UCLA to Buy Westwood Playhouse : Stage: Regents give the go-ahead for completion of the $5-million purchase, which will be funded privately.

UCLA has received a green light to buy the Westwood Playhouse.

University officials plan to present professional productions at the 498-seat theater, across Le Conte Avenue from the south side of the campus, assuming the sale goes through. The facility also will be used “as an adjunct to the academic program,” according to a statement from the UC Board of Regents.

The university got permission to complete the acquisition of the theater at a regents meeting at UCLA on Friday.

“We don’t anticipate that any state funds will be used,” said a spokeswoman for Chancellor Charles E. Young. “We hope it will be funded ultimately from private gifts.” According to an informed source, the estimated price is roughly $5 million, and the university already has assembled private funding for the down payment. A fund-raising campaign will be launched to make further payments, to pay for minor renovations and to help finance productions at the Playhouse.

The primary focus of programming in the theater will be new plays, said Gilbert Cates, dean of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. UCLA students will be given opportunities “to interact with the professionals” who present the plays.

“It was always something I knew I wanted to do,” said Cates. When the veteran New York and Hollywood producer and director accepted his UCLA job in 1990, university officials “promised me they would be supportive.”

“This is a major step toward the ongoing enhancement of the arts at UCLA and extends our commitment to serve the community with first-rate programming,” said UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young in a statement released by the university.

The university currently has no professional facility “of a size beguiling to contemporary playwrights,” said Cates. He described the 586-seat Freud Playhouse, on the campus, as “like a mini-Radio City Music Hall, utilitarian but not intimate” because of its “enormous” stage. And most observers say the 1,853-seat Royce Hall is too big for spoken drama.

The Westwood has problems of its own--”no fly loft, little dressing rooms, a small stage”--conceded Cates. Nonetheless, “I adore that theater,” he said. “It’s the size for which today’s writers are writing.” He also cited the convenience of the theater to parking, restaurants and foot traffic as well as to the university itself.

Some interior renovation is planned. Cates said he would like to convert a room on the east side of the lobby into a venue for play readings. Administrative offices and rehearsal rooms will be created. Improvements in disabled access, utility and mechanical systems and film projection facilities are anticipated (the hall may be used for screenings for the UCLA Film and Television Archive as well as for plays).

Cates vowed to continue the Westwood’s “history of professional theater.” Even if a deal is completed soon with Playhouse owner Kirsten Combs, the theater’s current manager, Eric Krebs, would continue booking the theater, at least until the summer of 1994. UCLA would try to begin its own programming there that fall, with an initial season of three or four plays.

The current economic climate is “intimidating,” acknowledged Cates, when asked about the prospects for his fund-raising drive. “But I have no choice. This was the moment when Kirsten was prepared to sell.”

Combs could not be reached for comment. But in a statement released by the university, she said, “I am very pleased with UCLA’s plans for both the Playhouse and the building, as it will remain a vibrant cultural center. Historically, too, it is a kind of homecoming, as the building was originally created by the Masons as a center for the University (in 1929).”

UCLA already owns the 1,021-capacity Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood, but Center Theatre Group operates it on a yearly lease, using it to accommodate its Ahmanson Theatre productions while the Ahmanson is occupied by “The Phantom of the Opera.” The Center Theatre Group began as a UCLA-based company before moving to the Music Center in the ‘60s.