Plagued by millions of dollars of debt, the Pasadena Playhouse announced plans Friday to close its doors Sunday following the final performance of its current production, “Camelot.”
The nonprofit company that operates the theater intends to “explore viable options of financial reorganization, including bankruptcy, to determine a responsible solution for its ongoing operations,” according to a statement issued Friday by Playhouse executives.

“It’s sad, very sad,” said Pasadena City Councilman Terry Tornek, whose district includes the Playhouse. “It has been struggling for a long time as it tried to operate under a mountain of debt. If they stay dark, it will be a huge blow to the community. They are a valued institution in Pasadena. I don’t think people are shocked, because a lot of them knew the Playhouse was struggling, but they are wistful. It’s a critical institution that people value. It’s one of the things that is great about Pasadena.”

According to Playhouse Executive Director Stephen Eich, the theater faces more than $500,000 in bills and owes more than $1.5 million on bank loans and other debts that the nonprofit company inherited from the previous operator when it took over in the mid-’90s. It was not immediately known whether 8,000 subscribers who purchased advance tickets for upcoming shows will be reimbursed. According to Eich, as of now subscriptions have been suspended and all future productions have been canceled.

The Playhouse had announced earlier that the 2010 season would include “Havana,” a musical by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nilo Cruz, “Pastoral,” a sold-out Hot House reading written by Frank Tangredi, “Sight Unseen,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald Margulies, and Noel Coward’s “Fallen Angels.” Coward’s play — the story of two unappreciated married women anxiously awaiting a French man they each had an affair with years earlier — was expected to go to Broadway later this year.

“We have every intention of fulfilling our obligation to [our subscribers],” Eich told the Weekly. “They are the lifeblood of this organization, but right now we don’t know whether or how we will be able to reimburse our subscribers. We firmly believe it would be irresponsible to continue to operate in the same financial patterns of the past. Out of respect to the Playhouse’s venerable history, our loyal subscribers, and the many individuals, donors, businesses, government agencies, and others who have demonstrated their support for our efforts, we intend to meet this challenge head-on with strong fiscal oversight and transparency. We’re being honest about the situation in the hope that a donor will come forward.”

Hard times
How much will it take to make things better? The theater is looking for a $5 million donation to clear its debts and continue production.
Michele Engemann, chairwoman of the Playhouse Board of Directors, told the Weekly that no one was willing to compromise the quality of work put onstage.

“We don’t want it to go away, but it just needs to be restructured,” Engemann said. “The theater fully participated in the economic downturn. Despite the recession, we had a good year. Unfortunately, ticket sales don’t cover the cost of producing shows.”

Playhouse management is unable to use a recent $6 million donation earmarked for capital improvements to pay down the debt and plans to hire a lawyer to investigate other options, such as filing for bankruptcy protection. Despite the company’s debt, Artistic Director Sheldon Epps defended the theater’s operations. “We’re a healthy organization in terms of what we spend and bring in,” Epps said. “I suspect that without the debt we would not be in this situation.”

This isn’t the first time the Playhouse has closed its doors. Founded in 1917, the 684-seat auditorium housed in a Spanish Colonial building was designated the State Theatre of California in 1937. Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the Playhouse helped launch the careers of Raymond Burr, Robert Stack, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and Sally Struthers.

But in 1969 the theater’s owner filed for bankruptcy and the stage remained dark for 17 years. The city bought the building in 1975 and reopened it in 1986 with the help of a federal assistance grant from the US Economic Development Administration and matching funds from real estate developer David G. Houk, who was chosen by the city to renovate and reopen the theater. Eight years later, it again failed financially, but this time it managed to stay open. In 1996, Lyla White, mother of screenwriter Mike White, took over as head of the board of directors and used a major fundraising push to help keep the theater going.

In 1997, Epps was hired from the Globe Theatre in San Diego, where he was associate artistic director. “I feel like I’m paying alimony for a marriage I’m not in,” Epps lamented. “Since the mid-1990s, we’ve carried that debt that we inherited, but we’re also a successful operation. A huge amount has been sucked into debt service.”

