Freedman Venue Loses Tenant; Show Schedule Is Uncertain

ANAHEIM — The Freedman Forum Concert Theatre’s most recent incarnation as a live entertainment venue came to an unexpected end earlier this week, prompting the cancellation of several upcoming shows, theater officials said Wednesday.

The 2,500-seat theater in Anaheim had reopened in January after a two-year hiatus during which no live shows were presented. The Freedman Forum’s most recent event was Sunday, when recording star Johnny Cash presented a critically acclaimed show.

The venue’s concert hotline was still advising patrons of upcoming shows late on Wednesday, but the status of future shows was murky.

“I don’t know if it’s going to reopen again,” said Blaine Greenberg, the major financial backer of a group that in January leased the 2,500-seat theater and announced a highly ambitious plan for live shows. “That’s something you’ll have to ask the building’s owner.”

A spokeswoman for the trust that owns the Freedman Forum building insisted that, despite the current difficulties, the theater remains a viable concert venue.

“Blaine Greenberg was a tenant whose group had leased the building,” said Sharon Lesk, a spokeswoman for the Leo Freedman Foundation, which owns the theater. “They’re no longer our tenant, but as far as we’re concerned, the theater is still open.

“We’re talking to other groups who’ve expressed an interest in holding rock concerts and theatrical events at the theater.”

The theater built by Leo Freedman, Lesk’s great-uncle, opened in 1987 with a theatrical presentation of “42nd Street.” The theater went dark in 1994 when its previous tenant entered bankruptcy. At the time of that closing, the venue was known as the Celebrity Theatre.

In January of this year, Greenberg’s company announced that it had leased the theater and would stage 100 or more live presentations.

But in March, Greenberg said that Bruce A. Kahn, a key figure in reopening the Freedman Forum, had left the company to pursue other interests. Greenberg also said that a major booking alliance with the popular House of Blues nightclub in West Hollywood had been dissolved. The House of Blues had been expected to book as many as 70 concerts into the Freedman Forum this year.

Concert industry sources said that the theater’s newest tenant quickly ran up against the hard economic realities that make it difficult to turn a profit from live shows in Southern California.

Greenberg’s new company had hoped to thrive in a narrow niche between smaller clubs, such as the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, the Galaxy Theater in Santa Ana and the Glass House in Pomona and larger venues such as Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

But sources said it’s often very expensive to advertise and sell tickets for nationally known acts that Greenberg hoped to attract, and that there’s no guarantee that ticket sales will cover costs of booking attractions.

“This is not the way any of us wanted it to happen,” Lesk said. “But we want to make it clear that the theater will remain open. We are talking with other groups.”