MONEY & THE ARTS : Hallzapoppin : Cerritos joins Southern California’s growing number of arts centers next month--but will there be enough ticket buyers to go around?

It was bound to happen.

Six years ago, one of the selling points for the newly opened Orange County Performing Arts Center was the prospect that folks wouldn’t have to drive all the way to Los Angeles anymore for cultural attractions.

Now, purveyors of the about-to-open Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts are touting the fact that people near this city in southeastern L.A. County won’t have to make the trek to Los Angeles or Costa Mesa for their dose of culture.

Call it the Balkanization of Southern California’s arts scene. Maturing suburban cities from Thousand Oaks to Escondido, armed with redevelopment dollars or deep-pocket donors, are declaring their cultural independence and building arts palaces of their own.

These are not small-potatoes projects, either: The total cost of the Cerritos project will come in at close to $60 million, with a technically innovative main auditorium that can expand from 900 seats for drama or chamber music to 1,963 seats for orchestral concerts. The Thousand Oaks auditorium will have 1,800 seats; Escondido’s lyric theater will have 1,500.

A driving force for the trend is “the desire of people to have cultural and entertainment opportunities close to home,” said Tom Mitze, executive director of the La Mirada Civic Theatre--which opened 17 years ago as a precursor to the current boom in suburban auditoriums. “Commuting is such a hassle. If you drive to work five times a week at a considerable distance, you want to look closer to home for entertainment.”

“We calculated within a 20-minute drive of the Cerritos center we have a market potential of about 1.7 million people, so it’s a significant market,” explained Victor Gotesman, general manager of the new theater. “People who have driven to Orange County or into L.A. or Hollywood can stay relatively close to home and see first-rate performing arts events and entertainment right here in Cerritos.”

When Frank Sinatra takes the stage at Cerritos on Jan. 13 for the first of five sold-out concerts (at the 1,850-seat concert configuration), it will mark the latest step in the increasing decentralization of Southern California’s cultural landscape, a process that can be said to have started in earnest with the 1986 opening in Costa Mesa of the 2,994-seat Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The $72.8 million cost of the hall was raised entirely through private donations.

Since then, openings have included:

* The 800-seat Center for the Performing Arts in Poway, opened by the mid-San Diego County city in May, 1990, on the Poway High School campus. The $8.4-million theater has programmed a mix of local productions and touring dance, music and theater, including performances by William Windom as James Thurber, Ballet Chicago, Mel Torme and the San Diego Symphony. It also imports drama productions from the Pasadena Playhouse.

* The 750-seat Irvine Barclay Theatre in October, 1990, built at a cost of $17.6 million in a partnership between the city and UC Irvine on the university campus. In addition to university and community productions, the theater is home to touring music, dance and theater performances. Performances in 1992 have included the Jose Greco Company, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Bebe Miller modern dance company and the Guarneri String Quartet.

Coming up, after next month’s opening of the Cerritos center:

* A 1,800-seat theater due to open next year as part of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, a $63-million city-financed project that will include a new City Hall and a meeting room that will double as a 400-seat performance space. The total cost of the two theaters is almost $30 million.

* Renovation of the Alex Theatre in Glendale, an old vaudeville house that was used until recently as a cinema, into a 1,450-seat performing arts hall that will play host to dance, chamber music, musicals and selected pop events. Construction on the $6.2-million redevelopment project is expected to begin this month and be completed in the fall.

* The $73-million California Center for the Arts in Escondido, scheduled to open in spring of 1994. The 12-acre project in north San Diego County will encompass a 1,500-seat lyric theater, a 400-seat community theater and a visual arts center with three galleries.

The trend in building new suburban arts centers is being mirrored nationally to varying degrees, particularly in Florida, where the $55-million Kravis Center opened last month in West Palm Beach. “They have centers opening all the time there. It kind of astonishes me,” said Susan Farr, president of the national Assn. of Performing Arts Presenters.

Southern California’s current boom in theater building is at least partly a product of its trademark sprawl, Farr believes. “In some ways, Los Angeles is a unique market,” she said. “It’s more spread out. There’s less definition between downtown and the suburban areas than in some of the older Eastern cities.”

In larger cities, performance halls typically grew up around existing orchestras and opera or dance companies, whereas most of the larger suburban halls are built to cater to touring groups. Sometimes, local groups will grow to fit the hall--witness Opera Pacific and the Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Hall--but for the most part, the builders are looking to import talent.

“We have no resident companies who are housed under our roof. There is no Cerritos symphony or theater company or dance company,” said Gotesman, the general manager. “Primarily our focus has been on presenting and developing a major and significant presenting program of music, dance and theater.”

That is one reason why long-established arts centers do not anticipate much direct competition for audiences or performers. “The Music Center is very fortunate to have resident companies,” said Sandra Kimberling, president of the Music Center Operating Co. “The impact is not as strong as it might be if we were booking one-nighters every night of the year.”

