Charles Deane Boosted Fund Drive : Gaslamp Names New Theater After Big Donor

The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre said Tuesday that it has named a new second theater, scheduled to open in November, after its major donor.

The 250-seat theater is being named for Charles Deane, formerly an international trader in precious metals now living in Rancho Santa Fe, who pledged $250,000--the largest single contribution--to the innovative $3.3-million theater project.

The Deane will include a proscenium arch stage designed in a Victorian style. In a new twist for performing arts groups, the theater, which will be outfitted for multimedia presentations, will serve as a conference center during the day.

The theatre also will contain offices for the adjoining Horton Grand Hotel, which is scheduled to open May 24. Located on Fourth Avenue half a block from the Gaslamp’s 90-seat theater, renovation for the Deane is being financed through a limited partnership, a $1.6-million bank loan and the theater’s own fund-raising activities, which have generated $725,000. The limited partnership, headed by developer Dan W. Pearson, has invested $1 million. The Horton Grand Hotel is also a Person development.

Built in 1912 as the San Diego Paper Box Factory, the three-floor structure most recently served as an annex for the Goodwill Industries’ retail outlet. On Tuesday, the building was still being dismantled to be rebuilt, using the original brick for the facade. Ground-breaking ceremonies are Thursday.

Although Deane, one of the theater’s board members, was ill and did not attend the announcement ceremony, Goldman said that he had been “entranced with the possibility of creating something from nothing.” Referring to the Gaslamp Quarter’s reputation as a tenderloin area, Goldman said, “A lot of prejudice still exists downtown about the neighborhood. I don’t know if a San Diegan would have put his name on the theater.”

Founded in 1980, the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre was one of the first arts groups to occupy space in the historic 16-block Gaslamp district. The theater renovated a 1920s dance hall, which now serves as its 90-seat playhouse. By opening the new 250-seat facility, the theater will need to triple its annual budget of $300,000 to $850,000.

The Deane Theatre will expand significantly the Gaslamp’s repertory possibilities, which have been restricted by the postage-stamp stage in its current playhouse. Instead of about 130 square feet of playing area, the new stage will offer about 1,500 square feet of acting space. The stage will also include a 55-foot overhead fly loft which allows for quick scenery changes. In addition to other offerings, artistic director Will Simpson said he wants to shift the focus of the 90-seat theater to plays written by new playwrights and he hopes to use the 250-seat theater to stage American plays from the 1930-60s which could not be produced in the smaller theater.

The 110-bed Horton Grand hotel is actually a rebuilt version of two hotels, first erected in 1886, which Pearson dismantled several years ago. The Horton Grand and the Kahle Saddlery (originally the Brooklyn Hotel) were once two of San Diego’s finest hotels. Besides a restaurant facing a four-story atrium, a Victorian-type parlor and an old-fashioned watering hole, the renovated hotel will include a Chinese museum.

The hotel project’s greatest innovation is the use of the theater as a daytime conference center. Pearson said the hotel received an astounding 28,000 advance registrations. The first thing he said conventioners wanted to know was “what about conference space?”

Enter the Deane Theatre and its dual identity. Goldman said that only using a performing arts theater at night is highly inefficient. But as a high-tech daytime conference center with “a full range of video capabilities,” albeit in Victorian garb, the theater will generate income 14 hours a day instead of three hours a night.

“We’re building a theater district here,” Goldman said. “We’ll have 1,000 seats on Fourth Avenue” when the Lyceum Theatre’s two stages are combined with the Gaslamp’s. She also is looking south to the convention center for future customers. “We’re relating south to the waterfront and the wharf, rather than north toward Broadway.”