The financially troubled Circle in the Square theater, which declared bankruptcy last August, suspended operations Tuesday and laid off its staff, raising doubts that the 46-year-old institution will be able to survive.
Gregory Mosher, the theater's producing director, and M. Edgar Rosenblum, its executive producer, resigned, effective immediately."With the albatross of Chapter 11, we could not raise money," said Mosher, who added that he and Rosenblum intended to set up a new organization that would raise money to create a reconstituted Circle in the Square, possibly with the participation of some of the theater's present board members.
Wilbur Ross Jr., an investment banker who is advising the theater, said that a rescue organization would have to pay off the theater's liabilities, which include $1.5 million in debt and an IRS claim of $1.8 million, and come up with additional money to finance productions for the fall.
It is unlikely that foundations and other institutional donors "will contribute money to resolve the old liabilities, plus money for new productions," Ross said. Instead, he said, the theater is now dependent on whatever good will it has earned over the years with the general public, which must be the source of contributions. Time is running out for the theater, he said. "If they go dark for a whole season, it will be very difficult to revive."
The sudden decision, voted on by the board after it met with a bankruptcy court judge and creditors Tuesday afternoon, puts an end to a brief resurgence by the theater that began with the arrival of Mosher and Rosenblum in September. With a grand flourish, the partners presented the highly acclaimed production of "Stanley,' which earned three Tony nominations, for best play, best actor and best direction.
In an effort to attract a wider, younger audience, they also introduced the least expensive ticket on Brocdway: $10 for every seat at every show for anyone who bought a $38.50 subscription.
The reduced ticket prices placed an added burden on the theater's board to raise money to cover the shortfall in box-office revenues, and some in the theater industry wondered out loud whether the plan was sustainable. Mosher said that the theater's failure to emerge from Chapter 11, rather than the $10 ticket, was the problem. "The $10 ticket actually created fund-raising opportunities," he said.
The legal status of the theater remains unclear. Operations are suspended, but the board has not yet resigned.
Circle in the Square, New York's first nonprofit theater, was founded in a Greenwich Village nightclub in 1951 by Jose Quintero and Theodore Mann. It built its reputation presenting works by Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, with such actors as Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, James Earl Jones and George C. Scott.
Over the years it has produced 185 plays, 50 of them premieres. In 1972, the theater moved to its present home on West 50th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue.
In recent years, the theater has fallen on hard times, producing a string of box office and critical failures and experiencing management turmoil. Mann resigned last year but not before pulling a rabbit out of a hat. In a stroke that anticipated Mosher's experience with "Stanley," he presented Al Pacino in `Hughie," a hit that kept a flicker of hope alive. Shortly after Mann resigned, the board ousted Josephine Abady, whom he had brought to the theater to serve as a second artistic director.
The hiring of Mosher, a former artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, and Rosenblum, the longtime executive director of the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, represented a new beginning for the theater, but their adventure has been brief. Speculation that all was not well became widespread in late May, when Theodore Sayers, the theater's board chairman, resigned. Concerns grew with the theater's failure to announce a schedule of productions for next season.
"We just weren't prepared for what a burden Chapter 11 would be,' said Mosher. "If we made a mistake, that was it."