doing delicate little interpretive dances to his quiet folky material or something.
Also, I don't think I should have capitalized "Earth": you only capitalize it when you use it as a proper name, without the definite article.
"An Earth-to-Mars mission has been proposed."
but
"Guys like you are the salt of the earth."
Pedants, please forgive me. OK, bye.
I've been trying to avoid going all John Lithgow (in Footloose) on the no dancing thing. I guess there has to be some leeway, but there needs to be some very capable and serious oversight.
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