The revitalization of a theater takes an investment of time, talent and treasure. Two years ago, Laguna Playhouse received an infusion of all three, and has been on an upward trajectory ever since.
In 2016, its trustees, led by Chairman Paul Singarella, a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, set out on a six-month nationwide search for the person who would next helm the storied institution and help it fulfill the potential board members believed it had.
“We wanted dynamic leadership, professional credentials, someone with an interest in youth theater, as well as experience with world-class programming,” Singarella says.
The playhouse, founded in 1920, holds the distinction of being one of the oldest continually operating theaters on the West Coast. But it had begun to show its age and also struggled with funding. It was vital that the person the board chose to turn it around be, as Singarella puts it, “the real deal.”
Ellen Richard’s resume rose to the top of the stack, he says. “When I saw her qualifications, I thought, is this person really interested in coming to a small community like Laguna Beach?”
The playhouse brought Richard on as interim director in May 2016 to replace Karen Wood, who left the post in 2015 after eight years “to pursue other creative opportunities.” The board and Richard wanted a trial period to make sure it was the right fit for both.
The board soon asked her to give an assessment of the charming but aging playhouse: How did it compare to other theaters? What needed to be improved? What was her honest impression?
“We knew that the next executive director would be the one to guide us into the next 100 years,” said Lisa Hale, board member and a partner with Parallax Capital Partners LLC of Laguna Hills. “Ellen laid out a road map for us. She said, ‘You’ve been starving the product and losing subscribers.’ If we made an investment in our season, Ellen promised us that we would sell tickets. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when she said that. I knew if anyone could pull it off, Ellen could.”
Hale presented Richard with a $250,000 check as the first investment in the new season.
“She gave me one condition,” Richard says. “I had to remove the word interim from my title.”
The gift funded “12 Angry Men,” “Hairspray” and “The Graduate,” among other big-name plays. As Richard promised, ticket sales and subscriptions soared, rising 62% to 5,167, according to playhouse records. Its annual budget has grown from $4.9 million to nearly $6.7 million.
“We were so successful that we were able to roll [some of] that $250,000 over to this season,” Hale says. “And I’ve already committed to another $250,000. It feels so good to see the caliber of shows that we’re now able to put on.”
Commitment
For Singarella and Hale, the search for the right person was more than a duty of their roles as board members. The playhouse holds deep and special ties for both. Singarella, who played football and acted in high school, and his wife, Heather, have been part of the Laguna Playhouse family for more than 15 years.
“We were searching for an arts organization to support,” he recalls. “We looked at the museum. We looked at the theater in Costa Mesa. We checked out other places. When we encountered the Laguna Playhouse, we just fell in love with it.” He joined the board soon after, taking the chairman role a year ago last month.
Hale lived in Laguna Beach while attending the University of California-Irvine, where she studied drama. It was when she discovered the playhouse. Even after marrying, moving to Newport Beach and starting a family, she stayed connected to it, taking on a wide range of duties, from ticket sales to working behind the scenes on shows. With her drama background, Hale appeared numerous times on stage in college at Laguna Playhouse, including in “The Secret Garden” and “Winnie the Pooh.” This past spring, she starred as the wicked witch in the Playhouse’s production of “The Wizard of Oz.”
She joined the board in 2008, and over the years has taken on increasingly impactful roles. This year she co-chaired the playhouse’s annual gala, which raised a record-setting $1.7 million, and has already stepped forward to co-chair next year’s event.
“The Laguna Playhouse really is part of my soul.”
The Talent
When Richard applied for the directorship, she was serving as interim director of Magic Theatre in San Francisco. She’d moved to the city in 2010 to join the American Conservatory Theater as executive director after working in a variety of top management roles for more than 30 years in New York, including executive director of the Second Stage Theatre, where she oversaw the purchase of the historic Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway, and the Roundabout Theatre Co.
Richard’s time with the Roundabout especially stood out. When she joined it in 1983, it was a small nonprofit company in bankruptcy. She worked her way through nearly every position, including stagehand, sound designer and scenic artist assistant, eventually earning the top spot of managing director. By the time she left the role in 2005, Roundabout had become one of the country’s most successful theater companies.
Her artistic skills impressed as much as her leadership abilities after producing more than 125 shows and earning six Tony Awards for her efforts.
For Richard’s part, Laguna Beach appealed because it would give her a chance to do “a little bit of everything,” and as director, she would have final say in everything it produced. “Plus … Laguna Beach is so beautiful.”
Singarella “was sold right away. Her presentation was consistent with her resume. One of the things I liked best about her was that she wasn’t overly eager. She wanted to make sure that she thought it through completely.”
The Treasure
As Richard gave her assessment of the theater, she joked, “If someone fell on the carpet, they would get a staph infection.”
Hale says the words rang true: The carpet had last been changed in the late 1990s. It took someone with the eye, and the gumption, she says, to call the board out on it. Hale ended up donating money to replace the carpet via her interior designer son, who got it at a discount.
Shortly after the carpet conversation, Richard approached the trustees with a bold suggestion: It needed to invest some real money if it really wanted to turn the playhouse around.
“When I arrived, the theater had been on a downward trend,” she says. “They were doing smaller shows, cutting the season down. I explained that we needed to invest in bigger shows, ones with name recognition that would draw people in.”
In two years, Richard changed the theater’s trajectory, Singarella says. In addition to the planned new productions, she’ll oversee theater renovations. This summer, the Laguna Beach planning commission and City Council approved plans for an exterior makeover, the first phase of which is scheduled to be complete by spring.
The Future
The playhouse has also expanded programs to bring the theater experience to young people, one of the board’s key goals when it brought Richard on. Its TheatreReach program sends professional actors to elementary schools, where they stage one-hour plays based on children’s books. Richard and Development Director Doug Vogel also created Theater Hope, a fund that distributes free tickets, along with a meal and transportation, to disadvantaged groups, such as military veterans, children whose families live in hotels, and people participating in rehab programs.
“Ellen has taken what was a professional, good theater to the next level,” Singarella says. “She’s a game changer. Like Magic Johnson. The people on our team do a good job. With her leadership, they want to do even better. They know she has the skills to take us to the place we want to be.”