In 2006, Academy Award-nominated actors Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne appeared in a sold-out rendition of August Wilson’s “Fences.”

In 2007, the Playhouse announced that architect Frank Gehry was donating his services to design a new, 300-seat theater to augment the main stage and remodel the existing second stage in the Carrie Hamilton Theater, which is named after actress Carol Burnett’s daughter. Burnett sits on the Playhouse board. Since September 2004 the Furious Theatre Company has been the resident producer in the Hamilton Theater, staging such shows as Neil LaBute’s “The Shape of Things,” Yussef El Guindi’s “Back of the Throat” and Craig Wright’s “Grace.” Furious uses the theater rent-free, but its future at the Playhouse is uncertain.

In 2009, Tony Award-winning actress Leslie Uggams starred as Lena Horne in “Stormy Weather.” Uggams told the Los Angeles Times that it would be a loss and a shame if the theater was not able to come back.

Others in the local theater community reacted much the same way.

“The loss of the Playhouse as an institution leaves an immeasurable hole in the cultural and artistic landscape and I can only pray that this is temporary, quickly remedied, and the Playhouse is restored to its necessary place in the community,” Jessica Kubzansky, co-artistic director with The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena, wrote in a memo to the paper.
“We can’t let another theater or another art institution close,” stated Tim Dang, producing artistic director of East West Players in Los Angeles. “Let there be a positive outcome that will be good for the theater, good for Pasadena, good for California and great for us all. Something creative and innovative.”

Online fundraising

Within hours of the announcement, a Facebook group hoping to save the Playhouse had sprung up asking for donations. By Monday morning, the group — which plans to raise $500,000 — had collected $8,800.

“My stomach sank when I heard about the closing of the Playhouse,” said Eric Andrist, who started the group. “It felt like I had just heard a family member was dying of cancer. I immediately started brainstorming and started the Facebook group. The membership has been growing exponentially while the pledges have come in slowly but surely. I’m now in the process of gathering items for an online auction and have a meeting to discuss a benefit concert and or a telethon.

“We’re getting donations from all over the country, [including] people who used to live here, parents of people who have performed at the Playhouse, actors living in New York. The Pasadena Playhouse is a well-known icon of theater in this country, aside from having the distinction of being California’s state theater. I think people see what’s happening here and think that if it can happen to The Pasadena Playhouse it can happen to any theater.”

‘Brutal’ meeting

The Playhouse’s financial woes became obvious in September when theater officials closed a production of “The Night of the Child,” starring JoBeth Williams, a week early in order to save money. At that time, only four employees had been laid off.

Last Thursday, 37 employees learned at what was described as a “brutal” staff meeting that they also would be let go.
“There was a deep, profound sadness in that staff meeting,” said Eich. “There was also an unspoken strength and resolve in that room to swallow this and see what we can do. This is a brutal time for the organization, but we hope a rebound is possible.”

Patty Onagan, the Playhouse’s press representative, identified three key factors that led to the Playhouse’s financial situation: the inability to obtain a multimillion-dollar donor to name the auditorium after, the absence of corporate and private sponsorship, and the current recession, which has hit Pasadena hard, forcing dozens of businesses to shutter and leaving the city of Pasadena with a deficit of more than $11 million.

Still, Eich expressed hope that the community and city government will come to the Playhouse’s aid.

“It’s up to everyone to keep it vital,” he said. “It’s unimaginable to me to have the Playhouse not operating in the Playhouse District. We hope to turn that sadness and emotion about the Playhouse closing into tangible action.”
Pasadena Public Information Officer Ann Erdman said that the city has its own financial troubles this year and will not be able to immediately assist the Playhouse get its financial house in order.

“There are no immediate plans for the city to provide assistance,” Erdman said. “We wish them well as they move forward with efforts to find solutions to their financial challenges.”

Still, Playhouse officials continue talking with city leaders in hopes of acquiring some help.

“The Pasadena Playhouse is vital to our cultural community and for the state of California,” said Engemann
in a statement released last Friday.

