North Park Group Pushes Theater Renovation Ahead

The North Park Theatre, which has been closed since 1987, is quietly laying the foundation for its renovation.

The city’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee has granted the North Park Theatre Foundation a second one-year exclusive negotiating agreement, which could lead to a long-term lease or the purchase of the 1,000-seat, 64-year-old theater at 29th Street and University Avenue.

The foundation’s plan is to make the theater a home for small, ethnically and artistically diverse groups such as the Southeast Community Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, San Diego Comic Opera, the West Coast Lyric Opera, Planned Parenthood’s New Image Teen Theatre, the American Ballet Ensemble, the San Diego Finest City Freedom Band, the Raga Ranjani School of Music and the American Indian Resource Center.

Also, Martin Gregg, the foundation’s president, is looking into the possibility of booking money-making films and touring shows to help subsidize the small troupes, and Avalon Attractions has expressed interest in staging concerts at the theater.

The foundation, however, must prove it can raise the money to bring the building up to earthquake safety standards before the city will enter into any further arrangements. But getting the money and agreeing on how much money is needed are two other matters entirely.

Gregg has secured a $300,000 loan toward the $1.1 million he said is needed to meet the seismic code requirements. The city, while maintaining that $3.4 million will be needed to bring the theater up to code, is willing to look at a study the foundation is preparing that shows the lower figure is correct. The city bought the building in 1990 for $898,600 with an eye toward saving the structure for the community.

Gregg expressed confidence Tuesday that the community will rally around the theater, and that the foundation will be able to start renovations within the year. Any sale or lease figures remain undecided.

“It’s finally gotten out of the political arena and back into the community where it belongs. Now it depends on whether the community will be able to come up with the money that will allow it to be reopened.”

Jack, the caretaker for the developmentally disabled men in “The Boys Next Door,” leaves “the boys” at the end of the play because he is burned out.

But actor Ron Lang, who plays Jack in the Lamb’s Players Theatre production at the Lyceum Space, came up with a more upbeat ending for his character, which he decided to share with the audience after the Saturday performance.

“Jack does finally meet the right woman and falls madly in love,” Lang told the packed house after a standing ovation. Then he motioned for a 10-foot banner he had prepared to be unfurled on stage, saying “MICHELLE MARRY ME.”

With that, a spotlight went on Michelle Napolitano, an actress Lang had been dating for two years; Lang went up to her seat and offered her a diamond ring.

A very surprised Napolitano accepted, and, as the audience cheered, the couple exited through the set.

The show continues through May 31--without the addendum. Call 474-4542.

Comedian Shelley Berman will give a benefit show, “An Evening With Shelley Berman” for the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company on Saturday at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre.

The Los-Angeles based Berman, who has performed on Broadway in his one-man show, “Insideoutsideandallaround Shelley Berman,” became acquainted with the Gaslamp when he came down March 23 to do a reading of Allan Havis’ “Heaven and Earth” as part of the company’s Streisand Festival of New Plays.

He liked the theater, he said--”so when somebody asked me if I would do a benefit, I said, ‘Sure.’ ” Berman, who has performed on stage and screen and has recently had his first play, “First Is Supper” produced in New York, said he wouldn’t mind performing at the theater sometime in the future.

“I’m always looking for work.”

Tickets are $30. Call 234-9583.

PROGRAM NOTES: The Old Globe is looking into the possibility of rebooking the wildly popular “Forever Plaid” in November and December, Thomas Hall, the Old Globe’s managing director, confirmed Tuesday. “We’re in serious discussions and we hope we’ll be able to do it,” he said. Hall’s main concern is whether a San Diego run would impact or be impacted by the successful run now at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills. “We don’t want to end up competing with each other.” The original cast, which played at the Globe last year and is now at the Canon, may very well come back for the San Diego run. . . .

Paula Kalustian, director of San Diego State University’s musical theater program, reports that her department is still “unscathed” in the wake of the massive cuts aimed at other SDSU programs. Her department will be unable to fill a newly created teaching position, but she’s going ahead with “business as usual,” she said. In the meantime, Kalustian, who is also the new artistic director of the Theatre in Old Town, is readying the return of “Beehive” for a June 4 opening. . . .

A group of 125 SDSU alumni are going to see fellow alum Marion Ross star in “The Glass Menagerie” at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre tonight. Ross will meet and talk with the group afterward. . . .

Anne Bogart, the director for the San Diego Repertory’s current production of Clare Boothe Luce’s “The Women,” picked up her second Obie Award on Monday for her direction of Paula Vogel’s “The Baltimore Waltz” Off Broadway. The show opened at the Circle Repertory Company in February.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

HELL’S BIG KITCHEN

It’s hard to buy the Big Kitchen as Hell, but director John Highkin and his Project Theatre do a cleverly convincing job in their wry, Twilight Zone-take on David Mamet’s one-hour one-act, “Bobby Gould in Hell.”

The show turns Bobby Gould into an Everyman, then makes him account for his sins--the biggest of which is that he doesn’t realize he has sinned. Is it really so bad, he questions his interrogating devil (who would rather be fishing), to have been a B-minus sort of fellow?

A fine ensemble makes Mamet’s points with humor and dexterity. And the small touches in this small space are delightful. Rather than removing Big Kitchen’s artwork, there’s a little halo placed over the head of the Martin Luther King Jr. painting, just so no one gets the impression he’s in Hell with the rest of the performers and patrons.

Performances are 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday through May 31 at the Big Kitchen Cafe, 3003 Grape St. in Golden Hill, and the $15 ticket includes coffee and dessert; 235-9756.