Santa Paula’s Slow-Growth Theater

“Our goal was to create a theater of the community--the people and energy of Ventura County,” said Dana Elcar of his 4-year-old Santa Paula Theatre Center. “Before we did anything, we had nine months of workshops. Over that period, 175 people came. Out of that, a core group of 40-50 developed--30 actors, the rest in other areas of production--interested in the idea of forming a theater.”

Buoyed by an outpouring of community and volunteer support, the 70-year-old, 98-seat theater was deeded to the company by the city. The Theatre Center is 55 minutes away from Los Angeles. Its current status is that of a community theater.

“Equity wouldn’t let us be a Waiver theater because we’re out of town,” explained the actor, who shuttles between his home in Santa Paula and the Vancouver set of TV’s “MacGyver” (where he plays Peter Thornton). “So many theaters have failed by trying to move too fast. As our audience grows, we’ll move into bigger theaters. When we’re ready to be a fully professional theater, we will be.”

The company is currently winding up its season with Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” (directed by Patty Boyette, opening Aug. 18) and Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth” in October. The next year will open with Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” followed by the Sardou farce “Let’s Get a Divorce,” and A.R. Gurney’s “The Cocktail Hour” (currently enjoying a long run at New York’s Promenade Theatre). Play four is yet to be set--but Elcar has his sights on David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow.”

Elcar (who’s previously imported such directors as Gerald Hiken, Salome Jens and Deborah LaVine) has also initiated a subscription series that gives subscribers tickets to four major productions, divided up any way they please--seeing four shows once, two shows twice or one show four times. “It allows us a flexibility with our openings,” he pointed out, “and I think people like the freedom of saying, ‘I’m not going to go to every play.’ ”

THEATER FILE: Mary Crosby will play Rosalind in Shakespeare Festival/L.A.’s staging of “As You Like It,” opening this weekend at Citicorp Plaza downtown. In lieu of an admission charge, theatergoers are asked to bring non-perishable food items to benefit the needy. Von’s supermarkets will do an even match . . . PEN Center USA West hosts a benefit next Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum; a performance of Vaclav Havel’s “Temptation” will be preceded by a forum titled “The Artist’s Pact with Conscience.”

Christopher Durang’s “The Marriage of Bette and Boo” opens Saturday as the first production of the Los Angeles Theatre Center’s 1989-90 season. Dennis Erdman will direct Guy Boyd, Bryan Clark, Christine Ebersole, Jane Galloway, Stefan Gierasch, David Marshall Grant, Lela Ivey, Lynn Milgrim, Angela Paton and Stephen Tobolowsky . . . “My Rebel,” a new play by “Mrs. California” ’s Doris Baizley, opens Sept. 16 at Hollywood’s A Directors’ Theatre.

Michael Kearns’ “Intimacies,” a one-man kaleidoscope of AIDS victims reopens tonight at Theatre/Theater, following an acclaimed run last month at Highways . . . Peter Parnell’s comedy “Sorrows of Stephen,” seen at San Diego’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage in 1982, opens Aug. 18 at the Rose Theatre; Bob McAndrew directs . . . Dick Christie, Marla Pennington and David Ruprecht head the cast of Bruce Graham’s “Rainbow Bar & Grille,” bowing Aug. 17 at the Victory.