“In an effort to solve the financial realities of the theater, the Board concurs that the difficult financial circumstances of the Playhouse require an aggressive recovery strategy. We wholeheartedly support this decision [to reorganize financially].”

As far as Theatre @ Boston Court Co-Artistic Director Michael Michetti is concerned, that can’t happen soon enough.

“I sincerely hope Sheldon [Epps] and Stephen [Eich] will find a solution that will allow the phoenix to once again rise from the ashes and bring back to Pasadena and the greater Los Angeles area this cherished and historic theater company at a time when we need it the most,” Michetti wrote to the paper.

Reporters André Coleman and Jana J. Monji contributed to this story. For more reactions to the Playhouse closing, visit pasadenaweekly.com.

Over the years, business at Twin Palms in trendy Old Pasadena boomed, the restaurant hosting parties during the holiday season and entertaining busloads of tourists in town for the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game New Year’s Day.

But this year, as local companies look for less expensive places to share their waning holiday cheer, the restaurant launched 15 years ago by actor Kevin Costner and his former wife Cindy — who have long since sold their interest in the business — is closing as of Nov. 25.

Twin Palms is far from alone in giving up the ghost. Dozens of established businesses in Pasadena and Altadena are no longer able to make ends meet — victims of a relentless and apparently worsening economic recession.

Empty storefronts are a common sight around town. Across the street from Twin Palms, for instance, the Daily Grind at the corner of Green Street and DeLacey Avenue closed in October, less than a week after the management at Twin Palms announced its closing. Other once-popular dining and drinking spots in Old Town have also recently been shuttered.

“The worst economy since the Great Depression is having a significant impact on all businesses everywhere — and especially those businesses in the entertainment and leisure space, such as restaurants,” said Twin Palms spokesperson Lisa Cohen.

Much the same goes for neighboring Altadena, where several enterprises on North Lake Avenue alone have already gone under, such as the Altadena Nursery, which closed its doors in October.

“I was there for 25 years,” said proprietor Al Toma. “There has been a nursery in the building since the 1940s. It’s the economy. Business was very slow and I have not been able to make the lease. I saw the first signs about a year-and-a half ago, but you keep on saying to yourself, ‘It’s going to get better,’ but then you get deeper and deeper in the hole as you wait.”

No customers

Ben McGinty, owner of the Gallery at the End of the World in Altadena, said local leaders in his unincorporated community don’t seem concerned about the problems facing small business.

“These businesses can’t afford to stay in business anymore,” McGinty said. “If the revenue was here, if you had the public shopping and supporting our local businesses, it would be better. It’s always been slower up here, and it’s never been a priority to cultivate local retail.”

If it were, he said, “and more money was going to the county, the county would pay more attention to us. We have such a little base drawn from sales tax that it makes it not worth their bother.”

Business is not exactly booming on the southern end of Lake Avenue in Pasadena, either, where the Lighthouse Christian Bookstore recently closed after 19 years — one of several small shops failing in the past few months. A little further down the street, signs displaying lease offers are splashed across the windows of at least 20 businesses south of Del Mar Boulevard.

“California — especially Pasadena — seems to be six months behind the rest of the country,” Pasadena Chamber of Commerce President Paul Little told the Weekly. “It took us longer to get here. Even when IndyMac Bank fell,” he said of the first bank in a long line to fail at the start of the recession, “the rest of our economy stayed strong while the rest of the country was seeing the beginning of the recession. The other challenge is — even with claims that the recession is easing — the unemployment numbers are staying high and out-of-work people don’t eat in restaurants or buy books and drink $3 cups of coffee. There are fewer customers out there.”

“We do know that a lot of businesses on [North] Lake Avenue are struggling,” said Altadena Town Council Chairman Gino Sund. “I am going to place it on our agenda so we can look into it more closely.”
At least 10 businesses have closed this year in Altadena.

Finding the exact number of businesses that have closed in Pasadena this year proved to be a difficult task, one requiring the paper to file a Public Records Act request to see the numbers.

