STAGE / NANCY CHURNIN : Big Bucks From Benefactors Gets Name on Theater Door

What’s in a name? Big bucks, if you want the name decorating a theater’s door.

In a day of shrinking theater funds, an increasing number of houses in Southern California are on the lookout for major benefactors to name their stages after.

In June, the financially troubled Los Angeles Theatre Center offered to name its annual new plays festival after a donor who could come up with $250,000. Bill Bushnell, LATC’s artistic producer, said he’s also considering naming three of the four theaters in the LATC complex for donors who offer an amount that Bushnell described as “at least seven figures.”

In May, C. Bernard Jackson, executive director of the Ivar Theatre, offered to name the Ivar after any benefactor who contributes $2 million (“A million to fix it up, and a million for an endowment,” he said.).

The latest theater in San Diego to name a facility after a donor is the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, which plans to rename its 96-seat house the Elizabeth North Theatre with the opening of the world premiere of “Solid Oak” on Oct. 18. The theater is north of the Gaslamp’s 250-seat facility, the Hahn Cosmopolitan, named after donors Ernest and Jean Hahn (after the theater was named and then unnamed for Charles Dean, a donor who failed to deliver the promised dole).

The rewards for such a naming are usually more than a single sum of money that crosses hands. When Helen Edison donated an undisclosed sum of money to name the complex of theaters at the Old Globe after her late husband, Simon Edison, her support--which had begun long before the gift and still continues--allowed the Globe to rebuild its stages after the 1978 fire. Armistead B. Carter, who donated money to have the Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage named after his late father, served on the board of directors years after his gift.

Mandell Weiss, now 98, contributed $1.14 million to build the Mandell Weiss Theatre, which the La Jolla Playhouse has shared with UC San Diego since 1983. Since the theater opened, Weiss has seen every play in the theater that bears his name, served on the board of trustees and has since contributed $1.2 million toward the building of the Mandell Weiss Forum, a 400-seat thrust stage slated to replace the Warren Theatre in 1991.

Right now, the trend of naming theaters after donors is more common to Southern California with such examples as the Mark Taper Forum, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Ahmanson Theater, all in Los Angeles, said Peter Zeisler, director of Theatre Communications Group. But that doesn’t mean it won’t kick off a trend in the financially strapped theater world, said Robert Sarison, Equity business representativer for developing theater in L.A.

“It’s indicative about how hurting for funds the nonprofit theater can be,” Sarison said. After all, he pointed out, look at the Mitzi Newhouse in Lincoln Center and the Kalita Humphries in Dallas.

For the Gaslamp, the North gift came at just the right time, when the five-year plan the theater had formulated with its board called for finding a donor whose name would adorn the small theater.

For Elizabeth North whose daughter, Mary Gaylord North, has since joined the Gaslamp’s Board of Trustees, the rewards of giving are best expressed by Weiss, whom she is inviting, along with Edison and the Hahns, to the party celebrating the naming of the theater.

“I read that he once said the money he donated in endowing the La Jolla Playhouse has given him more joy and satisfaction in his life than anything he has spent his money on. And it’s really true,” said North (a fourth-generation San Diegan who is third cousin to Iran-Contra figure Oliver North). “We love going to opening night and meeting the performers. The more we understand the theater the more we love it. And now Gay and I feel that we have our finger on the pulse of what is happening in the theater world.”

The Gaslamp’s new name should fit right in with a season that will feature at least four plays new to San Diego: “Party of One,” a musical about single life featuring songs about loving oneself and culinary coping by Morris Bobrow, March 14-May 5; “The Best of Sex and Violence,” a world premiere by Thomas Hinton about a middle-aged professor who tries vainly to keep reality from intruding into his life, May 23-June 23; “Laughing Wild,” the latest play by Christopher Durang, who tells the story of a woman who is angry at the world and a man who fears the world is angry with him, July 11-Aug. 11; “Breaking the Code,” Hugh Whitemore’s acclaimed story about Alan Turing, the man who broke the Nazi’s Enigma Code and, in Winston Churchill’s words, was “perhaps the man who did more than anyone to win Britain’s war” Oct. 31-Dec. 22; a play to be announced that will run Aug. 29-Oct. 13.

They call themselves “Cats Who Care.” And in every city they tour, members of the national company of “Cats” have been staging benefits to help those with AIDS in honor of those members of “Cats” who have been afflicted with or died from the disease. In 1987, cast members from the national touring show of “Cats” staged a benefit in honor of Michael Bennett, the creator of “A Chorus Line” and “Dreamgirls.” The benefit gained added poignancy when, four days before the show went on, AIDS felled T. Michael Reed, a production dance supervisor from the national and Canadian touring companies of “Cats.” In San Diego, the “Cats” team will present William Finn’s “March of the Falsettos” Sept. 14 at Tin Pan Alley at 308 University Ave. in Hillcrest to benefit the Center for Social Services, AIDS Response and AIDS Holistic Programs. Because the cast will be performing in “Cats” that evening at the San Diego Civic Theatre, the musical won’t begin until 11:45 p.m. But the entertainment will start as early as 8 p.m. with Etouffee, a New Orleans jazz group; Peggy Lloyd, a jazz singer; and Freedom Dixieland, a jazz band. Advance tickets are $12.50, $15 on the day of the show and $100 for a dinner package. Call 491-0400 for further information.