Benefit Concert Postponed in Expense Money Slip-Up

A benefit concert tonight at the Orange County Performing Arts Center for an Anaheim brain care foundation has been postponed because the group’s founder failed to come up with $30,000 to pay for the show.

A frantic, last-minute effort to find a way to pay expenses was unsuccessful Tuesday, prompting Price Sanders of the American Brain Care and Recovery Foundation to call off the 8 p.m. variety show. About 700 tickets had been sold, said Sanders, who added that patrons may request a refund or use the tickets when the show is rescheduled.

It is the second time the show has been postponed since Sanders first proposed a benefit concert a year ago to raise money for the foundation, which treats victims of strokes and other brain injuries at its facilities near Anaheim Stadium.

Despite Tuesday’s setback, Sanders predicted that the show by such entertainers as “Star Trek” actress Nichelle Nichols will be rescheduled within two months.

“I am saddened about the latest turn of events,” Sanders said, “but I am hopeful we can still salvage something.”

Benefit organizers blamed Robert Klayman, an executive with a Los Angeles marketing firm, for tonight’s postponement. Bob Knight, a Los Angeles-based producer who is coordinating the benefit show, said Klayman had agreed to pay the foundation $60,000 for the TV rights to the concert. Organizers had planned to film the musical-comedy event and sell it to a cable network.

Sanders said the $60,000 was needed to underwrite the cost of the show. But Monday, Sanders said a check from Klayman had “bounced.”

Klayman said Tuesday that he “was unaware that the foundation needed the money” so soon. He also criticized the foundation’s handling of the show, saying the group waited too long to begin advertising the benefit.

Sanders had reserved the center for $3,500 but had to deliver $30,000 more by Tuesday to pay for stagehands, ushers and other workers needed for the show, Knight said.

Besides Nichols, who agreed to be host, other entertainers scheduled to appear included singers Jim Pike and Bob Engekmann of the original Lettermen singing trio, Johnny Tillotson and country-rock performer Nicolette Larson. Comedian Fred Travelino was also expected.

The foundation is 2 1/2 years old. Sanders said this would have been the group’s largest fund-raising project.

The group was established in collaboration with Dr. Stanley van den Noort, former dean of UC Irvine Medical School and now chairman of UCI’s neurology department.