Tugging on ‘Heart Strings’ in Fight Against AIDS : Benefit Show: The musical is part of a 35-city tour to raise $4 million to fight the deadly disease. Promoters hope San Diegans show more support than usual for this effort.

Five years ago, Ted Geisel, best known as Dr. Seuss, and wife Audrey took a lead role in trying to organize a gala fund-raiser for AIDS research. The La Jolla couple approached wealthy and prominent friends whose roots spread through every sector of the community, asking them to sponsor tables at the event.

“It was pretty damn difficult to get anyone behind it,” remembered the writer’s wife. The event suffered from low turnout, she said.

Unlike other large U.S. cities, San Diego hardly stumbled over itself to support those fighting the disease when AIDS first made headlines in the mid-1980s. Outside of the city’s gay community, few San Diegans seemed concerned with an illness they apparently characterized as affecting only white, homosexual males.

That outdated attitude seems to be disappearing with the decade that forged it.

Monday, Audrey Geisel will attend an AIDS fund-raiser that may manage to do what she and her husband could not.

The premiere of the musical “Heart Strings” in San Diego has drawn support from every segment of San Diego society--business, politics, education, medicine, sports, religion and the arts. Supporters range from Chargers coach Dan Henning and former Padre Steve Garvey to HomeFed Bank Chief Kim Fletcher and Dr. Jonas Salk.

“I think ‘Heart Strings’ is going to be the first time that we’re going to get cross-section support” in San Diego for AIDS, Audrey Geisel said.

“Heart Strings” comes to Symphony Hall for one night as part of a 35-city national tour to raise $4 million in the fight against AIDS. The two-act musical features an ensemble of 20 singers and dancers who perform a series of narratives created from interviews with people whose lives have been touched by AIDS--not only victims of the disease, but family members, friends and even volunteers.

San Diego’s production will feature film actress Michelle Pfeiffer (“Dangerous Liaisons” and “The Fabulous Baker Boys”) as mistress of ceremonies. Pfeiffer also narrates several scenes, along with Meshach Taylor (of television’s “Designing Women,”) KNSD-TV news anchor Denise Yamada and local actor Fisher Stevens.

If the show sells all 2,250 seats in Symphony Hall--1,400 had been sold by Wednesday morning--it will easily make “Heart Strings” the best-attended AIDS benefit ever held in San Diego County. Corporate sponsors already have donated $45,000 of the $100,000 the show hopes to raise here.

“Heart Strings” was first produced in Atlanta three years ago by members of the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS and raised $120,000. A second production 18 months later brought $266,000. More importantly, the show attracted large donations from 88 corporate sponsors.

The foundation was so pleased with the turnout that it decided to send the show on a national tour. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were drafted as national honorary co-chairs, as were the mayors of every city the production planned to visit.

Such impressive national backing is one reason “Heart Strings” promoters found it easy to get the diverse local support needed to make the San Diego production a success, said Ron Ferrero, administrator of San Diego’s show.

Past AIDS benefits here have not neared those figures, either in turnout or donations. In November, the annual dinner to benefit the San Diego Aids Project drew only 300 guests. And, although an August dinner honoring the late businessman Monte Kobey, who died of AIDS after contracting it through a blood transfusion, raised $100,000, only 500 people attended the $150-a-plate dinner.

“We’ve never had one person who was able to donate all their time and talent to one event,” said Tim Pestotnik, chairman of the board of the San Diego AIDS Project and a “Heart Strings” host committee member. “When you’ve got a professional who understands the disease and understands the community, its going to make an impact. And that’s what we’ve got in Ron,” he said, referring to Ron Ferrero.

Perhaps Ferrero’s biggest coup was getting HomeFed Bank CEO Kim Fletcher and his wife, Marilyn, to serve as honorary co-chairs with Mayor Maureen O’Connor.

“I think that says something,” said Joe E. Jessop Jr., a member of the Jessop Jewelers family. “The Fletchers are longtime members of the community, and when they get involved with something, many of the rest of us feel we should support it.”

Ferrero also earned support from other businesses, large and small, throughout the county: Cubic Corp., McKellar Development, KNSD-TV, Intex Development Corp., Southern California Edison, SDG&E;, University Pharmacy in Hillcrest, San Diego Design Center, Will Copy and Print, Mercy Hospital and Croce’s Restaurant.

Bob McDaniel, managing director of the Kingston Hotel, agreed to donate 25 rooms to performers after seeing that the show was “well-orchestrated, well-designed and professional.”

“It had all the makings of looking like it would be very successful. Plus it had a history,” said McDaniel.

Besides soliciting corporate donations, Ferrero and the “Heart Strings” steering committee sent letters to 100 San Diegans representing every geographic area and professional arena, asking them to serve as members of the show’s host committee.

“That’s one of the goals of ‘Heart Strings’--to widen the span of care and concern as it relates to the AIDS crisis,” Ferrero said.

Many also attribute part of the community’s new willingness to take a roll in fighting AIDS to the death of businessman Monte Kobey. Kobey, who operated Kobey’s Swap Meet at the Sports Arena, died in October. He had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion in 1984. For many San Diegans, AIDS could no longer be called a “gay disease.”

“It made a lot of people realize it can happen to anyone . . . even a successful, active family man like my dad,” said daughter Kara Kobey.

“People were just so shocked that it could touch anyone,” said Kobey’s wife, Charlotte. “None of these people ever would have been touched by AIDS if it wouldn’t have been for Monte. AIDS is a problem of all of ours because of Monte.”

Eighty-five percent of the money raised through “Heart Strings” will remain in San Diego to help AIDS victims. A committee overseeing the production here reviewed every association in the county that provides AIDS-related services before choosing recipients of the funds. The committee selected seven beneficiaries based on caseload, need and services provided.

They selected the San Diego AIDS Assistance Fund, San Diego AIDS Project, Center for Social Services, AIDS Coalition for California, Fraternity House in Oceanside, Being Alive and the Visiting Nurses Assn.

The remaining 15% will be distributed to cities too small to host “Heart Strings,” said Ferrero. Those beneficiaries will be named after the tour concludes.

Tickets for the event are $25, or $75 for the performance and a champagne and dessert cast party in Symphony Hall after the show. For $250, contributors can attend a black-tie dinner at Cafe Bon Appetit before the show and receive VIP seating at the performance. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster or at the Symphony Hall box office.

Tonight at 6:30, KNSD-TV’s “Third Thursday” program looks at AIDS in San Diego.