Robert Schlosser

A lot of theater watchers talk about the "graying" of audiences. The average age of theatergoers keeps getting older, we're told. Robert Schlosser, the Mark Taper Forum's director of audience development for 23 years, isn't sure he buys the "graying" idea. "There was a 'graying' audience when I arrived, and somebody replaced them," Schlosser said. Now, somebody has replaced Schlosser.

Robert J. Schlosser, 67, audience development director for the Center Theater Group/Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theater for 23 years, died of colon cancer Wednesday at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City. From 1973 to 1996, Schlosser's theater marketing expertise helped bring national attention to important Taper world premieres such as the Tony Award-winning "Children of a Lesser God" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Angels in America" and "The Kentucky Cycle."

Robert J. Schlosser, 67, audience development director for the Center Theater Group/Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theater for 23 years, died of colon cancer Wednesday at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City. From 1973 to 1996, Schlosser's theater marketing expertise helped bring national attention to important Taper world premieres such as the Tony Award-winning "Children of a Lesser God" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Angels in America" and "The Kentucky Cycle."

A lot of theater watchers talk about the "graying" of audiences. The average age of theatergoers keeps getting older, we're told. Robert Schlosser, the Mark Taper Forum's director of audience development for 23 years, isn't sure he buys the "graying" idea. "There was a 'graying' audience when I arrived, and somebody replaced them," Schlosser said. Now, somebody has replaced Schlosser.

"Many of our subscribers have written steaming, hurt, angry and, in some cases, sensitively written letters accusing me of 'stupidity, bait-and-switch, inconvenience, sandbagging, violation of contract, carelessness, and obnoxious and repugnant trickery.' " So wrote Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum, in a recent letter to some of those angry subscribers. "None of these is true, of course," he added.

Heralding a new alliance, the Mark Taper Forum has joined forces with Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company of London to present Shakespeare's "King Lear" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in repertory at the Taper from Jan. 21 through March 4. The announcement was made jointly at a press conference Tuesday by Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson and British actor-director Branagh, who will stage both plays.

The opening of "Kiss of the Spider Woman" at the Ahmanson Theatre on Saturday will mark the first time a major theatrical production arrives at the Music Center after playing other prime venues in Los Angeles or Orange counties. "Kiss" occupied Orange County Performing Arts Center from Dec. 26 to Jan. 7, then played Jan. 9-14 at Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Although it will stay longer at the Ahmanson (through April 21) than at the other two venues, the others seat more people at each performance.

The Mark Taper Forum will sport a new look for Chekhov's "The Wood Demon," April 7 through May 22. And the cast itself will look different at virtually every performance. For the first time ever, the Taper will become an arena stage. Two rows of seats from front and center will be moved to the other side of the stage and backed up by a bank of 100 new seats, increasing total capacity to 850. Unlike the Ahmanson Theatre renovation next door, the changes at the Taper won't cost much.

It had been a half-hour wait in line at the Mark Taper Forum, but Irving A. Pinsky of Culver City was determined to use an advertised "pay what you can" opportunity to buy a $5 ticket. Suddenly, at 10 minutes before curtain time, he was informed "that all the advertised tickets were gone--but we could buy seats for $10 each." "Needless to say, we were surprised," wrote Pinsky in a letter to The Times, but he bought the tickets anyway and entered the theater.

Los Angelenos need no longer envy those cities with same-day half-price ticket booths. Now we have our own discount-ticket charge line. The Ticket Outlet is an attempt "to serve the unique geographical demands of L.A.," said Stacy Brightman of the sponsoring service organization, Theatre LA--and as such, the project got $10,000 from the city's Cultural Affairs Department and $25,000 from the Irvine Foundation.

Try putting together a night at the theater. Choose your show and purchase tickets. Do you have a couple of hours to go to the box office? If you don't, you could be in trouble. Distances and traffic make getting to a ticket counter mostly impractical.

Owner Kirsten Combs is reluctant to call it a done deal yet, but after backing away from leasing her Westwood Playhouse to the New York-based Promenade Theatre Corp. last May, she is now in "serious negotiations" again for a similar lease to be given to Eric Krebs and Howard Pechet. Krebs is artistic director of Off Broadway's Douglas Fairbanks and John Houseman Theatres and his partner, Pechet, is a Canadian hotel owner.