Elephant is latest casualty on row

The Elephant Theatre Company in Hollywood has ceased operations following the recent sale of the company’s longtime home on Santa Monica Boulevard, leaders said.

The award-winning company, which has built a reputation for championing new American plays, is the latest casualty on Hollywood’s Theatre Row, which has seen an exodus of companies due to rising rents and other real-estate woes.

“The Great Divide” by Lyle Kessler was the company’s last production before it shut down in August.

“Emotionally, it was hard on a lot of people,” said David Fofi, a company founder and artistic director.

Fofi, who has since moved from L.A., said that funds were exhausted in trying to pay the rent, which had nearly doubled in the last 15 years. The Elephant was a nonprofit that produced plays mostly in the Lillian Theatre, in the building known as Elephant Stages. Two stages — the Elephant Space and Studio — served as rentals and were run as a for-profit business by Fofi and Don Cesario.

The owner of the building sold the property this year, Fofi said. The sale wasn’t a surprise; the owner had informed the company of his plans about two years ago.

Elephant Theatre Company’s members, about 50 actors and stage professionals, will decide if the nonprofit will continue and in what form.

“I am currently in conversation with the company members about several different possibilities for the future,” Lindsay Allbaugh, a former co-artistic director who works at Center Theatre Group, said in an email.

Among Elephant’s notable productions: Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Little Flower of East Orange” and “In Arabia We’d All Be Kings”; “7 Redneck Cheerleaders”; and last year’s “The Twilight of Schlomo,” by Timothy McNeil.

Other companies to exit Theatre Row include Open Fist, the Celebration Theatre and the performance art group Schkapf.