The Ahmanson Theatre is one of the four main venues that compose the
Los Angeles Music Center
The Music Center (officially named the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County) is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States. Located in downtown Los Angeles, The Music Center is composed of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilio ...
.
History
The theatre was built as a result of a donation from
Howard F. Ahmanson Sr
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson Sr. (1906 – June 17, 1968) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the founder of an insurance and savings and loan association, H.F. Ahmanson & Co. He made his fortune during the Great Depressi ...
, the founder of
H.F. Ahmanson & Co., an insurance and savings and loans company. It was named for his second wife, businesswoman and philanthropist
Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson
Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson (April 12, 1918 – June 21, 2005) was an American fashion consultant, businesswoman and philanthropist. She was a corporate director of The Walt Disney Company and the Fluor Corporation. She served as Chairman of the ...
.
[David Wise, ''Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China'', Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, p. 3]
/ref>
Welton Becket, Welton Becket & Associates was the architect. Construction began on March 9, 1962 and was undertaken by Peter Kiewit & Sons (now Kiewit Corporation). The theatre's inaugural event was held on April 12, 1967, with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association sponsoring the national cast production of ''Man of La Mancha
''Man of La Mancha'' is a 1965 musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay '' I, Don Quixote'', which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cerva ...
'', starring Richard Kiley
Richard Paul Kiley (March 31, 1922 – March 5, 1999) was an American stage, film and television actor and singer. He is best known for his distinguished theatrical career in which he twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor In A Musical. Kiley ...
and Joan Diener
Joan Diener (February 24, 1930 – May 13, 2006) was an American theatre actress and singer with a three-and-a-half-octave range.
Early life
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Diener majored in psychology at Sarah Lawrence College and moonlighted as ...
. The theatre also was the U.S. premiere of '' More Stately Mansions'' starring Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary '' Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is ofte ...
, Arthur Hill, and Colleen Dewhurst
Colleen Rose Dewhurst (3 June 1924 – 22 August 1991) was a Canadian-American actress mostly known for theatre roles. She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early drama ...
, which opened September 12 of that same year. Since then, it has presented a wide variety of dramas, musicals
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ...
, comedies
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term origin ...
and revivals
Revival most often refers to:
*Resuscitation of a person
*Language revival of an extinct language
* Revival (sports team) of a defunct team
*Revival (television) of a former television series
*Revival (theatre), a new production of a previously pr ...
of the classics, including six world premieres of Neil Simon plays and works by Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 – January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. She was an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She received the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989 ...
, August Wilson
August Wilson ( Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called ' (or ...
, A.R. Gurney, Terrence McNally, John Guare and Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as '' The Zoo Story'' (1958), '' The Sandbox'' (1959), '' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), '' A Delicate Balance'' (196 ...
. The Ahmanson also has served in the capacity of co-producer for a number of Broadway productions, including '' Amadeus'', '' Smokey Joe's Cafe'', '' The Most Happy Fella'', and '' The Drowsy Chaperone''.
The theater was also home to the Los Angeles production of '' The Phantom of the Opera'' which ran at the theater from 1989 to 1993. It opened with the original London and Broadway Phantom Michael Crawford as the Phantom. He was later replaced with actor Robert Guillaume
Robert Guillaume (born Robert Peter Williams; November 30, 1927 – October 24, 2017) was an American actor and singer, known for his role as Benson DuBois in the ABC television series ''Soap'' and its spin-off, '' Benson'', as well as for voi ...
, and then Davis Gaines
Davis Gaines (born January 21, 1954, Orlando, Florida) is an American stage actor.
He has performed as the Phantom in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ''The Phantom of the Opera'' over 2,000 times, on Broadway, on tour, in Los Angeles, and in San ...
.
The Ahmanson has the largest theatrical season-ticket subscription base on the West Coast. Its year-round season begins in early fall and lasts through late summer.
1990s renovation
Throughout 1994, a major $17 million renovation moved the mezzanine and balcony closer to the stage, reduced the width of the auditorium, lowered the ceiling and significantly improved the acoustics, which had long been criticized since the theater's opening. It also allowed the theatre's seating capacity
Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile tha ...
to be reconfigured from 1,600 seats for an intimate play to 2,084 for a major Broadway-sized musical.
Designed by Ellerbe Becket Architects and constructed by Robert F. Mahoney & Associates, the renovation took eighteen months to complete. During this time, the Ahmanson's season-ticket subscriptions were presented at the UCLA James A. Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood. The Ahmanson reopened on January 25, 1995, with an -month-long run of ''Miss Saigon
''Miss Saigon'' is a stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madame Butterfly'', and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed rom ...
''.
World premieres
The Ahmanson served as the world premiere venue for the following plays and musicals:
* ''The Happy Time
''The Happy Time'' is a 1952 American comedy-drama film directed by the award-winning director Richard Fleischer, based on the 1945 novel of the same name by Robert Fontaine, which Samuel A. Taylor turned into a hit play. A boy, played by Bobb ...