Also, she echoed a sentiment common to several people interviewed for this story: that more venues in Southern California helps create a bigger overall audience base for the arts.

“I think it’s an exciting, flexible center. It’s going to add to the landscape,” said Thomas R. Kendrick, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, referring to the Cerritos hall. So far, he said, he has not seen an effect on ticket sales in Costa Mesa, despite the heavy, initial marketing campaign in Cerritos.

Despite the cheery words from Orange County and downtown L.A., both centers will occasionally look at Cerritos with a wary eye, knowing that in these times patrons will consider economics, and, in some instances, opt for convenience. On Jan. 29, for example, Cerritos will present a recital by Isaac Stern, just two nights after the violinist performs at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The $35 top ticket price at Cerritos is $15 less than at the Music Center. And on Feb. 6, Cerritos presents violinist Pinchas Zuckerman and pianist Marc Neikrug the night after the duo performs at the Orange County center. Top ticket price at both is $30.

The opening of the Cerritos center will also force more care in crafting a season for the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts, one of the largest presenters on the West Coast.

“We have to be more aware of what we place in the season and how it interfaces with event happening at venues around us,” said Michael Blachly, director of the UCLA center. Cooperation between facilities is essential, he said, to avoid conflicts in booking.

As a hypothetical example, he said, it would be a mistake for different facilities to book the Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey and David Parsons dance companies on the same weekend, because it could split an already limited Southern California audience for modern dance.

On the other hand, UCLA and Cerritos are far enough apart to allow both to book some acts. For example, the Ailey company is doing two days at Cerritos after a week at UCLA in April. In such instances, the venues could even join their marketing efforts, Blachly said.

So how does Cerritos, a city of just 50,000 known mostly for its auto dealers, manage to build a $60-million arts center, and ante up another $2 million to help cover annual operating costs? The answer is redevelopment dollars, generated by the city’s huge auto mall and regional shopping center. The why is partly a business decision, partly an assertion of civic identity.

“The city has always viewed the arts center as a magnet to attract other development into Towne Center, but also to provide the community with some cultural enhancement,” Gotesman said. “This is a city with great parks and a great library and wonderful streets and a safe environment, (but) one area that wasn’t being addressed for the residents was entertainment or culture.”

Meanwhile, in northern San Diego County: “I don’t like to be known as a suburban arts center. It implies we’re a satellite of San Diego,” said Neill Archer Roan, executive vice president of the California Center for the Arts in Escondido. “People who live in Escondido are very proud of their city.”

“Escondido has been, historically, the community center of this whole region,” said Oleg Lobanov, president and executive of the arts center. The North County region, he said, has about 1.5 million residents and includes two of the 10 fastest growing cities in the country--Escondido and Oceanside.

The Escondido project has been designed to help spur development in a downtown area that has been somewhat bypassed by a large regional mall. Similarly, Glendale is a city with a large, successful mall that hopes to attract some business back to its downtown.

“If you work down here during the day, we want to provide an opportunity for you to spend the evening as well,” said Sean Clark, senior administrative analyst for the city’s redevelopment agency.

The Glendale project has come about in just the past year, but most of the longer-term projects have their genesis in the mid-’80s, when times were more flush in Southern California. Now they’re opening during an economic recession that is expected to linger longer here than in the rest of the country.

Michael Putnam, managing director of the Poway theater, said the economic climate has harmed efforts to build audience levels since opening in 1990. “We’re in the low end of where we ought to be,” Putnam said, adding that audience figures dipped last year and have remained flat this year, although he finds some comfort in that fact: “If you can hold your own in this environment, you’re doing OK.”

The Cerritos center has enjoyed strong ticket sales so far, thanks to some big names and an aggressive marketing campaign. “Even given the recession, we’ve done extremely well with our marketing campaign and the resulting ticket sales that we’ve generated in the last two months,” Gotesman said. “We went on sale Sept. 21, and we’ve sold in excess of 60% of our available seats so far, so we’re right on target.”

Opening with a sold-out, five-night stand by Sinatra, the Cerritos center season includes such names as Kenny Rogers, George Burns and Joan Rivers, Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, country stars Alabama and sitar master Ravi Shankar, along with several touring musicals. The eclectic first season also includes two performances of the much-hyped dance pairing of Twyla Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The Feb. 3-4 shows have sold out, despite ticket prices ranging from $82 to $90. (The only other Southern California date is Jan. 11 in Palm Desert, where tickets range from $100 to $75.)

One of the downsides for Cerritos is that its ticket range is generally narrower than at other halls. The least expensive seats for its Stern and Zuckerman recitals are $29 and $24, respectively. The cheapest tickets for the violinists’ performances at the Music Center and Orange County are $10.

Accommodating such a wide variety of performances is the primary challenge for multipurpose halls. While big cities can afford to build several halls to accommodate different disciplines, smaller communities are usually forced to make do with one hall for all occasions. At Cerritos, architect Barton Myers has attempted to overcome the problem with what many in the industry agree is one of the most technically innovative designs in the country.

