Ambitious Plans for Marla Gibbs’ Crossroads Facility : Theater: The TV star moves her Crossroads Academy to a new home and launches a fund-raising drive.

To borrow a phrase from “The Jeffersons,” the TV sitcom that made Marla Gibbs a star, Gibbs’ theater is “movin’ on up.”

The Crossroads Arts Academy and Theatre has moved into a $3.2-million home in Leimert Park--and has begun a three- to five-year campaign to raise $10 million for the retirement of the debt, the renovation of the facility and the establishment of an endowment.

The building includes two theaters: one with 1,180 seats that the Crossroaders plan to reduce to 850--while expanding the stage--and one with 130 seats. It also includes an annex that can be used for classrooms and offices. The building dates from the ‘30s and was most recently occupied by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Gibbs put up three-fourths of the $400,000 down payment; the rest of it came from an anonymous donor. “Marla bought it,” said her daughter Angela Gibbs, who serves as the founding director and producer of Crossroads. “Now we have to pull this (fund-raising campaign) together--or we’ll be in trouble, especially with Marla not being on (series) TV.”

Marla Gibbs’ NBC series, “227,” which grew out of a play initially presented at a former Crossroads facility, was recently canceled. Now, said her daughter, “we’ve got to give Marla some breathing room”--hence the emphasis on broadening the theater’s base of financial support.

If all goes as planned, the theater will open--next summer is the optimistic goal--with a revival of “227.” But Crossroads’ programming plans are more adventurous than that might indicate.

The company plans to produce Jeff Stetson’s “Fraternity” at the Westwood Playhouse during the coming season, perhaps next fall. It’s a play about a group of middle-aged men who are linked by ties to a tragic incident during the civil-rights movement, from the author of “The Meeting” (which Crossroads also produced, before it went on to national attention on PBS). And the first show to use the new Leimert Park facility will be a student production, in the smaller theater in September, of Steve Carter’s “One Last Look,” from his trilogy which also includes “Eden” and “Nevis Mountain Dew.”

The fund-raising campaign coincides with a similar drive by the city’s most established black-oriented theater, Inner City Cultural Center, to raise funds to renovate Hollywood’s Ivar Theatre, which Inner City purchased last year. “We want to co-exist,” said Angela Gibbs, adding that the two groups plan to unite for a major fund-raiser next year.

GOSPEL TOO: Not all of the commercially intended, black-oriented shows that are moving into the town’s mid-size and large theaters (“Stage Watch,” June 7) are secular in content. A couple of gospel musicals also are on the list.

One of them, “God’s Trying to Tell You Something,” will open a new venue for theater--the Hollywood Palladium, best known for ballroom dancing and rock ‘n’ roll. An in-house production company at the Palladium, ICON Entertainment, is bringing in the show for five performances, opening Sunday, and later plans to tour. Those who saw “Black Folk in Song” at the Westwood Playhouse last winter may experience deja vu ; it’s the same show, somewhat expanded, with gospel star Shirley Caesar now headlining the cast. The management promises 2,200 portable “theater-style” seats.

Also coming up is “Mama, I Want to Sing, Part II,” at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills July 12-29. It’s the touring sequel to a gospel/pop musical that was presented at the Beverly Theatre in 1986.

IRVINE MONEY TO LATC: The James Irvine Foundation has given $125,000 to Los Angeles Theatre Center for the expansion of its multicultural programming and marketing.

Asked if this is a vote of confidence in the future of the financially troubled institution, the foundation’s John Orders noted “there is a risk involved in every grant,” but maintained that LATC “has begun the turnaround of a difficult situation in earnest. Ultimately it will work out. (The theater) is heroic in many ways. With all their difficulties, they’ve done an extraordinary job.”

MUCH ADO ABOUT ‘ADO’: The Shakespeare Festival/L.A., an annual free-Shakespeare event, has completely dropped its afternoon schedule--in response to complaints about the heat. This year, performances at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater, July 6-8 and July 13-14, will start at 7:30 p.m., while Citicorp Plaza performances will begin at 6:45 p.m., July 18-21 and July 25-28. Once again, donations of canned food--to be matched by Vons and presented to charitable organizations--are requested in lieu of an admission charge.

This year’s play is “Much Ado About Nothing,” set on Jekyll Island, a resort area off the coast of Georgia, in 1932, with a live jazz quartet playing ‘30s-style music. That makes two current, local “Much Ados” set during that era--except that the Grove Shakespeare Festival’s, in Garden Grove, takes place in fascist Italy.

BIG PICTURE: “The Big Picture: An Evening of Plays With a Different View of Disability,” short plays by or about disabled persons, will be presented at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood June 25-26 at 8 p.m. Most of the work was developed under the auspices of the Mark Taper Forum’s “Other Voices” project. Tickets are $10.

Information: (213) 663-1525.

TONYS HEAD WEST?: “Wherever there’s a theater hiring actors to speak a playwright’s words--that’s Broadway,” said Kathleen Turner, wrapping up the Tony Awards program earlier this month.

Does this mean that the Tony judges have expanded the definition of “Broadway” to include productions outside the environs of Times Square? Will we soon see the judges checking out potential Tony contenders in Los Angeles, Costa Mesa and San Diego, not to mention Greenwich Village? Will the Tonys be presented at the Doolittle or the Old Globe?

Don’t hold your breath.