S.D. Junior Theatre Is Trudging Through a Difficult Crossroads

Mark Twain called it “the greatest invention of the 20th Century.” And, although it is not known what Raquel Welch called it, it is documented that she did it, right here in San Diego. As did Dennis Hopper, Cleavon Little, Victor Buono and Robert Hays of “Airplane” fame.

It is Junior Theatre. More specifically, San Diego Junior Theatre, a program of classes and public shows done by and for children ages 8 to 18.

But the names of Welch, et al, were not on the lips of the hosts of the venerable institution’s recent 40th anniversary fund-raising party.

Instead, the celebrants talked about the leads in their current show, which, like their very first show, is “Cinderella.” As they spoke, their eyes followed the fair-haired Cinderella and her Prince weaving dreamily hand-in-hand through the guests in shimmering silver and gold.

“Did you see the show, did you like it?” the murmurs began. “Weren’t the kids charming?”

The adults shot the couple admiring but anxious looks, almost as if they had their eyes not just on the teen-agers, but also on the future itself.

In her lavish, red antebellum dress, Constance Monzingo-Fish, president of the board of directors, took time out at the end of the evening to pore over the proceeds of the evening’s $100-a-plate buffet. The total came to $15,000, she announced, with relief. “That takes us out of the red.”

It was a critical moment, one that may mark a turning point for the once flourishing institution that has been reeling from a variety of financial and artistic whammies in the last half-dozen years, beginning with Proposition 13. When that measure passed, putting a limit on property taxes, it gradually drained the funds available for public projects like children’s theater.

Monzingo-Fish wistfully recalled the days when the board of directors had all of $50,000 to $60,000 a year to raise as a supplement to the budget provided by San Diego’s Parks and Recreation Department. Today, although the theater still maintains a rent-free home at the Casa del Prado, courtesy of Parks and Recreation, it has to come up with its $250,000 annual operating budget.

In the process, tuition for the classes at the junior theater, a prerequisite for participation in the shows, jumped from a $30 minimum enrollment to $75, and ticket prices doubled.

Such increases have cut into the pool of chronically money-short high school students. This year’s prince, Jason Schauer, said that, because he did not want to ask his parents for the money, he had not planned to pursue the part. Eventually he was persuaded to try out by his high-school drama teacher, Dan Regas, who just happens to double as acting artistic director of the theater.

Attrition among the older students further snowballed as lower budgets made for lower-quality shows and a series of four artistic directors in seven years leaned more heavily on fairy-tale musicals that had the reputation for bringing in audiences but boring the teen-age acting pool.

The board is trying to turn all that around.

This year, the board has called for a number of retreats to draft policy statements and goals for the theater. Summarizing the plans, which are still being formulated, Monzingo-Fish said the theater will be spending more money on its shows as well as pairing “No, No, Nanette,” a show geared toward teen-agers with “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” for the younger children this summer.

Certainly the stone-castle set for the current production of “Cinderella” is one of the most lavish the theater has had for a long time. Part of what made it possible was the theater’s cooperation with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, which erected the base for its recent “Yeomen of the Guard” operetta.

Even so, there were other elaborate set changes for the inside of Cinderella’s home that the Gilbert and Sullivan Society had not erected. And then there were the costumes.

Longtime patrons of the theater point out that one shouldn’t put too much stress on the theater’s problems. After all, these aren’t the first setbacks it has had. In 1948, Craig Noel, artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre, started the program as part of the theater only to find the Old Globe board axing it from the budget during one of his trips to New York a few years later. The Parks and Recreation Department picked up the slack and did not relinquish it until the pressures brought on by Proposition 13.

The growth of interest in the theater here corresponded to a national wave of interest in children’s theater that had its seeds in the first decade of the 20th Century. It was in those years that Twain saw a children’s production of his novel, “The Prince and the Pauper,” and responded with the glowing comment about children’s theater being the greatest invention of the 20th Century.

Hull House, an organization that helped immigrants adjust to American life, supported children’s theater as a way of easing the young among the newcomers into the American language and way of life. The Women’s Junior League picked up the ball in the 1930s-40s, promoting national conferences that created an interest in children’s theater for its own sake. In 1939-40, a Los Angeles theater toured with 19 performances of “Cinderella.”

Less than 10 years later, Cinderella was going to the ball right here in San Diego.

Over the years, people have had different takes on the very purpose of the program. Ole Kittleson was an 8-year-old actor in the program’s inaugural season. As an adult, he has directed nearly 30 shows, including the current one, and describes the key to successful junior theater as fostering “a professional attitude.”

“When rehearsal starts at 7, you are there at 10 of 7 with a pencil and a notebook,” he said. “You have to learn the rules and play by the rules if you are to survive in a world of entertainment. You don’t want someone to come to your theater and say it was nice for a high school production. It’s like that Robert Frost poem, ‘After Apple Picking.’ You want it ‘above the brim’--the best you can. Because of that philosophy I think the junior theater is surviving in spite of hard times. “

Kittleson talked about some of the professional graduates from the program, such as Brian Mitchell, now playing on Broadway in the musical, “Mail,” Russell Giesenschlag, now playing on Broadway in “42nd Street,” Daniel Wingard in the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre’s “Night Club Confidential,” and husband-and-wife team Kirby and Beverly Ward, in “Singin’ in the Rain” at the Lawrence Welk Dinner Theatre.

Don Ward (Kirby’s father), who, after 14 years, gave up the artistic directorship of the theater to become the co-artistic director of the Starlight Theatre along with his wife, Bonnie Ward, dwelt instead on the program’s benefits to “ordinary kids.”

“I think that the kids who have an experience with theater have a much more mature outlook. They meet the public better. They learn how to get up in front of their peers and mix with different age groups.” That sentiment is echoed by 16-year-old Henderson, a poised and graceful performer who won the part of Cinderella after three years in the program.

“I think the best thing about theater for kids is that it builds up your self esteem,” Henderson said. “It gives you something special to be. I was incredibly shy. It helped me break out of my introversion in a very special way.”

The San Diego Junior Theatre is hosting a birthday party for itself today at noon with cake, balloons and punch. A free, signed performance of “Cinderella” for the handicapped will be given at 7 p.m. Performances continue 7 p.m. Friday, with matinees only Saturdays and Sundays at 2 through May 8. At the Casa del Prado Theatre in Balboa Park, San Diego.