The Los Angeles Times declared the Pasadena Playhouse a “theater of unusual beauty” when it opened May 18, 1925, and for the next hundred years it was a home for pure drama, onstage and off. Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill and F. Scott Fitzgerald staged world premieres, and Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman roamed the hallways of architect Elmer Grey’s Spanish Colonial Revival landmark. But with that starlight also came periods of darkness, including years when the building sat empty and derelict. In 2010, the theater company nearly closed for good.
All of which made the announcement Saturday night that much more startling: Pasadena Playhouse has paid $9.5 million to buy back the campus it lost in bankruptcy in 1970 — a remarkable feat for a theater organization, and a building, brought back from the brink.
Artistic Director Danny Feldman announced the purchase to supporters and board members during the theater’s 100th anniversary gala, held one day after the transaction was completed.
The 686-seat theater is only part of the Pasadena Playhouse property.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“As of yesterday at 11:35 a.m., we are now, once again, the owners of the building,” Feldman said at the gala, brandishing a giant gold prop key before a cheering crowd. “This key isn’t just the key to our building, it’s the key to our future.”
A projection of longtime supporter Carol Burnett filled the wall at the back of the stage. The Playhouse’s Carrie Hamilton black box theater is named in honor of Burnett’s daughter, who died of cancer at 38.
“I’m so sorry I can’t be with you in person to celebrate this historic night for Pasadena Playhouse,” Burnett said. “But I wanted you to know how very proud and grateful and happy I am that this magnificent theater is now back in the hands of the community that built it.”
The money spent on the 70,000-square-foot campus, which includes the theater, a restaurant and a six-story annex of office space, is part of a $15-million fundraising campaign that has less than $4 million to go.
When Feldman took over leadership in 2016, he said, the idea of owning the 686-seat theater was not on his radar. But after Pasadena Playhouse won the 2023 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and received international attention for ambitious productions and artistic excellence, the dream no longer seemed so unattainable.
The endgame isn’t just to own the building. It’s to make it a thriving, state-of-the-art theater for the next century, Feldman said.
Arriving at an appropriate sale price for the historic structure proved complicated, Feldman said, noting that the process began over the summer.
Artistic Director Danny Feldman gives a tour of the dressing room. He took over leadership in 2016.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“How do you value a 100-year-old building with significant deferred maintenance, but also priceless?” Feldman said, explaining the conversations that were had with the former owner, Brandon Varon.
Varon is the son of Burbank-based real estate developer Greg Varon, who bought the building in Bankruptcy Court for $4.5 million in 2001 after its previous owner, developer David Houk, filed for Chapter 11 protection.
The city also had a hand in the building’s Byzantine ownership structure after intervening to protect the theater, which was designated the State Theatre of California by the Legislature in 1937. Bank of America seized the building in the wake of the 1970 bankruptcy filing, and the complex sat neglected until 1975 when the city secured the building.
Those were dicey days, Feldman said, because the building was not yet on the National Register of Historic Places (a distinction that came in 1975). The building, which had sustained some fire and water damage, was in danger of being razed. Pictures from that period show a moldy auditorium with ripped carpets and uprooted seats.
Four years later, the city transferred ownership to Houk. He could restore the theater and develop the rest of the property on the condition that he lease the theater back to the city for $1 per year (an agreement that continued under Varon). The theater ended up sitting dark for 17 years until Houk reopened it in 1986.
A plaque commemorates the school of theater arts founded in 1928, which initially attracted silent film actors looking to train for the talkies.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The first substantial gift for the recent purchase came from board chair Brad King and his wife, Pamela, Feldman said. The Perenchio Foundation provided the lead gift, which was matched by philanthropists Terri and Jerry Kohl. Other major donors include the Ahmanson Foundation, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Harmon and Lea Kong, Leigh and Harry Olivar, Jane Kaczmarek, Bingo and Gino Roncelli, and Erin and Jeremy Baker.
Feldman, whose tenure began during another period of financial crisis, said that the theater needed renovations that would come only if the company owned the entire complex.
The theater was founded in 1917, and pieces of its history fill the property.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“We felt momentum. We had won the regional Tony. We were relatively stable. We were feeling good. We were starting to grow. We had launched our education program in a very significant way. And we were really firing on all cylinders, talking to philanthropists in town that hadn’t necessarily supported us in the past,” Feldman said. “So we felt like this is a good time to start those conversations.”
Before the sale, Pasadena Playhouse paid market-rate rent for its third-floor offices in the annex and the Carrie Hamilton theater. Varon rented out the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the annex, as well as the ground-floor restaurant space, most recently occupied by the now-closed Bar Chelou. When a pipe sprang a leak in the scene shop, for example, it was unclear who was responsible for fixing it, Feldman said.
Head props supervisor Douglas Puskas, right, with Feldman in the props room.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
An old photo of the dressing room hangs in the current dressing room of the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
During a tour of the property, Feldman showed off the theater’s extensive prop room with its boxes of fans, hula hoops, hats and row after row of glassware and old liquor bottles; its chock-full tool room; its rare soup-to-nuts scene shop; its antiquated dressing rooms with a community piano and dining table just off the main stage; its laundry room; a vast tiled shower room; ancient, unused urinals; and rooftop vistas.
Founded by Gilmor Brown in 1917, the Community Playhouse Assn. of Pasadena raised the funds to build a community theater that would rate among the finest in the country. In 1928, Brown created a school of theater arts, which initially attracted silent film actors looking to train for the talkies, and quickly gained a national reputation for excellence. Actors including Sally Struthers, Jo Anne Worley, Robert Preston, Mako, Raymond Burr, Jamie Farr and Anne Arden were on stage either as students or as cast members over the years.
The concept of community theater was new at the time of the theater’s founding, Feldman said.
Wig heads in the dressing room of the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“The struggle to bring the plan into being has only been accomplished by overcoming many difficult obstacles, because in character the project does not partake in the commercial,” a story in The Times about the theater’s opening noted. “It is really indicative of the growth and power of the community idea as applied to the theater, and in this respect the present playhouse is one of the most remarkable achievements that has been carried out anywhere in the country.”
This achievement is what Feldman most wants to revive now that the company owns its home again. The Playhouse launched its education department a few years ago, and it has grown to serve hundreds of young actors annually. The program used to hold classes at a church in Altadena, but since the Eaton fire, children have been attending classes at the Playhouse. A senior citizen musical is planned for next year.
The Pasadena Playhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Feldman envisions people of all ages roaming the campus, learning and participating in shows big and small. He wants to stage master classes, readings, experimental shows and salons. He hopes to do something novel with the restaurant space, but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. The building needs to be made more accessible to the disabled and the restrooms need to be renovated.
“Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor,” Feldman said with a smile, quoting a line from “Into the Woods.”
There is much work to be done — and a solid business plan must be written. But first, the Playhouse will revel in this latest bit of history.