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and the Old Pasadena Management District said they do not keep information tracking business closures. The OPMD faxed the Weekly a list of addresses of new businesses, and businesses that would be opening soon. But that list did not include information on the closed businesses previously at those addresses.

Representatives of the South Lake Business District did not return phone calls requesting information about the vacancy rate in that area, and representatives answering the phone in the city’s Business Services Division told the Weekly that officials in that office would know the information. However, an employee in that division called the paper back and said that the paper would have to file a PRA with the city attorney’s office before the numbers would be released.

The city has 10 days to respond to the newspaper’s request.

‘Everything is in crisis’

Once a major Southern California shopping district, South Lake Avenue is today littered with empty storefronts. Much the same goes for Lake Avenue’s northern portion, where Woodbury Road serves as the line separating Pasadena and Altadena.

More than 20 years ago — prior to redevelopment funds transforming Old Pasadena from a place full of rundown buildings visited mostly by pigeons, artists and people down on their luck into a prime shopping destination — South Lake Avenue, anchored by Bullock’s and a number of expensive restaurants, was actually the place to shop in Pasadena. The difference between that vibrant past and the misery of today is stark.

“It’s hard to offset things like losing [high-end garden supplier] Smith & Hawken,” said Pasadena City Councilman Terry Tornek, whose council district includes South Lake Avenue. “While it is true they closed everywhere and not just here, it’s still a closed store. The region has too much retail, which means the pie is sliced into finer pieces, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that if the pieces of the pie are shrinking, everybody hurts.”

“We’re in a crisis,” New York-based retail consultant Howard Davidowitz told the Weekly. “The American consumer is completely underwater. The economy is in horrendous shape. We have gone through a banking crisis, an automotive crisis, unemployment is at 9.1 percent, and if you add the people whose full-time hours have been cut to part time, we are at 17 percent unemployment. Everything is in crisis.”

The Altadena ‘problem’

And the shrunken customer base isn’t shopping in Altadena, according to Steve Lamb, a former member of the community’s Town Council and its Chamber of Commerce. But part of the reason is that new Altadena residents are instead shopping and eating in Pasadena.

“The newcomers are not accustomed to shopping here,” Lamb told the Weekly. “I meet new people that have been here four or five years that live close to Woodbury Road and they never head north to eat or shop; they head straight down to Pasadena.”

That lack of patronage forced CJ’s Wings at Altadena Drive and Lake Avenue to shut down at the beginning of the year.

“Altadena is stuck in a situation where we don’t have a government that is designed to be responsive to the people,” said Lamb. Three times as many people vote for LA County supervisor in Pasadena than in Altadena. And “Pasadena has three times the votes we do, so we have no sway with [Supervisor Michael] Antonovich — and Pasadena has an interest in keeping Altadena underdeveloped,” he said.

Former Altadena Town Council Chairman George Lewis is being forced to close his business, Ronnie’s Automotive, which has been in Altadena since 1914 and featured in 200 movies, including “Million Dollar Baby” and “Transformers.”

“I no longer want to give LA County money so they can hire more people to come out and find another reason to screw you, and then not do the job they’re supposed to be doing,” said Lewis, who said he feels that small businesses in Altadena were being targeted and fined by LA County so the county can continue making money, even during the recession.  

Efforts made by Altadena business owners to get help from the Altadena Chamber of Commerce have fallen on deaf ears, according to Lamb and Lewis, who for years wanted the chamber to appeal to the county to loosen zoning standards, thus relieving business owners of costly fines for such things as not having enough parking spaces and operating outside of specified business districts.    

“Everything for them has been about doing their mixers and their annual golf tournament,” Lewis said of the chamber.
Lamb said that his efforts to try and start business associations in Altadena to help small businesses in dire straits were not supported by the Town Council.

“So businesses are like ‘Why try?’ They’ve tried for the last 30 years, and anyone who’s been around for that long knows that it’s just a stacked deck that’s impossible.”

According to chamber member Robert Meyers, all the chamber can do is refer business owners to people who can offer expert advice on loans and marketing.

