Sweet Smell of Success

La Mirada Theatre finds the secret sauce to bringing in audiences.

/ BY SHERRY STERN /

THE RECORDS WOULD be welcome any year: best overall attendance, most single ticket sales, highest revenue in a season.

But this wasn’t any year.

These achievements at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts came after the world had turned upside down, in the heat of post-lockdown challenges that even now confound theaters across the country.

The picture that formed following that record-setting year is one that illustrates a level of audience engagement that most theaters dream of.

“We defied the odds and bucked the trend. We were as surprised as anybody,” says producing artistic director BT McNicholl of the venue’s 2021-22 season.

“People say, well, ‘How did you do it?,’ and the answer is, of course, a mix of luck and strategy.”

The luck came with the timing, McNicholl says. Mask ordinances and vaccine requirements loosened just as the theater kicked off its 45th season.

The strategy part? Programming the right shows at the right time.

With a combination of funding from the city of La Mirada and multiple federal

“Cabaret” and, below, “Young Frankenstein” at La Mirada Theatre bring in a big crowd and continue to push us forward.”

Not incidentally, subscriptions continue to grow in La Mirada as well, bucking a national downward trend. As McCoy alludes, the theater’s lasting success is more nuanced than the feel-good musicals that saved the theater following the lockdown.

Three seasons, three examples:

Last season, the first show back from the pandemic was not a musical but a play, a newish comedy take on the board game turned movie, “Clue.” It drew in goodsized audiences when so many people were hesitant to return to theaters. Nonmusical plays are often part of the lineup, including last November’s “A Few Good Men.” grants, and a season programmed by its independent producing firm McCoy Rigby Entertainment, La Mirada Theatre returned with a full schedule—no tiptoeing in.

The strategy paid off right away with an early show, the fortuitously low-cost, small-cast “Million Dollar Quartet.” That was followed by proven audience favorites such as “Mamma Mia!” and “The Sound of Music.”

“We presented shows that were upbeat, feel-good, life-affirming,” McNicholl says. “We had music, comedy and musicals that had an overall feeling of uplift. I think that’s what people really want.”

The 1,251-seat venue is owned and financed by the city of 51,000, located near the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties. McCoy Rigby has been the producer for the regional theater for nearly three decades.

“It’s a great collaboration of government and the arts,” Tom McCoy says. “I’m not sure I’ve heard of it in any other regional theater in the country.”

The theater offers a full schedule of pop, country and comedy concerts, but at its heart is the lineup of Broadway-style shows.

“This season we’re doing three chestnuts, ‘Grease,’ ‘The King and I’ and ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,’ which we normally don’t do,” says McCoy, who runs the company with his wife, Cathy Rigby, the gymnast-turned-actress.

“But we did, thinking that these three will

This season, between “Grease” and “The King and I,” came the world premiere of “Did You See What Walter Paisley Did Today?,” an offbeat, macabre comedy musical with aspirations for off-Broadway. Developed and directed by McNicholl, it’s the first musical the theater has developed in its 46 years.

Next season, in advance of another proven classic, “Fiddler on the Roof,” comes the West Coast premiere of new musical “Mystic Pizza,” based on the 1988 Julia Roberts movie, staged with pop hits of the era.

“Mystic Pizza” illustrates another reason for the theater’s solid footing: What happens in La Mirada doesn’t always stay in La Mirada. Wherever it can, McCoy Rigby looks for works that can tour; that likely will include both “Mystic Pizza” and next season’s production of the Gloria Estefan musical, “On Your Feet!”

“La Mirada is great, but everything ends in three and a half weeks,” McCoy says. /CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

DANNY FELDMAN

Producing Artistic Director

Presents

APR 25 – MAY 28

Opening Night: APR 30, 2023