Need $10,000? Let’s See, Just Where’s...

Say buddy, can you spare 10 grand?

Inflation has taken its toll on just about everything by now--the nickel cigar, the dime novel, the $500 claw hammer--but it seems that not so long ago you could satisfy an outstretched hand with pocket change.

Nowadays it’s another story. Been over to South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa lately?

Once you finish reading the program notes for George Bernard Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell” and start flipping through the rest of the Performing Arts magazine that the ushers hand everyone, you well might come across the page that bears “A Letter from Mrs. Richard J. Flamson, III.”

Mrs. Flamson is vice president of the SCR endowment fund. She’s also chairman of the Campaign for SCR. In other words, she’s in charge of getting out the bucks. And in her enthusiasm for “keeping the traditions of innovation and excellence vital for the next 25 years,” Mrs. Flamson has thought of a way that “you can help.”

To wit: “Even if you regularly support the annual fund, or have never given a gift to the theater before, I invite you to consider a special gift of $10,000 or more during SCR’s 25th season to say how important this cultural resource is to you and how much you would like to see it continue with strength into the future.”

Ten thousand dollars or more? Let’s see now, where did I set my wallet? I know I got change at lunch--hmmm . . . was that a 10 or a 20-G note I gave the waitress?

I appreciate that it takes a lot of money to run an organization as sophisticated and ambitious as SCR, but honestly. . . .

Maybe if you spend a lot of time around folks whose numeral systems begin at 1 million, reeling off a request for $10,000 is no big deal. (Item: “In October,,” Mrs. Flamson writes, “General and Mrs. William Lyon announced a generous $250,000 challenge grant to help us complete the final $750,000 in our $6-million capital fund effort.”)

But me, I get still steamed at organizations that send out mailers where the lowest contribution box you can check is for $50.

Oh, they usually have that blank space where you can write in a lesser amount if you want, but it might just as well read “ $500, $250, $100, $50 and $(don’t bother).” Sort of makes you wonder whether there’s not something to the argument that culture is strictly for those who spell it M-O-N-E-Y.

But so what if Orange County is Land of the Financial Giants? A far more democratic, not to mention more realistic, approach would be to go after $10 from 1,000 ordinary folks, rather than wait for the $10,000 checks to start flowing in.

Then again, “democratic” is a bad word here, isn’t it? I guess my problem is that I still think of money in terms of record albums. It goes back to that turning point in my professional life when I got a paycheck big enough that I could buy two albums in the same day. So when I hear “$10,000,” all I can think is with that much cash, I could buy pretty near every Elvis record there is.

Mrs. Flamson’s letter goes on:

“An endowment gift has a transcendent quality.” (I’ll say. Who couldn’t transcend a lot of bill collectors with an extra 10 grand?) “You can endow a program of the theater in perpetuity or provide for the theater’s future physical growth.” (Hey, for any potential donors who maybe aren’t theater fans, give me a call and I’ll provide you with the name, address and bank account number of a hard-working writer whom you can endow in perpetuity and provide for his future physical growth.)

I wasn’t able to reach Mrs. Flamson this week to find out what kind of response she’s had to the letter. Perhaps I’m all wet and SCR is flush with checks for $10,000.

Then again, maybe Mrs. Flamson is looking at it like the guy who opens a business selling solid platinum yardsticks for $500,000 apiece. You don’t need a flood of takers--just that one.

Speaking of money, what with Orange County having the highest median housing price in the nation and an abundance of two-career couples struggling to make ends meet, not to mention the high cost of raising kids these days, most of the people I know have a tough time just scraping together $25 bucks to buy a ticket to SCR (parking, dinner, baby-sitter and spouse’s ticket not included).

In Los Angeles, they seem to have taken note of the economy: The Mark Taper Forum has initiated a pay-as-you-can policy for certain midweek performances that lets people buy tickets for whatever they can afford. The idea, says one theater official, is to eliminate high ticket prices as an excuse for people not to attend.

Anyone down here listening?

It might work. You never know: For every financially strapped theater lover who can only afford $4 or $5 to get in, there might just be someone who’s got an extra, oh, say, $10,000.