'' (1967) – Book by N. Richard Nash, Music by John Kander Lyrics by Fred Ebb, Directed by Gower Champion
* ''Catch My Soul
''Catch My Soul'' is a 1974 film produced by Jack Good and Richard M. Rosenbloom, and directed by Patrick McGoohan. It was an adaptation of Good's stage musical of the same title, which itself was loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's ''Ot ...
'' (1968) – Book by N. Richard Nash, Music by Ray Pohlman
Merlyn Ray Pohlman (July 22, 1930 – November 1, 1990) was an American session musician and arranger who played both upright bass and bass guitar, and also did sessions as a guitarist. He is credited with being the first electric bass player i ...
Lyrics by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
* '' Love Match'' (1968) – Book by Christian Hamilton, Music by David Shire Lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr.
Richard Eldridge Maltby Jr. (born October 6, 1937) is an American theatre director and producer, lyricist, and screenwriter. He conceived and directed the only two musical revues to win the Tony Award for Best Musical: '' Ain't Misbehavin (1 ...
* '' Remote Asylum'' (1970) – written by Mart Crowley, starring William Shatner
William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the starship ''Enterpris ...
* '' California Suite'' (1976) – written by Neil Simon
* '' Chapter Two'' (1977) – written by Neil Simon
* '' They're Playing Our Song'' (1978) – Book by Neil Simon, Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch (June 2, 1944 – August 6, 2012) was an American composer and conductor. Hamlisch was one of only seventeen people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. This collection of all four is referred to as an " E ...
, Lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager
* '' The West Side Waltz'' (1981) – written by Ernest Thompson, starring Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited perso ...
and Dorothy Loudon
* '' Brighton Beach Memoirs'' (1982) – written by Neil Simon, starring Matthew Broderick
* '' A Sense of Humor'' (1983) – written by Ernest Thompson, starring Jack Lemmon
John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor. Considered equally proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in dramedy pictures, leadi ...
, Estelle Parsons
Estelle Margaret Parsons (born November 20, 1927) is an American actress, singer and stage director.
After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program '' Today'' and ...
and Polly Holliday
* ''Biloxi Blues
''Biloxi Blues'' is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon. It portrays the conflict of Sergeant Merwin J. Toomey and Arnold Epstein, one of many privates enlisted in the military stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi, seen through the eyes of E ...
'' (1984) – written by Neil Simon, starring Matthew Broderick
* '' Legends!'' (1986) – written by James Kirkwood, starring Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) was an American actress and singer. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles on stage over her career, including Nellie Forbush in ''South Pacific'' (194 ...
and Carol Channing
* ''Proposals
Proposal(s) or The Proposal may refer to:
* Proposal (business)
* Research proposal
* Proposal (marriage)
* Proposition, a proposal in logic and philosophy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''The Proposal'' (album)
Films
* ''The Proposal'' ...
'' (1997) – directed by Joe Mantello
Joseph Mantello (born December 27, 1962) is an American actor and director known for his work on Broadway productions of ''Wicked'', '' Take Me Out'', and '' Assassins'', having gained notoriety in the 1993 cast of ''Angels in America''.
Early l ...
* ''Curtains
A curtain is a piece of cloth or other material intended to block or obscure light, air drafts, or (in the case of a shower curtain), water. A curtain is also the movable screen or drape in a theatre that separates the stage from the auditorium ...
'' (2006) – Book by Rupert Holmes, Music by John Kander Lyrics by Fred Ebb, Directed by Scott Ellis
* ''9 to 5
Working(laboring) time is the period of time that a person spends at paid labor. Unpaid labor such as personal housework or caring for children or pets is not considered part of the working week.
Many countries regulate the work week by law, s ...
'' (2008) - Book by Patricia Resnick, Music and Lyrics by Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman, known primarily for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album ...
, Directed by Joe Mantello
Joseph Mantello (born December 27, 1962) is an American actor and director known for his work on Broadway productions of ''Wicked'', '' Take Me Out'', and '' Assassins'', having gained notoriety in the 1993 cast of ''Angels in America''.
Early l ...
* ''Minsky's
''Minsky's'' is a musical by Bob Martin (book), Charles Strouse (music), and Susan Birkenhead (lyrics), and is loosely based on the 1968 movie ''The Night They Raided Minsky's''.
Set during the Great Depression era in Manhattan, the story center ...
'' (2009) – Book by Bob Martin, Music by Charles Strouse and Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
Susan Birkenhead is an American lyricist.
Birkenhead made her Broadway debut as one of a team of songwriters contributing to '' Working'' (1978), for which she received her first Tony Award nomination. Her second was earned for ''Jelly's Last Ja ...
Awards and nominations
References
External links
{{Coord, 34, 3, 29, N, 118, 14, 50, W, type:landmark, display=title
Theatres in Los Angeles
Buildings and structures in Downtown Los Angeles
Bunker Hill, Los Angeles
Civic Center, Los Angeles
Theatres completed in 1967
1960s architecture in the United States
Welton Becket buildings