Variety Arts Searches for a New Home; Center Theatre Group Closes Shop for Good

It may be moving day soon for the Society for the Preservation of Variety Arts.

Although many a premature alarm has sounded in the checkered 11-year history of the society’s downtown Los Angeles Variety Arts Center, the society’s Milt Larsen doesn’t believe there will be a last-minute reprieve this time.

The building is being sold for $3.2 million to developer Kamram Shakib, who reportedly plans to use it for offices as well as for a restaurant-nightclub. Escrow is scheduled to close April 5. Shakib acknowledged that the sale was pending but not definite. He declined further comment.

Larsen, who must take care of a $2.5-million accumulated debt out of the proceeds of the sale, is looking at “two or three locations in central Hollywood” to house his extensive collection of show biz memorabilia. He confirmed that a possible site is the Masonic Temple on Hollywood Boulevard.

Last year, Larsen announced that a member of the society’s board, who insisted on anonymity, had agreed to buy the Variety Arts building and allow the society to continue using it. That deal fell through because “restoration costs were astronomical,” Larsen said.

An Easter party on April 3 will probably be the last event under the aegis of Larsen. Meanwhile, other events continue as scheduled, including tonight’s opening of a two-night run of “Jule Styne: A Musical Celebration,” a benefit for AIDS Project Los Angeles starring Sandy Duncan, Linda Purl, Dorian Harewood and many others (information: 213-480-3232).

CLOSED SHOP: The Center Theatre Group has quietly closed its scenic shop, which built the sets for productions at the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre, as well as for some outside productions. It was the decline in the number of outside productions that led to its demise, according to Stephen J. Albert, CTG/Mark Taper managing director.

“The market for building sets for national tours of Broadway productions is not there,” he said.

Drew Murphy, the Ahmanson Theatre’s production manager, cited an additional reason: “The contract was up with Local 33 (of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees), and the increases they were asking for made it financially impossible.”

Lawrence Petkus, chairman of Local 33’s negotiating committee begged to differ. “We were looking for a small increase, under inflation, but then they said they couldn’t keep the shop open unless they got a $70,000 a year decrease in rent.” He attributed the closure of the CTG shop to its move from a smaller structure on Glendale Avenue to one “three times as big” on East Pico Boulevard.

Although the CTG still runs its own costume and prop departments, it now bids out its scenic construction to other shops. Center Theatre Group still holds the lease on the building and is looking for alternative uses for it, Murphy said.

STELLAR STELLA: Stella Adler sat on stage at a new Equity Waiver theater named after her last Friday and beamed as an audience of black-tied notables saluted her and as some of her students performed in her honor.

“She is the pinnacle theater lady of this century,” declared playwright Jerome Lawrence. “To name a theater for the divine Stella is to acknowledge the vastness of her gift to us all.”

“You don’t just learn acting from her,” said director Peter Bogdanovich. “You learn an artist’s approach to the craft.”

Adler, 86, is perhaps most renowned as a Stanislavsky student and the acting teacher who interpreted the Russian master’s work to several generations of American actors, including Marlon Brando.

After her student Dominick Allen sang selections from “Les Miserables” Friday (without audible analysis of his performance by Adler), Mark Taper Forum artistic director Gordon Davidson quipped that “to perform and to get off stage without any notes or comments from Stella is amazing.”

Davidson also read some prescient comments that Adler wrote for The Times in 1967, in which she forecast a cultural boom for the town where, in the 1930s, she had undergone a name change to Ardler, in order to perform in the movies. (“If you have to change my name,” Lawrence quoted Adler as having said at the time, “call me something glamorous, like ‘Beverly Wilshire.’ And you can call my brother (actor Luther Adler) ‘Bullocks Wilshire.’ ”)

The Stella Adler Theatre, adjacent to the Stella Adler Conservatory on Argyle Avenue just south of Hollywood Boulevard, is across the street from the Pantages and the West Coast Ensemble. “It’s important that we make this area the new theater district,” said district City Council member Michael Woo.

The theater board is looking for an artistic director. Until one is selected, no programming will be announced.