“Ultimately, it’s up to the individual store owners to do something like start a business association,” said Meyers, who himself is closing Webster’s Hallmark Store, which he and his wife have owned for the past two years. “All the chamber can do is lead a store owner to an expert for business advice. They can’t do anything from a financial aspect.

“It’s just sad to see small businesses — family businesses in Altadena that have been here for years — having to close their doors,” said Meyers.

There are many contributing factors to today’s mass migration to online news sites. Two of them are the contradictions posed by so-called “objectivity” in print and broadcast mainstream journalism and stubborn uniform compliance with that concept.

The debate over objectivity and its misunderstood sibling, subjectivity, was central to my recent studies in the field at UC Berkeley and an internship before that at the Pasadena Weekly, after which I soon came to conclude that objectivity — at least in a strict sense — is unattainable. Even worse, when used in news gathering and reporting, it also sometimes leads to inaccuracies and partial truths.

By no means am I arguing that newspapers should revert back to the days of being operated by political partisans. Objectivity has an extremely useful purpose in the process of gathering, reporting and distributing news.

However, while dinosaur news organizations desperately cling to out-of-date standards of pure objectivity, the Internet is completely free of these ethical restrictions in revolutionizing the way people consume news in our increasingly participatory culture.

In the spirit of fairness (one former editor used to say that newspaper reporters really can hope only to be fair and honest), I have struggled with the implications of this long-standing tension firsthand.

As an intern with the paper, I wrote stories about local, state and federal issues and interviewed officials from each level of government.

But as a citizen, I ran for and won a seat on the Altadena Town Council (with the support of the Weekly), an advisory board with no spending authority that reports to LA County Supervisor Michael Antonovich. I was 19 and I had beaten the council’s 57-year-old vice chair with 63 percent of the vote.

I was a journalist in Pasadena and a politician in Altadena, neighboring communities dealing with many overlapping political, social, cultural and economic issues.

But then, as an elected official, I had forged together a second, seemingly incompatible vocation, raising important questions about how I would walk this very thin line.

My editor and I engaged in countless discussions about what role I should be playing and if and how I should use both positions to their best advantage; to the benefit of the community that I grew up in and loved.

I couldn’t be a regular reporter on issues facing the council. But in certain situations, we came to the conclusion that I could use the Weekly as a forum to discuss issues that concerned me, including those in which I was the central figure, as long as I included the voices of people who disagreed with me. (For an example, go to https://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/two_sides_of_the_same_coin/5585).

My case was unique, I admit. But I found that in journalism there must be a combination of both objectivity and subjectivity. Journalism is about dispassionately gathering facts and reporting them. That aspect of the business really is purely objective and crucial to the operation of an informative press.

But a person is not just a fact-gathering machine. People feel things about the stories they choose to focus their attention on, and that too should be part of the reporting equation.

In his book “The Logic of Practice,” acclaimed French social scientist, scholar and political activist Pierre Bourdieu attempts to erase the division between the subjective and objective by arguing that proper research must include the application of both concepts. I entirely agree, and my internship experience exposed me to ways of thinking about a new kind of journalism.

My experience with the Weekly wasn’t the only time that I found myself being part of the story. When I was writing about rural life in a poor, small village in Thailand, I had to live the way of the villagers, planting rice and other crops. I had to learn about their culture and beliefs and get to know them on a personal level. This need to truly understand the subjects of my story produced a non-negotiable, subjective immersion that incontrovertibly influenced the descriptions I provided to readers.

Both perspectives were needed, I felt, to paint a textual landscape that not only provided the reader with factual details of what life was like for these villagers, but also analysis, opinion and educated speculation, which many of today’s citizen journalists would include — and mainstream reporters should do more of.

The press should be a public square, a forum that fosters community discussion and awareness, not a stock ticker, or a list of sports scores, or the latest death toll without pictures to humanize the fallen. News offered on the unfiltered — uncensored — Internet already does all that and more and is already subjective to a large degree. If newspapers don’t soon follow suit, one of the greatest achievements in human history will tragically and unnecessarily fade into memory.

Contact Justin Chapman at aaronsindahouse@hotmail.com or tajlera.blogspot.com.