MUSICAL ARCHIVE NEEDS PENNIES FROM HEAVEN

One more crisis may be nothing new for the Institute of the American Musical.

This virtual one-man show, run by the encyclopedic Miles Kreuger and harboring the nation’s most complete collection of recordings, films and sheet music from American stage and film musicals, is accustomed to crises. When it moved West from New York a few years ago, the truck turned over, damaging and destroying irreplaceable items. This time, however, the institute has run into a potential Waterloo.

It is threatened with the loss of its home. The building in which it is housed (in a residential section of Los Angeles) is up for sale and the institute has one of two choices: Purchase it or move, both of which pose dilemmas.

“We simply aren’t in a position to do either,” said Kreuger, who acknowledged that the not-for-profit institute doesn’t have the means.

“The last time we moved the collection, it cost $20,000, because some of the old wax cylinders and other items are so fragile they have to be wrapped and transported with enormous care. Now costs are up and the collection is much larger. The money isn’t there and, anyway, where would we move to?”

There’s no question in Kreuger’s mind that the better solution would be to buy the two-story building (the institute occupies one floor). That would allow those fragile cylinders to remain in place and provide for future expansion upstairs.

“The asking price is $350,000,” Kreuger explained, “which is not unreasonable. The owners want us to have the building and are willing to give it to us for $300,000. What we need is the down payment ($60,000) so we can open escrow and then worry about the rest.”

Complicating the situation is the fact that the owners have a short deadline of their own by which they need to close that escrow. This limits Kreuger’s ability to go after traditional sources of funding.

“I’m an archivist and a researcher and a lousy fund-raiser,” he conceded, explaining that Monday is the latest date at which he can make an offer on the building.

No one questions the need to preserve this collection--particularly in a city that has yet to start a library of the performing arts. Its value is incalculable, not just to scholars, but also to theater practitioners and to the film and television industries.

It contains priceless films of Broadway shows dating to 1931, those Edison cylinders and players that go back to the 1890s, Vitaphone discs and catalogues, rare scripts, recordings, files, stills, press books, programs and scrapbooks, including a unique E. I. Sponable scrapbook by the man who perfected sound-on-film, Cinemascope and the 70-millimeter-wide film.

Is all this adequately used?

“Those who know it’s here use it,” Kreuger said, pointing up another problem: the institute’s low profile. Future plans include improved public relations, but, right now, the future itself is in question.

“They’re making a movie on the life of Libby Holman,” Kreuger went on, making a point. “We have every record she ever made.”

Anyone interested in contacting the institute may do so at P.O. Box 480144, Los Angeles 90048, or by calling (213) 934-1221.

THE RUMOR MILL: True or false? Is Frederick Lonsdale’s “Aren’t We All?”--the charming comedy that scored laudatory notices in New York for stars Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert--coming to the Wilshire Theatre?

True. No one at the Nederlander Offices could be reached, but Douglas Urbanski, one of the show’s producers, confirmed Wednesday that we could definitely look for it in the fall.

Rumor two: Is the Haymarket production of Harold Pinter’s “Old Times,” featuring Liv Ullmann, coming to the Henry Fonda? Yes. Elliott Martin, who’s producing here, Wednesday confirmed that it will open the week of Oct. 28. as part of a new playgoers series. The real surprise? Author Pinter will be along--as a member of the cast.

LAST WEEK’S RUMORS: New developments at the Doolittle Theatre are that “As Is” may not be the opening show, after all, according to the Mark Taper’s Gordon Davidson, who heads the UCLA/Center Theatre Group program committee for the Doolittle. Would that opening show (to track down yet another rumor) be Lee Breuer’s “Gospel at Colonnus”?

“We wanted to open with it,” Davidson said, “but it’s not feasible. The size of the show and the fact that the unit company performers will be moving around--to Philadelphia, to Paris and then I hope here--make it impossible.”

Will “Gospel” be coming at all?

“You betcha.”

As for the rest of the Doolittle programming, it is nothing if not equally ambitious. Said Davidson:

“The problem is finding local funding, because the road isn’t the road anymore. That’s the major change in the environment. Most of the Broadway kinds of shows we’re looking at have to be co-financed and reassembled--such shows as ‘Glengarry Glen Ross,’ ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’ ‘Hurlyburly,’ ‘As Is,’ and one day, I hope, ‘Sunday in the Park With George.’ Eventually, even a Robert Wilson piece.”

CALLBOARD: “South Pacific,” closing July 6 at the Chandler, is closing for good. It will not be playing San Francisco (as previously planned), or touring, or, according to sources close to the production, going to New York.

THICKENING PLOTS: Murder Mysteries Inc., an outfit devoted to participatory theater of the sleuthing kind, is adding anonymity to enigma. A press release announcing its latest production (“The Senator’s Ghost,” playing Friday and Saturday) ended with “Yours Truly” and no signature.

Would you call that anonigma?

I call it going too far.