LATC Votes to Cease Operations on Sunday : Theater: The financially troubled company ran out of options to stay in business at downtown site.

By FREDERICK M. MUIR

Oct. 11, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Los Angeles Theatre Center, once a beacon for downtown cultural revitalization, will take its final curtain call Sunday after trustees of the insolvent theater company voted Thursday night to cease operations.

“When you’re out of money, you’re out of money,” said Kent Damon, president of the board of trustees in announcing that the critically acclaimed theater will close after six years of operation on Spring Street downtown.

The theater was known as much for its many 11th-hour reprieves from financial collapse as for its unique four-stage complex and experimental works. It will leave about $1 million in debts and put 80 employees out of work, Damon said. There will be no refunds to season subscribers, he added.

Bill Bushnell, founder and artistic director of the center, seemed bitter after the board vote, and said he holds out hope that a benefactor will be found to keep the operation afloat.

“I would hope that some method will be found to allow us to continue,” said Bushnell, on the losing side of the board’s 7-3 vote.

Despite the theater’s reputation for dramatic last-ditch funding appeals, LATC attorney Rick Cohen denied that the board is “crying wolf.”

“The board voted to close its doors,” Cohen said. “That’s a firm decision.”

The impending closure ends a unique urban redevelopment experiment, in which the LATC was to be a linchpin for a revival of downtown’s derelict Spring Street. The theater is also threatening to shut down the minority theater workshops that were nationally recognized.

“What scares me is that once a theater goes dark, it’s awfully hard to relight it,” said Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum, who Thursday night was attending a preview of “Lay of the Land” that had been scheduled to open at LATC next week.

A spokesman for Mayor Tom Bradley said: “The mayor is committed to the presence of theater on Spring Street. He has contingency plans, no matter what happens.”

Spokesman Bill Chandler said he could not reveal what those plans include, but sources said there were negotiations throughout the day Thursday with the LATC, the mayor’s office, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Community Redevelopment Agency, which owns the renovated bank building that houses the theater group.

CRA Chairman Jim Wood said he and the cultural affairs officials have been contacted by several theater groups interested in presenting their works in the LATC complex. Bushnell said that he also may consider producing works at the center, though it will likely have to be with a new company.

The board’s vote to end LATC’s run followed another last-minute fund-raising appeal. But, unlike a similar effort in August that raised $500,000, this one came up short.

CRA officials have said they are reluctant to add any more funds to the $27 million the agency has invested in the theater group since 1982.

Before the decision to close, LATC officials were also attempting to persuade the Arco Foundation to release a $200,000 grant six months early. Arco spokesman Al Greenstein said: “The company has no intention of doing that. . . . Arco has already given the LATC $800,000 in the last four years. Others must make their fair share of contributions.”