‘Artists must be paid,’ she declared--in the spirit of her father.

A few people who appeared to have ventured up from the more prosaic world of the San Fernando Valley mixed with a bit of the Hollywood crowd and the indigenous people of Topanga recently during a fund-raising event for Theatricum Botanicum.

That outdoor theater in the heart of the Topanga was founded in 1973 by actor Will Geer. He was once blacklisted for invoking the Fifth Amendment during the notorious House investigation into communism in Hollywood but later earned a six-figure income as the venerable Grandpa Walton of “The Waltons” television show.

Geer intended the outdoor stage as a training ground where young actors could learn their craft by performing the classics, especially Shakespeare. He was an avid Shakespearean and author of a book on the 1,000 references to plants in Shakespeare’s plays, hence the Latin name meaning theater of plants.

After Geer’s death in 1978, Theatricum Botanicum went through a crisis. Lacking the protective persona of Grandpa Walton, its assortment of rustic office buildings, old movie props and Hansel and Gretel outbuildings fell under the scrutiny of county building inspectors.

Declared unfit, it almost went under. It was saved by volunteer workers who went to the aid of Geer’s daughter, Ellen.

They rebuilt the restrooms to acceptable standards, enlarged the stage and ringed the oak-shaded amphitheater with railroad-tie seats.

Today the group has shaped Theatricum into an ambitious, if always struggling, nonprofit corporation with several dramatic programs supported by grants, ticket and concession sales and subscriber donations. In its summer repertory season, getting under way this week, professional actors perform three classics, including one Shakespearean play and one modern work.

An Academy of the Classics and a Youth Camp and Saturday youth classes provide training for young actors.

Each spring about 5,000 school children visit Theatricum Botanicum for a day of Shakespearean training and a chance to see the play they practice performed by Theatricum’s professional company.

Ever in need of new resources for these activities, Theatricum’s board of directors this year held its first fund-raising event at the theater.

About 200 people paid $10 to get in and $1 a glass for beer, wine and sodas sold out of a two-person wooden commissary, which will be replaced by something more substantial as soon as the company’s balance sheet allows.

Many in the crowd wore the flowing, sheer cotton and Madras prints of a passed era that still lives in some ways in Topanga. Others favored more modern, suburban stay-press styles. But the two groups mingled with apparent ease.

Many women carried babies or pushed them in strollers. Older children played chase around their parents’ legs and the bust of Will Geer in the Shakespearean botanical gardens. No one seemed to mind.

Queen Elizabeth was there in a green velvet gown with ruffled shoulders. She extended a white-gloved hand and introduced herself to each person as the queen.

There was also a celebrity hostess--Mariette Hartley, once a Shakespearean actress whose career blossomed not long ago with her appearance beside James Garner on a camera commercial.

Early in the day, members of the Theatricum Botanicum repertory company performed scenes from this season’s plays--Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale, “ Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer” and George M. Cohan’s “The Tavern.”

Meanwhile, several Topanga artisans sold pottery and bric-a-brac out of makeshift booths, and a hand weaver named Myra Schegloff had a display of colorful wool shirts, vests and scarfs on sale for as much as $125.

“Please touch,” she told everyone who browsed by. “Wool is meant to be touched.”

She wasn’t selling a lot but didn’t seem to mind and avidly engaged a nonbuying customer in conversation about her impression that artisans are being squeezed out of Topanga because now only a two-job professional family can afford land there.

By day’s end, the event had not done as well as its backers had hoped. After expenses, it brought in less than $1,000.

But Geer, walking out of the small wooden office where the money was being counted, had a dreamy smile on her face along with one of Schegloff’s wool scarfs draped over her arabesque print dress.

She was looking beyond the day’s details to the spirit of her late father, who firmly believed that actors should be paid. Theatricum Botanicum, she said, would never stoop to the widespread equity-waiver system in which actors perform at showcase theaters at low wages or none to gain experience and be seen.

“Artists must be paid,” she declared.

Standing at her side was Theatricum’s general manager, Kathy Schutzer. She said she came to a performance years ago and got involved when she saw a need for better business procedures.

“They were losing money on cookie and drink sales,” Schutzer said.

Geer studied Schutzer with a proud smile.

“She knew how to say ‘No,’ ” Geer said. “The Geers never knew how to say ‘No’ very well.”

There was a touch of false modesty there. After all, her father said “No” to the House Un-American Activities Committee and went on to become Grandpa Walton.