‘Tommy’ Gala Reaps Rewards for La Jolla Playhouse and Children

A few weeks before the opening night of the new stage adaptation of “Tommy” at La Jolla Playhouse, composer Pete Townshend made the theater an offer it couldn’t refuse.

Why not turn the rock opera’s July 9 curtain-raiser into a combined benefit for the Playhouse and for the London-based Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation, whose pupils include autistic children not unlike the deaf, dumb and blind kid who is the focus of “Tommy”?

“This was something everybody wanted to do as soon as Pete suggested it,” said Playhouse managing director Terrence Dwyer, who added that the two organizations will split net proceeds of about $10,000. “We didn’t look at this as the Playhouse giving a benefit for another charity, but we did work with Nordoff-Robbins, which was very involved and provided many high-level contacts. Income is important to us, and this is income we probably wouldn’t have had if it weren’t a co-benefit.”

The $350 per-person fund-raiser required unusual and what might even be called delicate planning, however, because of two sets of circumstances. Only a limited number of seats could be offered at the benefit level, since large numbers of tickets already had been set aside for VIP guests, season ticket holders and others. At the same time, the Playhouse had not the slightest desire to draw attention or support away from its upcoming, annual “Monday Night Live” gala, to be given on the theater grounds July 27. Projected to earn about $100,000, the alfresco dinner and performance will feature iconoclastic singer Lyle Lovett and his Large Band.

“Pete Townshend really instigated this party,” said Playhouse annual fund director Penny Taylor at the late-night “Tommy” benefit, given on the terrace of a Golden Triangle office tower after the performance. While Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle--all former members of the Who, which released “Tommy” as an album in 1969--huddled nearby in a persistent, drizzle-like fog that recalled both the London setting and some of the darker themes of the rock opera, Taylor added: “Pete felt that this project should leave something with the community, but not a debt and not just the piece. He saw it as a perfect opportunity to make a bundle of money.”

According to Taylor, the Nordoff-Robbins Foundation enjoys the support of numerous prominent musicians, including Paul McCartney, and has been among Townshend’s pet charities for some years. She said that the last performance of “Tommy” by the Who, given in 1989 at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, was staged as a “mega-benefit” for Nordoff-Robbins.

The crowd of 500 who attended the “Tommy” benefit differed considerably from the attendance of about 400 local performing arts supporters who will listen to Lovett at “Monday Night Live.” The great majority of those attending were young and from the Los Angeles entertainment community. Given the number of rockers on the scene--there were a few celebrities as well, including Liza Minelli and actors John Cusack and Robert Downey Jr.--the party maintained a fairly sedate tone. An exception was Playhouse artistic director Des McAnuff, who worked with Townshend to adapt “Tommy” for the stage and said, with great feeling and clear satisfaction, “Musicals are fun to watch, and agony to do.”

The guest list owed much to Townshend’s influence, but the relative scarcity of traditional Playhouse supporters reflected the desire of the theater not to compete with itself in the fund-raising arena. ‘ “Monday Night Live’ is our major fund-raiser, and we felt it important that tonight not negatively affect that benefit,” said a theater spokeswoman.

While theater staff planned the “Tommy” benefit and stayed close to the easygoing format established for other Playhouse opening night parties, “Monday Night” will follow the tradition of most charity affairs and is in the hands of a group of volunteers of almost bewildering scope. Planned as an informal dinner and show with Lovett and his band, the event is being managed by a pair of general chairmen, an honorary chair, an honorary committee, a gala chair and her gala committee. The prime reason behind this immense number of volunteers is the sale of tickets, which in the current economic climate has become a harder-than-usual task for most benefits.

Gala chair Judith Harris, who also organized the hugely successful 1990 “Monday Night” featuring Harry Connick Jr., said that the anticipated take of $100,000 would equal the proceeds of the last two years, which is regarded as something of a triumph given the present scarcity of underwriting and corporate donations.

Harris, a Lovett fan, credited the selection of the performer with annual fund director Taylor but added that the timing seemed right. “Lovett now is in the position in his career that Connick was in 1990,” she said. “He’s about to take off, so we feel that we made the right decision hiring him for ‘Monday Night.’ ”

The choice of Lovett, who has been described as owning “a voice of ripped velvet” and whose repertoire ranges from gritty ballads to ditchwater blues, is at variance with the more mainstream talent engaged to headline previous “Monday Night” performances. The singer earned a Grammy award in 1989 for the album “Lyle Lovett and His Large Band,” and made his film debut this year in Robert Altman’s “The Player.”

“Lyle Lovett was the perfect choice, because he reflects the Playhouse’s desire to always be adventurous and bold in its presentations,” said stockbroker Anne Armstrong, who with her husband J. Samuel Armstrong serves as general chairman of the event. “We are trying to reach out to individuals and organizations in the community who share our concerns about the precarious future of the arts in San Diego, and Lyle should help us to do that.”

The gala will take an informal tone, owing not just to Lovett’s brands of music and performance style but to the fact that the benefit will be given on a Monday, usually a night off for fund-raising circuit regulars. The ticket price of $300 per person will include a cocktail reception, an alfresco catered dinner, the performance in the Mandell Weiss Theatre and a return to the great outdoors for dessert and coffee.

Harris agreed that Lovett’s style marks something of a departure for the benefit, but predicted broad audience approval.

“He’s a very wry kind of singer,” she said. “He’s a story teller, and I think each of his songs is like a short story, like something you might read in an anthology. There’s a bittersweet feeling to his writing.”