California Music Theatre Campaign Begins; Padua Hills’ Festival Off and Running

Rumors that the California Music Theatre, now in its second season, might be in financial trouble were dismissed as no more than routine growing pains by artistic director Gary Davis.

“We’re here and it’s business as usual,” Davis said Tuesday. “There have been rocky times when we’ve had to do some creative asking. But I knew that (getting established) would take two or three years.”

Davis’ response to the crunch: more creative asking, in the form of aggressive fund-raising and community involvement.

“We’re in the middle of a major 3-to-1 match campaign,” he said of CMT, whose annual budget now runs about $2 million plus. “Our board has pledged $100,000 as soon as $300,000 comes in, so we’ve sent letters to our subscribers inviting them to sponsor various aspects of a production.

“We have a new guarantors program, which may be a misnomer--a club of supporters who make a one-time contribution of $1,000, in exchange for a variety of benefits, with a 15% annual contribution after that. This ‘guarantees’ our future, but they’re not on line to guarantee any annual deficits.

“We have a very committed board (of directors) and I’ve seen community support develop in the last few months. There have been personal pledges from Pasadena businessmen. We also have very real invitations to take our shows to other venues. The need for product in major theaters around the country makes shows from Southern California, where there’s such a large talent pool, very attractive.”

To better integrate into the community, CMT and Paul Gleason’s American Center for Music Theatre Training (which recently relocated in the CMT offices) have formed an alliance to introduce their work to Pasadena youngsters.

“What we’ve done is joined Pasadena’s Adopt-a-School program and adopted the whole district,” Davis said. They hold seminars on musical theater, make tickets to their shows available to students and are poised to conduct a musical theater workshop for high schoolers as part of the summer school program.

“We need,” Davis emphasized, “to develop a younger audience.”

In other developments, CMT managing director Lars Hansen left that post last week to become consulting managing director for the Pasadena Playhouse, but both Davis and Hansen say the parting was a career move and amicable. Davis has no current plans to replace Hansen.

“There was a friendship and a kind of chemistry between Lars and me that would be hard to reproduce,” he said. “For now, we’ll just hire a business manager.”

Meanwhile, the June 16 opening of “Kismet,” CMT’s next show, will be a major tribute to its creator, Edwin Lester, founder of the 50-year-old Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. “I started as a stage manager with CLO in 1971,” Davis said. “It means something to me.”

NEW HOPE, NEW SCOPE: The ailing Padua Hills Playwrights Festival is off to a fresh start. With its new artistic director (Roxanne Rogers, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nominee for her direction of “Savage in Limbo”), new venue (the Actors’ Center in Studio City) and new site for its summer productions (the Pacific Design Center), it is metamorphosizing into a year-round affair.

And wasting no time.

The premiere of Susan Champagne’s “Honeymoon,” described as a “brutal/comedic picture of a couple adjusting to married life,” ( that bad, is it?) will open April 8, with Padua veteran Lorinne Vozoff directing in one of the Actors’ Center new Waiver spaces.

On April 10, the “Moonstruck” author of “Savage in Limbo” and “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,” John Patrick Shanley, will give a benefit lecture as a fund-raiser for Padua, location and time undetermined. Call (213) 276-6284 for more information.

Starting April 16, Padua will launch another fund-raising ploy: a weekly Saturday night Reader’s Theatre consisting of poetry, scenes and short stories to be read by a distinguished collection of actors, among them Amy Madigan, Kate Mulgrew, Laurie O’Brien, Christina Pickles, John Ritter, Joe Spano and Alfre Woodard.

Its annual playwrights’ workshop will take place June 27 to July 16, with Eric Overmyer and Olan Jones joining the regulars: Irene Maria Fornes, Leon Martell, Martin Epstein, John O’Keefe, Lin Hixson.

Outdoor performances of the works-in-progress will take place July 14-31 at the Pacific Design Center’s new amphitheater and environs, culminating Aug. 5-13 with Lin Hixson’s performance art piece, “Soldier Child/Tortured Child,” in the gym of the Methodist Church at Franklin and Highland avenues in Hollywood. It may not be the hills of Padua, but. . . .

PIECES AND BITS: The 1988 Grove Shakespeare Festival season will offer “Richard II” directed by Jules Aaron (opening June 24), “The Comedy of Errors,” staged by David Herman (July 22) and “King Lear,” staged by Thomas Bradac (Aug. 25). Grove veteran Dan Cartmell is set to play Lear, Ben Stewart the Fool.