Musical Troupe at Uncertain Stage : Controversy: The Glendale Music Theatre is searching for a new place to perform after a rift with Glendale College, its home of 42 years.

A 42-year-old cultural legacy, the Glendale Music Theatre, which draws its patronage from throughout Southern California, is now homeless and its uncertain future has sparked a controversy in the Glendale community.

The curtain fell March 4 on the theatrical company’s final performance of its swan-song production, “The Music Man,” in the jam-packed Glendale College Auditorium, which has been the troupe’s home since 1948. Jackhammers will take over where community dancers and singers left off as the college converts the auditorium for full-time educational use. Where the Glendale Music Theatre goes from here is up in the air, but executive producer Milton Young said he is considering a move to the ornate 2,200-seat Alex movie theater in downtown Glendale.

The city has an option to buy the Alex from Mann Theatres, and long-range plans to turn the building into a municipal arts center and house the GMT there, but such a conversion is at least three years off, Glendale developer Bill Holderness said.

Meanwhile, the dispute between Glendale College and supporters of the Glendale Music Theatre sparked acrimonious exchanges at a meeting Monday of the Glendale Community College Board.

The brouhaha over the fate of the Glendale Music Theatre suggests that the company and Glendale College have outgrown one another. The college, which likes to be known as the sponsor of the Music Theatre, doesn’t want to lose the popular musical organization and is hoping to work out a compromise to keep the theatrical operation on its campus.

“We would like the Music Theatre to stay on the campus,” said Glendale Community College President John Davitt. “Their departure is a loss, but we can’t impede the education of the students. The state has judged us to be the most space-impacted community college in the state.”

Glendale Music Theatre officials expressed little or no hope that a deal can be struck with the college.

The two-year community college is going to “trash our theater in September,” said Young, who founded the GMT. He produced the college’s first musical, Franz Lehar’s “The Merry Widow,” when he joined the music faculty 42 years ago. His associate producer, Jack Keidatz, a Glendale real estate agent, said, “The college is destroying a historic auditorium, forcing us out.”

Keidatz said the theater’s relationship with the college has been strained. “After the way we’ve been treated, I wouldn’t want to go back there,” Keidatz said. “Davitt doesn’t support us. It’s like they just put up with us,” he said.

The college, however, which is short on space, reports that educational concerns take precedence over a cavernous theater that sits empty most of the year. Accordingly, the college has firm plans to gut and update its auditorium.

Glendale College business affairs administrator Tom Fallo said that half the building will be converted into eight classrooms plus a small experimental theater, and that the 1,050-seat theater will be reduced to a 400-seat house.

“The new theater will have updated lighting and sound equipment, raked seating and better sightlines,” Fallo said. “We intend to get essential classroom space out of that old auditorium and a much better theater, to boot. Right now, the Music Theatre is the only organization that fills the space, but the auditorium is seldom filled and the sightlines are so bad you can’t see the show if you sit in the center of the house.”

Ken Gray, chairman of the college’s theatre arts department, which stands to benefit from the renovation, said, “I can’t believe the Glendale Music Theatre can’t function without a big auditorium. We need the renovation. For years, we’ve had to rehearse college plays in the parking lot.”

In response, the Glendale Music Theatre maintains that it can’t sell enough tickets to succeed in a 400-seat theater. The company produces two shows a year, each for a nine-performance, three-weekend run. Attendance figures are in dispute. College officials put average attendance at 460 per performance. The GMT counters that it is slightly less than 600 per performance. The auditorium renovation, GMT officials said, will compel the GMT to sever its traditional ties with the community college.

Although it’s not official, the divorce is already under way, Keidatz said. That imminent split might be a blessing in disguise for the Music Theatre if it can land at the historic Alex movie theater. In its prime, the former vaudeville house with a spiral tower drew Hollywood premieres and stars to its arcade entrance. The Alex, said Young, “has been the quiet subject of a Glendale city survey to determine if the community wants to turn the site into an arts center along the lines of the La Mirada Civic Theatre. The survey was positive.”

The city commissioned two surveys, a recent one from Glendale Partners, a civic organization, and one in 1985 from the London-based Theatrical Projects Consultants. Both found the Alex movie house would be an ideal community arts center, according to Kathy Hull, executive director of the Glendale Regional Arts Council. Hull said, “Most of the City Council wants the Alex as the beacon of popular culture here.”

David Smith, executive director of the Glendale Historical Society, said the GMT would be a welcome tenant at the arts center.

Mann Theatres, which shows first-run films at the Alex, “is pulling out, selling the grand old place, but we don’t know when,” Young said. The Glendale Historic Society and the Glendale Arts Council, added Young, “have been working hand in hand with a city development group to promote an arts center at the Alex. And the Glendale Music Theatre would be a part of it. We could stage four shows a year there”--twice the number the company produced at the college.

But Young cautioned: “Whether the Alex becomes a municipal arts center soon enough to save us is a big question.”

Meanwhile, as an interim move, the Music Theatre is examining possible temporary space at Thorne Hall at Occidental College and at theater facilities at Burroughs High School in Burbank.

The fuss over the fate of the GMT, explained Fallo, has Davitt frustrated that the GMT and its followers so strenuously object to renovation plans for the Glendale College auditorium.

“The college feels that we have grown away from the campus as our involvement in the community has gotten stronger,” Young said.

Countered the college’s Fallo: “Our problem is with the current size of the hall. It’s wasteful space.”

Responds GMT associate producer Keidatz: “After all we’ve given, we feel stepped on.”

The Music Theatre, which initiated a guest Equity contract two years ago and has since lured Jo Anne Worley for “Mame,” John Raitt for “South Pacific” and Tim Bowman as Prof. Harold Hill in the just-shuttered “Music Man,” is a comparatively big community operation. It is tied into the college curriculum through a musical theater workshop and buttressed by an active Glendale Music Theatre Guild.

Young said the fully orchestrated shows, under company director-choreographer Ted Sprague, cost an average of $65,000 to mount “and 98% of that comes from box-office dollars.” Partial support is derived from the city ($6,000 a year) and the college (about $6,500 per show), said Young. The stars are paid per Equity guest contract, and the rest of the cast is unpaid and selected by open auditions.

Most of the patrons come from outside Glendale and as far away as Ventura and San Diego.

Young, who still teaches part time as a choral director at the college, refuses to rule out the possibility that the college and the GMT can reach a resolution. But Monday’s college board meeting appeared to end all hope for the GMT remaining on campus.

Fallo said the renovation plans for the college auditorium have been in the works for three to four years. “The project is not going to change,” he said.

Keidatz and Young, in turn, note that the first they heard about the construction plans was late last year. “We were caught unprepared and off-guard,” Keidatz said.