Due to competition from other centers for performing arts and changes in production values, the Feld's company Super Attractions began to incur heavy losses and asked to be released from its contract and in 1976 Cella-Door-Dimensions, Inc. was hired as new management. They scheduled acts such as Kool and the Gang, Bruce Springsteen, United States Navy Band, National Symphony Orchestra, Shakespeare Festival, Richard Pryor, Chick Corea, and the D.C. Black Repertory Co. in order to attract a more diverse audience. "The Washington Post" reporter Jacqueline Trescott wrote "The hordes of teenagers were back, but scattered among the visors and t-shirts were family groups, black and white couples in their 20s and 30s and a large number of women dressed in the latest fashions."