Luna Playhouse withdraws request for funds

CITY HALL — The art director of the fledgling Luna Playhouse angrily withdrew his request for $30,000 in city assistance Tuesday, hours after the City Council had requested a more detailed plan on how the theater would use the money.

Aramazd Stepanian — who is running for a seat on the council — had requested the funds earlier in the afternoon during a joint meeting of the City Council and Redevelopment Agency, but in withdrawing his request, he called the city official who drafted the report recommending against the city subsidy a “cultural illiterate” and said he no longer wanted help before storming out of the chambers.

Representatives for the theater company first appealed for help in covering their rent at 3706 San Fernando Road in January, warning that without the city funds, they would be forced to shut down.

The $30,000 would be enough to cover their $3,500-a-month lease agreement for an additional year, allowing the playhouse to recuperate from a year’s worth of financial losses, according to the theater’s management team.

But at the joint meeting earlier in the day, the City Council voted 4-1 to table the request, citing the lack of a detailed business proposal from the theater, especially when the city is undergoing a severe period of belt-tightening.

“It’s not clear at all where this money is going to go,” Councilman Ara Najarian said.

During that hearing, Stepanian made a last-minute appeal to the council, pledging to use the theater “every moment that we have” so that his team “won’t be back next year asking for city assistance again.”

Others, including the theater’s production manager, Gabrielle O’Sullivan, pointed to the city’s annual subsidy to Glendale Arts, the nonprofit that operates the Alex Theatre, as an unfair endorsement of one group over another.

It was a popular theme among a half-dozen supporters of the small 48-seat theater, who also pointed to substantial city benefits to media corporations, such as the Walt Disney Co. and DreamWorks Animation, as casting a large shadow over political claims that the arts was a priority in Glendale.

“The state of the arts in Glendale is abysmal; it’s disgraceful,” O’Sullivan said.

Saving small-scale operations that serve multicultural audiences should be a key part of the city’s arts strategy, she argued.