dt news: Three Decades of Free Shows
Jun 23, 2016 Updated Jun 24, 2016
http://www.ladowntownnews.com/arts_and_entertainment/three-decades-of-free-watercourt-shows/article_f1bad092-3712-11e6-8ecb-534386e7a0d3.html
DTLA - It’s not hard these days to get people to come to Downtown Los Angeles for evening or weekend entertainment. There are always lines at The Broad, numerous clubs and concert halls offer live music nightly, and L.A. Live has a first-run movie complex. Special events and festivals in any of the 14 or so Downtown neighborhoods routinely draw large crowds. Then there is the surfeit of bars and destination restaurants.
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It wasn’t always this way. The entertainment lineup was downright skeletal in the mid-1980s. Still, there were a few groundbreakers back then that not only survived, but showed that crowds from across the region would come to the Central City given the right draw.
Two weeks ago we complimented the precedent-setting success of Last Remaining Seats, the Los Angeles Conservancy’s summer series of classic films in historic Broadway movie palaces that this year is marking its 30th anniversary. It is not the only entertainment series to reach this milestone: On June 10, the organization Grand Performances launched its 30th season at the California Plaza Watercourt.
The achievements and endurance of the Cal Plaza series are astounding. This is partially because of price, as the concerts, theater, dance, discussions and other events that can easily draw 3,000 people or more are always free. While a bucket is regularly passed and donations requested, never once has a guest been required to pay even a penny.
Pulling off Grand Performances, with its high quality and tight budget, is an extraordinary undertaking. The two leading figures at the organization, Executive Director Michael Alexander, who has been there since 1990, and Director of Programming Leigh Ann Hahn, who joined in 1992, deserve a massive round of applause from the thousands of people who visit the Watercourt each summer. This year they will present about three dozen shows.
Their achievements are dual-pronged. While some money has always come from the owners of the adjacent office towers, there is a nonstop search for grants and other revenue streams. This pursuit was predictably brutal during the recession.
The other side is the programming, and Alexander and Hahn have consistently delivered a stimulating lineup that balances international acts with local favorites. We’ve seen a Chinese dance company, repeated appearances by the local Latino Elvis impersonator El Vez, and for years Cal Plaza hosted a major African music festival. The 2016 lineup offers everything from a family-oriented sock puppet version of Cinderella to a Lebanese band to an August evening built around disco music from the Philippines. Eclectic doesn’t begin to describe it.
Grand Performances has changed with the times. In the early years it offered lunchtime concerts pitched to nearby office
workers. As Downtown evolved, it added and then became dominated by nighttime and weekend events. This year’s lineup also features Thursday afternoon happy hour DJ sessions in July. The organizers wisely never locked in to a specific definition of what the series should be. The flexibility has helped it endure over the decades.
Downtown Los Angeles is lucky to have the dedicated crew at Grand Performances. Hopefully local workers and residents recognize how rare something of this caliber is. When the red bucket is passed, people should open their wallets, as their contribution is part of what will allow the series to continue for at least three more decades.