Poway to Import Shows From Pasadena Playhouse : Theater: The North County venue beats out Spreckels Theatre for six productions.

Professional theater in the North County area took a giant step forward Friday with the announcement that the Poway Center for the Performing Arts has entered a two-year agreement to import shows from the Pasadena Playhouse, starting in September.

The partnership marks a victory, of sorts, for the suburban theater audience over the downtown theater audience. The Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego had previously been the prime contender for the San Diego County slot in a regional circuit that the Pasadena Playhouse is assembling.

Six productions each year will travel from Pasadena to Poway, and then on to the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. Each production will spend three weeks in Poway, presenting 22 performances, including Tuesday through Sunday evenings and two weekend matinees.

The first production to hit the road, Preston Sturges’ “A Cup of Coffee,” will play Pasadena July 19-Aug. 23, move to Poway Sept. 3-20, then land in Santa Barbara Sept. 24-Oct. 11.

Subsequent productions in the first of two three-play seasons over the course of a year will include “David’s Mother,” a comedy by “6 Rms Riv Vu” playwright Bob Randall, playing Poway Oct. 29-Nov. 15, and “Oil City Symphony,” an Off-Broadway musical hit featuring most of the original cast, scheduled to play Poway from Jan. 7-24, 1993.

Pasadena Playhouse productions operate on a contract with Actors’ Equity that is several steps above the arrangements with any of the theaters between La Jolla and Costa Mesa. Pasadena actors receive a minimum of $518 a week, which will go up to $531 on tour, Actors’ Equity official Joe Garber said. The only other theater in North County with an Equity contract is the Lawrence Welk dinner Theatre, where the minimum is $323 a week.

Playhouse officials had been negotiating for the use of the Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego as their San Diego County venue. Jacquie Littlefield, owner of the Spreckels, said she had offered the Playhouse a one-third discount from the usual rental rates at the Spreckels, where the Playhouse presented a successful engagement of “Solitary Confinement” earlier this year.

But the “deal dropped dead at the n th moment,” said Littlefield. She contended that it was because Poway offered better financial terms.

The agreement with the Poway facility, which is owned by the city of Poway, is a two-year lease for 18 weeks a year. Officials said the city could expect $100,000 in annual revenue as a result of the deal, but further questions about the financial arrangements were referred to civic authorities, who were not immediately available for comment.

Lars Hansen, executive director of the Playhouse, denied that money was the reason the Playhouse shifted its attention from the Spreckels to Poway. Instead, he called the size of the Poway--815 seats--a better match for productions that originate at the 700-seat Playhouse than the 1,450 seats at the Spreckels. And he cited the “tremendous growth” of the area around Poway and the desire of its residents to be able to see professional theater without a long drive.

The lack of competition in North County, as opposed to San Diego, also may have been a factor. Poway Center manager Michael Putnam cited “a number of advantages, virgin territory not being the least of them.”

Since the Poway Center opened in 1990, it has booked sporadic productions of touring companies for brief runs, but nothing has approached the Pasadena bookings in length. The Poway subscription base numbers a mere 500, and the center has drawn on a single ticket-purchasing audience of around 4,000, said Putnam.

The Playhouse will take the principal financial risk in coming to Poway, Putnam added. Although Poway will be locked in for 30% of its schedule, “the boon for us is the exposure we’ll get to a larger audience.”

Hansen cited “the large number of arts patrons who live in North County,” and Putnam said, “We intend to reach into the metropolitan San Diego audience” for the Pasadena bookings.

It was Poway Center benefactor Tim McCarthy who suggested pursuing a deal with the Playhouse, according to center officials. He had read an interview with Playhouse owner David Houk in which Houk was quoted about his desire to expand his operations into the San Diego area.

The lease with Poway was drawn up for only two years--instead of the five-year lease that the Playhouse signed with the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara--because “it was difficult for the city to enter into a five-year lease,” said Putnam. However, he predicted an early assessment of whether the lease can be extended beyond two years.

Spreckels owner Littlefield said “there are no sour grapes here.” Yet she also suggested that the Spreckels has “a sophisticated audience, comparable to the audience that goes to Pasadena. Personally, I don’t think they’ll get the same audience (in Poway).”