Everything about the hall is flexible. The 80-ton steel side walls swivel on air casters to change the actual shape and size of the room. The hall can have a flat floor with tables for cabaret performances, or a full 1,963 seats for orchestral performances. The lyric configuration for musical theater is 1,450 seats, and the drama layout is 900 seats.

“It’s a revolutionary idea that in one room you can have five different theaters, and in any configuration you would never know there’s another one. They all look like they’re permanent,” Myers said. “Hopefully, you’re not bothered by the technology, because the focus is really on the stage.”

With most suburban halls, Gotesman said, “what usually happens is you either put very intimate performances like chamber music or a small drama event in huge halls, or squeeze huge productions into small halls. You never have the opportunity, the way we have here, to create an ambience appropriate to the artistic product.

“So for chamber music, we go down to a 900-seat, very intimate recital hall, and for an orchestra we go up to the 1,850-seat concert hall. As I said, it’s a programmer’s dream to be able to use the hall that way.”

Privately, some arts administrators express reservations about the technical gadgetry involved. “There’s a lot of wait and see,” Gotesman allowed. “There are a lot of skeptics, obviously, when you enter into a project this large, but I would say that my colleagues in performing arts presenting have been very supportive and interested in this project. Certainly the managers and artists are very intrigued by it.”

The usual acoustical challenges of multipurpose halls are multiplied at Cerritos, but Myers believes they are manageable. “Obviously, if you are building, say, Disney Hall, at $100 million-plus, there should be no excuse--you have the finest acoustics in the world,” he said.

“Here, at a (fraction) of the cost of Disney Hall, and multipurpose, you would never achieve a 10 for pure music. But we can probably get about an 8.5, so that we can have great acoustics for all these configurations.”

Gotesman said he is staking Cerritos’ niche in the market on the biggest names he can get in each discipline. “There’s no question about it--name recognition means a great deal in this market,” he said.

For some of those names, there is no way that ticket sales can cover all the expenses for an engagement, as is the case with the Tharp-Baryshnikov pairing. The center anticipates covering artistic fees with ticket sales, and turning to city help to cover marketing and production costs. The city has promised up to $2 million a year in operating assistance, for which the center managements prefers the term underwriting to subsidy .

“The city considers it an investment in the area,” said Walter O. Morlock, the center’s marketing director.

“People plug right into recognizable stars, known quantities. I think for the first season we have to do that. The effort to give us a big splash in the market and the industry is very intentional,” Gotesman said. “I think if we are consistent with that approach in developing our program at the center, we will develop our own niche.”

Leaders of the Escondido center, in the midst of working out a programming philosophy, are leaning toward a different approach. “We will have a general diet, but we can do something more than that,” Roan said. “It’s not enough to put the art out there and talk about quality.”

Roan and Lobanov said they plan an emphasis on the arts of California (hence the recent name change to California Center for the Arts), bringing in not only established groups and performers such as the San Francisco Ballet and Los Angeles Philharmonic, but even cutting-edge performance artists such as Guillermo Gomez-Pena, who deals heavily in issues relating to the U.S.-Mexican border.

They have also discussed offering partnerships, commissions or even residencies to producing groups such as string quartets (the Angeles and Kronos were offered as examples). The center also plans an active education program.

“Most places have the tendency to put the word center on an auditorium. How one auditorium constitutes a center, I don’t know,” Lobanov said.

The challenge, Roan said, is to apply a “curatorial standard” to the performing arts. “Literally, how do we cross the boundary between producer and presenter?” he asked. The question, he said, is how audiences “interact with these palaces of culture. . . . There has to be some resonance with the man on the street.”

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Music Center of Los Angeles County. Opened in 1965 at a cost of $32 million. The complex includes the 3,197-seat Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the 2,071-seat Ahmanson Auditorium and the 760-seat Mark Taper Forum.

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Hall, Costa Mesa. Opened in 1986. The 2,994-seat hall cost $72.8 million.

Center for the Performing Arts, Poway. Opened in 1990. The 800-seat hall cost $8.4 million.

Irvine Barclay Theatre. Opened in 1990. The 750-seat hall cost $17.6 million.

COMING SOON

Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. Opening Jan. 13 at an approximate cost of $60 million. The complex includes a technically innovative main auditorium that can expand from 900 seats for drama or chamber music to 1,963 seats for orchestral concerts.

Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. Scheduled to open next year in the Ventura County city. The estimated cost of an 1,800-seat theater and 400-seat performance space is $30 million.

Alex Theatre, Glendale. Scheduled to open next fall. The former movie palace is being redeveloped into a 1,450-seat performing arts hall at a cost of $6.2 million.

California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Scheduled to open in spring, 1994. The $73-million project will encompass a 1,500-seat lyric theater, a 400-seat community theater and a visual arts center with three galleries.