‘HARD TIMES’ AT THE REP MORE FACT THAN FICTION

Charles Dickens’ “Hard Times” is being staged by the San Diego Repertory Theatre. It was Dickens who wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The same could be said of the Rep, which, according to its leaders, is enduring the worst of times financially while reaping the benefits of the best of times artistically.

“We have a lot of feathers in our cap right now,” said producing director Sam Woodhouse. “The question is, will the cap stay on our head?”

Woodhouse, 37, said the Rep must raise $750,000 in the next 12 months, half of it by the end of the summer. Hard times? In the Rep’s view, yes and no.

Woodhouse and artistic director Doug Jacobs, 38, talk of a manic explosion in the arts in San Diego and other cities--with finances bordering on the depressive. They point to the San Diego Symphony as just one example of a group stretching for greatness--under the direction of former conductor and artistic director David Atherton--and then suffocating under an avalanche of too many debts.

“We’ve expanded budget, activity, personnel, audience,” Woodhouse said in the middle of another 12-hour day. “In all the ways you can grow, we’ve grown. The story of this organization is, it’s jumped from adolescence to full adulthood overnight.”

The Rep is now in its 12th season, and with “Hard Times”--according to critics--it may be having one of its finest hours. The Rep began in 1976, with Jacobs and Woodhouse--classmates at the California Institute of the Arts--doing street theater in Balboa Park. In 1977, the company moved into a renovated church on 6th Avenue near the park. It rents that space even now.

In 1984, performances expanded to the old, crumbling Lyceum in the Gaslamp Quarter. But last year, with much fanfare, the Rep moved into a lavish new facility at Horton Plaza, complete with two theaters--the Lyceum Stage and Lyceum Space.

The Rep’s tale of two theaters downtown has been one of remarkable, rapid expansion and round-the-clock activity. Such growth has contributed to hosannas artistically, while chalking up a current deficit of more than $300,000.

Jacobs gave an example of the Rep’s response to a funding crunch. In 1980, with Reaganomics taking hold and an era of retrenchment seizing the arts, the Rep lost a major source of income--government-sponsored CETA money. (CETA stands for Comprehensive Employment and Training Act.)

“What did we do?” Jacobs said. “We doubled our operation. It was the only way we could figure surviving. It was a gamble, it worked, kind of a get-big-to-be-big proposition. It gave us the room to move. It kept us going. And it was really exhilarating.”

Since moving into the Stage and Space, the Rep has brought forth what Jacobs and Woodhouse call “the cultural swap meet.” The two theaters are busy almost every day, not just with plays but with a kaleidoscope of frenzied activity.

In its first year of operating at Horton Plaza, the Rep staged 500 performances of 18 plays, 27 concerts, 5 dance programs, 25 community meetings and 15 art exhibitions. These have been attended, Woodhouse said, by a collective audience exceeding 100,000.

Jacobs was asked why the Rep isn’t making money on the cultural swap meet, and since it isn’t, why it hasn’t considered cutting back.

“The assumption,” he said, “is that the performing arts pay for themselves, which just isn’t true. They don’t, unless they’re the most commercial properties you can find.

“It’s sort of like asking why does the nonprofit arts world exist. It exists to do work that’s more challenging, more open, more interesting, more rewarding than what turns on the mass market. We believe such work enriches the audience. Ultimately, it can be more financially efficient, and that’s what we’re working toward.”

For managing the city-owned Stage and Space, the Rep receives $120,000 annually. Woodhouse emphasized that the money is earned and said negotiations with the city to increase the amount are under way. He said funding also comes from the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and, of course, from ticket sales. What needs to increase dramatically, both men say, is private funding. (The Rep receives $70,000 annually from the Combined Arts and Education Council of San Diego County, otherwise known as COMBO.)

Woodhouse said the Rep’s budget has jumped from $800,000 in 1985 to almost $2 million in 1986 to $2.1 million in 1987. Beyond this year, it’s expected to rise even more.

So how will the Rep raise money?

Woodhouse said that Michael Addison, a major contributor, has offered a challenge grant. If the theater can raise $150,000 by July 1, Addison has offered $50,000. Membership campaigns are being stepped up, as are plans for a birthday party Wednesday--the Rep’s one major fund-raiser of the year.

All of this comes at a time of critical acclaim. Not only is “Hard Times” winning enthusiastic mention, but the Rep production of “Holy Ghosts” will play in New York (off-Broadway) Aug. 11-29. As part of a regional theater exchange, “Holy Ghosts” was one of four plays selected nationwide.

“Hard Times” and “Holy Ghosts” comprise the best of times. The worst of times causes Woodhouse to be asked if the Rep is in danger of repeating the symphony’s story.

“We do have to raise $350,000 by the end of the summer,” he said. “We don’t have an endowment. We don’t have a credit line. We need more contributors.”

But he doesn’t think the company will fold. He and Jacobs remain confident, even bubbly, about making things work.

Jacobs conceded that the Rep has not been as strongly involved in fund-raising--on a major scale--as it should have been. But Woodhouse insists that, if the company has overextended itself, it was a crime well worth commiting.

“No risk, no gain,” he said. “Did George Washington overextend himself? Did the United States overextend itself by putting a man on the moon? The two theaters downtown give us the room to do what we want to do for a decade or more.

“If the artists of America were saying we don’t want to come work for you, we wouldn’t be doing this. If the audience was saying we don’t want to see this stuff, we wouldn’t bother. But the opposite is true.

“San Diego, the city, seems to be overextending itself to meet the 21st Century. I find that exciting, challenging. We’re just a cog of that.”

Woodhouse said he “couldn’t agree more” with comments made by William McGill in a recent interview in The Times. McGill, the former chancellor of UC San Diego, has been asked to help solve the symphony’s woes. McGill asked--rhetorically--if San Diego deserves more than the Padres, the Chargers and the America’s Cup.

“There’s nothing wrong with those things,” Woodhouse said, “but, yes, we deserve a lot more. There’s a lot right with what we’re doing at the Rep. The question is, can we keep doing it?”