King of Miami

The Phantom of the Playhouse

There’s no question that the man is a master of BS and spending the public’s money. Too bad he can’t run a theater.

Jack King
Columnist

The phone rang early last Thursday morning. It was my friend and fellow Groveite Barbara Lange. “Did you see this morning’s Herald?” she yelled into my ear. I knew with that tone and volume of voice that there was something indeed important in this day’s edition of the worst daily newspaper in the world.

“That damn bastard is sounding like he has permission to tear down the Coconut Grove Playhouse. When did he get that?”

Still a little tired, but having followed the Playhouse’s Arnold Mittelman for the past 20 years, I instantly knew who she was talking about and had the feeling that something was awry. I told her I would call her back in a few minutes.

I tore open the paper. Nothing on the front page. Off to the local section and nothing on the front there. What is Barbara talking about? I thought. Rolling back to page four I finally found it, a nearly half-page story, touting that the playhouse has found an additional venue, and possible second home at Fort Lauderdale’s Parker Playhouse. Now that’s strange, many of the plays here are so bad that they seldom ever sell out. Why would old Arnold want another venue that won’t sell out?

And there it was. Five paragraphs down, it starts:

“If the (Parker) season is a success, the Parker could be an ongoing anchor for the company during months when it can’t produce at its home theater because of redevelopment or renovations, which would come during the 2006-2007 season at the earliest.”

Wow, I thought, that’s funny. I know that Mittelman has been trying to tear the playhouse down for a year so he can build his own theater, hotel and upscale-shops complex, then live off the revenue. But so far, that has gone nowhere. Who wrote this story? I should have known. The Herald, rather than send a local beat reporter to cover a local issue, sent none other than Christine Dolan, their theater reviewer. And in Dolan’s eyes, Mittelman can do no wrong. It almost looked like Mittelman wrote the story.

Few people in Miami really know much about Arnold Mittelman, so let me give you a little history. He came here in 1985 to take over the management of the playhouse after the departure of Jose Ferrer. Nobody ever did background checks in those days in Miami or they would have found that he was fleeing from New Jersey where he had just successfully run Olympia Dukakis’ Montclair, N.J., regional theater straight into the ground.

The city of Miami in those days gave the playhouse $500,000 a year to operate. Mittelman got the city to get a federal grant of $2.5 million to put the unemployed to work at the playhouse. Mittelman promptly spent the money on who knows what and several years later, following an audit, the feds wanted their money back. Guess who was liable? You got it. The city paid it back, but at least they didn’t give him any more money.

That was the big one, but there were many little ones. One year he put on so many one-person plays that he couldn’t give tickets away the next year. Seems like those one-person jobs are really cheap to produce. And all the while he had an assortment of girlfriends, wives and ex-wives still on the payroll. But yet he not only kept his board of directors at bay, he kept them happy and on his side. Even former Metro-Dade Commission Chair Gwen Margolis treated Mittelman as if he were King Tut and could do no wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I was threatened by attorneys on the board to lay off Mittelman. There’s no question that the man is a master of BS and spending the public’s money. Too bad he can’t run a theater.

One time and quite by accident, I was invited to the opening-night party at the Grand Bay Hotel. The spread must have cost lots of thousands. When Mittelman saw me he turned bright white and then very red. The woman who put me on the guest list was fired.

I called Barbara back and told her that nothing has happened. It was just another time where Mittelman is standing head-deep in sheep dung and telling the guests it is really the latest new canapé.

Several days later I got a copy of a letter that Marc Sarnoff of the One Grove Alliance sent to state officials and it contained this piece from the legal documents that gave the city of Miami title to the property from the state:

Reverter Provision: In recognition of the State of Florida’s substantial monetary contributions of more than $20 million in appropriations since 1980 the deed shall contain a restrictive covenant requiring that the Playhouse Property be used for theater, theatrical productions, theatrical education, or related arts uses, etc. or the title to the Playhouse Property would revert to the state of Florida.

If one were a normal, clear-thinking person, I have no doubt this would mean no commercial development on the “Playhouse Property.” Alas, I believe that a majority of our City Commission doesn’t feel that way, and I can also tell you that Arnold Mittelman will still be out there waving the development flag for years to come.

Comments? E-mail jking@miamisunpost.com or letters@miamisunpost.com.

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