With Regional Theatre Tony win, Pasadena Playhouse is undoubtedly out of the woods

Feldman, a Los Angeles native and UCLA graduate who served as managing director of Reprise Theatre Company before becoming executive director of New York’s LAByrinth Theater Company, arrived at Pasadena Playhouse at a time of spiraling crisis. Soon after being appointed producing artistic director, he received a phone call from the chair of the board of directors saying the Playhouse would have to shut down again if it didn’t raise $1 million in a month.

Steadying the ship was the first order of business, and it took a fair amount of time. “Our revival of ‘Ragtime’ was our first big swing, and that was 2019,” Feldman said. “We were still at that point on shaky ground. That is why this feels so meaningful, because there were so many of us just a few short years ago who were not really sure whether we were going to get through.”

Under Brown’s leadership, the theater drew attention through its programming ambition. Premieres of demanding new works, including Eugene O’Neill’s “Lazarus Laughed” , were a staple. Festivals devoted to the full range of Shakespeare spoke to the scale and seriousness of the mission. In 1937, the state Legislature voted unanimously to designate Pasadena Playhouse the official State Theatre of California.The proximity to Hollywood added to the theater’s cachet.

After Brown died in 1960, the Playhouse began to falter. The Taper’s emergence in 1967 created a new cultural center of gravity and the rise of university drama departments eroded the Playhouse’s enrollment. Sputtering for years, at one point padlocked by the IRS, Pasadena Playhouse finally went dark in 1969. Wrecking balls hovered as the building moldered in foreclosure, but resurrection would not be denied even if it took the better part of two decades.

Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)

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