The Curtain Will Rise Again at the El Portal : Stage: An architect reveals plans for two stages and a classroom in the $300,000 renovation of the North Hollywood landmark.

Plans were unveiled Wednesday for the renovation of North Hollywood’s long-dark El Portal theater, due to reopen in late summer or early fall as a live theater complex.

With its planned two stages and a classroom space, the complex will be the first professional theater operation large enough for full union status in the San Fernando Valley since 1966.

The individual segments of the complex--to be operated by Actors Alley, which has been producing plays in the Valley for 21 years--are all designed to be used in a variety of ways.

“The main thing about a live theater like this one is that it be flexible,” said project architect Richard McCann, who has overseen the renovation of numerous theaters including the Pasadena Playhouse and Wilshire Theatre.

McCann spoke about his plans at a news conference in the El Portal lobby. They call for the current stage of the El Portal, which opened in 1926 as a vaudeville and silent movie house, to be used as a scenery shop and backstage area. The existing fire curtain will be lowered to close it off from the rest of the auditorium.

A new, thrust stage will be built out into the audience in front of the curtain. Eight rows of seats will be installed for the audience and at the back of this new theater space will be a tower-like structure to include the lighting director’s booth and various pieces of equipment.

McCann said that all these additions would be installed without altering the basic interior of the theater. “It’s very similar to putting furniture in a room,” he said.

The seating will also be flexible. The basic seating unit, situated directly in front of the stage, will accommodate a maximum audience of 99. This is not an arbitrary number: Under local Actor’s Equity union rules, theaters with less than 100 seats do not have to pay full union rates.

Additional seating off to the sides can be added to bring the maximum audience to 199.

In its first full season in the El Portal next year, Actors Alley has agreed to do at least one of its five shows at the full, 199-seat capacity, paying full union rates to the performers. The following year the troupe will do two shows at full capacity and so on, until the fifth year when all its productions are full Equity.

Two other structures will be built inside the El Portal’s main auditorium. In one corner will be a round, 50-seat theater that Actors Alley will use for readings and small productions. And near the entrance will be the classroom space that can also be used for seminars and meetings.

The round theater and classroom will be fully enclosed to acoustically isolate them from the main stage, McCann said.

The estimated cost of the renovations is $300,000.

Earlier this month, Actors Alley received approval from the Los Angeles City Council for a $200,000 loan and $50,000 matching grant to come from the coffers of the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Robert Caine, managing director of Actors Alley, said the additional $50,000 needed has been raised from a source he said he could not disclose.

The troupe’s long-range goal is to raise enough funds during its first several seasons at the El Portal to convert the main stage to a 600-seat house, Caine said.

McCann estimated that the current set of renovations could be completed by September. The first show in the reborn El Portal will be the debut of “The Audit,” a comedy by Peter Lefcourt.

Actors Alley will be debuting its new home to the public, however, at a benefit event April 24 that will feature a staged reading of “Stag At Bay,” a little-known comedy by Charles MacArthur, best known for “The Front Page,” and screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, who wrote the movie adaptation of “The Grapes of Wrath” and many others.

The reading will star numerous well-known actors, including Ed Asner, Walter Koenig, William Windom, Lee Meriwether and Peter Fonda.

Koenig, best known for playing Chekhov in “Star Trek,” said at the news conference that it was his hope, as a longtime resident of North Hollywood that the rebirth of the El Portal would enhance an area along Lankershim Boulevard that had been going through hard times.

“There is an encroachment of elements that are, I think, threatening in the Valley,” he said, citing gangs and increases in thefts in the neighborhood.

“I think we can be a beacon to bring a sense of stature and dignity to the area.”