GLENDALE : City to Hire Firm to Find Alex Manager

City officials and a nonprofit group working to overcome the Alex Theatre’s troubled first season as a performing arts house said Friday that they are “very close” to hiring a consulting firm to help select a new company to manage the venue.

Since August, when Theater Corp. of America (TCA) and the city parted ways, the Glendale Redevelopment Agency and the Alex Regional Theater Board have received a number of unsolicited applications from parties offering to run the Alex.

But before a new manager is chosen, the theater board will first hire an “executive search firm” to screen the applicants.

Sean Clark, a project manager with the redevelopment agency, said a search firm is expected to be hired by next week, but a new manager may not be selected until next year.

“The bottom line is we’re evaluating all our options and we want to do this right,” Clark said.

The search firm will also help the theater board decide whether to hire another management firm or create the position of executive director of the theater--a single person who would be contracted to hire and manage a staff, he said.

The redevelopment agency purchased the 69-year-old, 1,470-seat Art Deco theater from Mann Theatre Corp. in 1991, after a community drive to turn it into a performing arts center.

Its restoration cost $6.5 million.

The nine-member theater board, comprised mostly of residents who had worked to revive the theater, has a 50-year contract to oversee the Alex’s operations.

One of the most immediate problems faced by the theater board is how to make good on 11,000 subscription theater tickets TCA sold for a series of three musicals at the Alex.

Only one of the shows in the series was presented and TCA officials, who told the board they did not have the funding for the other shows due to past debts, have refused to give refunds to ticket-holders.

While theater board officials say they are not technically responsible for the shows that did not materialize, they said at the time of TCA’s departure that they felt honor bound to provide shows to ticket-holders or compensate them in some other way.