Looks like it. (The bit about the 26th street space comes at the end.)
Copyright 1984 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
January 4, 1984, Wednesday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section C; Page 14, Column 5; Cultural Desk
LENGTH: 621 words
HEADLINE: ROUNDABOUT MAY MOVE
BODY:
The Roundabout Theater, an Off Broadway institution for 18 years, may be forced to move from its Chelsea quarters, possibly by Feb. 28.
The theater's sublease on the 23d Street Theater, 333 West 23d Street, expires on Feb. 28, and the owner of the theater, Mutual Redevelopment Houses Inc., has announced it will lease the facility to the Walter Reade Organization for conversion into a triplex movie theater.
Roundabout Theater had offered to match the $150,000-a-year rental agreement between the Walter Reade Organization and Mutual Redevelopment Houses, a housing cooperative in Chelsea that is also known as Penn South. But David Smith, the president of Mutual Redevelopment Houses, said the group's board considered Roundabout a risky tenant because it has operated under Chapter 11 of the Federal bankruptcy law since 1977.
The uncertainty for the Roundabout Theater comes in the midst of its current theatrical season and during previews of its revival of Harold Pinter's ''Old Times,'' with Jane Alexander, Marsha Mason and Anthony Hopkins.
'And Now This Happens'
''The irony,'' said Gene Feist, the founder and producing director of Roundabout, ''is that we have three stars in one of the great plays, we have Harold Pinter here to supervise rehearsals - and now this happens.''
Mr. Feist said it was his understanding that Mutual Redevelopment Houses would permit Roundabout to remain in the 23d Street Theater until its season ends in September. ''We will complete our season and fulfill our responsibilities to our subscribers,'' Mr. Feist said. But Irving Alter, the lawyer for the housing cooperative, denied this, saying, ''There is no basis for Roundabout's statements. Quite the contrary.''
Since its founding in 1965 by Mr. Feist and his wife, the actress Elizabeth Owens, Roundabout has produced 125 plays, including acclaimed revivals of ''Look Back in Anger'' in the 1979-80 season, ''A Taste of Honey'' in 1980-81 and ''Ah, Wilderness!'' in 1982-83. The theater has 19,000 subscribers, making it one of the largest Off Broadway companies.
Roundabout moved into the 23d Street Theater in 1974, subletting the facility from RKO Theaters. Under the sublease, which did not require the approval of Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Roundabout paid $46,800 a year in rent.
Filed for Protection
In 1977, Roundabout filed for protection under the Federal bankruptcy laws because, Mr. Feist said, the theater's finances became strained with its move from a 150-seat theater with ''a minimal rent'' at 307 West 26th Street - which Roundabout still operates as its ''Stage Two'' - to the 300-seat 23d Street Theater. The filing for bankruptcy - and the theater's continued operation under Chapter 11 - is the major reason it was denied a lease on the 23d Street Theater, according to Mr. Smith of Mutual Redevelopment Houses.
''The board cannot and could not ignore the inherent financial weakness that has kept Roundabout in Chapter 11 for almost seven years,'' Mr. Smith said in a prepared statement, ''as compared with the present financial strength of the Walter Reade Organization.''
Mr. Feist, however, said that Roundabout had offered to put up a security deposit equivalent to nine months' rent if Mutual Redevelopment would give the theater a lease. A statement by the theater also said that it has paid back $175,000 of the $200,000 in Federal withholding taxes it owes under Chapter 11; that it expects to close the current season with a $100,000 profit on its $2 million budget; that it changed its business management with the appointment in February 1983 of Todd Haimes as managing director, and that it expected not to require Chapter 11 protection after the spring.
