OPTION 73... AND COUNTING

The producers at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts consider contingencies one future at a time.

BY LIBBY SLATE

BY LIBBY SLATELIKE MANY PEOPLE in the arts, BT McNicholl and Tom McCoy were in denial when theaters first shut down in March due to the coronavirus. Surely this can’t go on for too long, thought McNicholl, producing artistic director at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, and McCoy, who with wife Cathy Rigby McCoy, has produced La Mirada’s Broadway series for 20-plus years.

McNicholl and McCoy kept up a steady stream of emails and phone calls. “We’ve become best friends,” McCoy says wryly. “We’re on Option 73.”

The denial disappeared when the City of La Mirada, owner of the 1,250-seat theater, decided to close it until January.

McCoy pushed what would have been the venue’s next two productions—The Sound of Music and Mamma Mia!—to spring and presents the more modest Million Dollar Quartet, pandemic permitting, in January. “It’s a smallish musical,” McCoy says. “If we’re forced to [limit seating to] every other row, we’ll still be ahead financially.”

McCoy Rigby Entertainment has become involved with various projects inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, including a playwriting competition, Raise Your Voice, scheduled for online readings.

“Option 73” also meant moving youth-oriented nonprofit McCoy Rigby Arts into the virtual realm. A junior version of Shrek mixed live and prerecorded elements; children and teens from eight states performed via Zoom. More such performances are planned.

“For those kids who live in places that don’t have access to theater, to hear them sing, it’s such a joy,” says Rigby McCoy, the two-time Olympic gymnast who became a Tony-nominated performer in the title role of Peter Pan on Broadway.

“They’ve seen America’s Got Talent,” she says. “Now they know, ‘I’ve got talent, I can do this, too.’”

The duo have long brought a fresh approach to their La Mirada productions, which they and McNicholl attribute in part to city funding that allows them to hire actors, directors and designers that many regional theaters can’t afford.

Rigby McCoy also cites honest storytelling: “People want it to be authentic,” she says. “You look for what’s going to touch people.”

McCoy is also realistic about returning to the theater. “We’re not kidding ourselves,” he says. “It may take a while for the audience to be comfortable to be back.”

SCENE FROM PAST PRODUCTION OF THE LITTLE MERMAID AT LA MIRADA.