Curtain Falls in Sad Ending for a Comedy in San Diego

It was just a silly little show about five nuns from Hoboken, N.J. staging a talent show to bury some expired members of their order. But “Nunsense” was also a dream to producer James A. Strait.

Strait, a onetime producing director of the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company, thought there was a future in locally produced for-profit theater in San Diego.

After years of working at the Gaslamp, campaigning for hard-to-get donor contributions, and watching the company sink more and more deeply into debt, the San Diego native thought there must be an alternative to the nonprofit way of doing business here.

What if he could solicit money from backers with a promise that the money would be returned if the show turned a profit?

What if he picked a show with a proven track record? “Nunsense,” a wacky, sweet-natured comedy still running Off-Broadway in New York after five years, has made money in all its regional productions.

But Sunday, right after the matinee performance, Strait will close what he calls “the first production of ‘Nunsense’ in history to lose money.”

After playing 3 1/2 months and 92 performances to roughly 6,000 people, “Nunsense” has failed to maintain even Strait’s modest break-even point of 70 seats a night at the Sixth Avenue Theater.

Things had begun to look up in August for the show, which had opened July 20. With ticket sales exceeding mounting and running costs by $440, Strait sent his first checks out to his eight investors. The investors had contributed a total of $30,000, with no one investor putting in more than $5,000 to get the show off the ground.

But September sales dragged, and, although October business picked up in the beginning of the month, sales collapsed again, this time fatally.

Strait and his producing partner Paul Taylor deferred their salaries and instead put up their own life savings--$7,000--to keep the show running.

Now they are out of cash.

“I’m completely broke,” Strait said. “If I had won money in the lottery this weekend, we would probably keep going for sheer stubbornness. We had a heartfelt commitment to this project and a real belief in it. The people who invested in it had a real belief in it. It’s a real sad thing. I feel like somebody died.”

Strait is not the first to try a for-profit venture in San Diego. “The All-Night Strut” and “I Wanna-Be!?” opened and closed earlier this year after losing money for their investors. But Strait was not gambling on a new show, as these other producers were, he tried one with a proven track record. He kept the overheard low, hiring local talent and dividing all the producing jobs, from keeping the books to doing the laundry, between himself and his partner. He kept each investor’s risks relatively modest.

“Of course you sit and examine why this isn’t working. But there isn’t one thing that we would have done differently,” said Strait.

If there is one sure lesson to be learned, it is that there is nothing sure in theater. Even “Six Women with Brain Death,” which was such a mega-hit here, bombed twice when producers tried to mount it in Los Angeles. Different strokes, as they say.

Now, as the dust clears, Strait and Taylor find that their remaining assets are the props from the show: five habits, four pairs of painted tap shoes and the set from “Grease,” against which the nuns perform their show.

With an inventory like that, Strait said that he and his partner are thinking of leaving San Diego. Maybe, just maybe, he speculates, the problem was not his choice of show, but his choice of city.

“We’ll find a town that wants to see ‘Nunsense,’ and we’ll do it. They can kill you, but they can’t eat you,” he said.

Since 1985, the Playwrights Project has been providing encouragement and a platform for teen-age writers under 19 across the state of California. The San Diego-based organization sends teachers into high schools to teach playwrighting skills; every year they solicit one-act plays from teen-agers and produce the best of those submitted.

Sometimes a discovery of unstoppable talent is made. Josefina Lopez’ “Simply Maria or the American Dream,” a story about growing up Mexican and American, was a first play that quickly established a reputation for its young author. The play was subsequently produced on KPBS-TV and at a variety of regional theaters.

But every year the range of subject matter alone provides a fascinating glimpse into what is on the minds of California’s teen-agers. This year’s productions, which were culled from 179 entries, are no exception. Three of the five winners are from San Diego. The five scripts, which will be produced at the Bowery Theatre’s Kingston Playhouse, Jan. 16-27, are:

“The Shakespeare Club,” by Adam Stein, 18, a graduate of La Jolla High School, now a sophomore at Yale University. An exploration of identity through five Shakespearean characters--Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard III--in a contemporary setting akin to the movie “The Breakfast Club.”

“A Haunted Place,” by Gordon Cox, 16, a junior at Santa Barbara High School. A girl moves into a haunted house and finds out that one can be haunted from within as well as from without.

“For My Very Dust is Laughing,” by Aaron Thomas, 17, senior at Etiwanda High School in Rancho Cucamonga. An irreverent requiem in three scenes that examines life, death and the need to do laundry.

“Also Known As...,” by Rachel Balko, 16, senior at Poway High School. A profile of a mental patient who is trying to convince a psychiatrist that she has been unfairly hospitalized.

“When Reality Fails to Cooperate,” by Rob Sayles, 16, senior at Poway High School. A high school student responds to being molested.

PROGRAM NOTES: It’s definite. “Grand Hotel” will open Aug. 20, 1991 at the San Diego Civic Theatre . . . .

The Reduced Shakespeare Company, a trio of comic actor-writers who have condensed the Bard’s 37 plays into one evening, will perform at UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium Saturday at 8 p.m. . . .

Sheri Glaser, creator and performer of “Family Secrets,” will stage an interpreted performance of her play as a benefit for Deaf Community Services of San Diego Nov. 4. The hit show has been extended through Nov. 18 . . . .

“Shattered Secrets,” a Hispanic Theatre Project production based on playwright Libbe HaLevy’s real-life recovery from incest, will be presented at the Sheraton Harbor Island Hotel Nov. 15 . . . .

Diversionary Theatre opens the San Diego premiere of “Remember My Name,” a story about the effort that created the AIDS Memorial Quilt, Nov. 9-Dec. 8 . . . .

The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company has extended “Dusk to Dawn at the Sunset” through Nov. 25 at the Elizabeth North Theatre . . . .

San Diego Rep artistic director Douglas Jacobs will lead a discussion of “Cymbeline” at 7 p.m. Monday at the Lyceum Theatre. The show opens Wednesday in the Lyceum Space.