1st-Year Budget for Running the Center Amounts to a Guessing Game : Funding: Officials are optimistic, but exact accounting must wait. Endowment will provide key financing.

Thousand Oaks’ new performing arts center will run this year on $730,000--maybe.

The Civic Arts Plaza’s first budget details, to the dollar, how much the theater department will spend on postage stamps, usher uniforms and travel allowances.

But every one of those line items is just a guess. And the theater staff can only hope its financial predictions prove solid.

Opening a performance center is an act of faith. Exact accounting will have to wait.

No one knows how much it will cost to light the Forum Theatre. No one can predict the tab for heating the Civic Auditorium. No one even knows whether the ballyhooed theaters will make money this season.

So far, however, the future’s looking good.

Both the 400-seat Forum Theatre and the 1,800-seat auditorium are booked solid through the summer. Several shows have sold out, and the box office opens to a line nearly every day. The first performances have turned profits.

And the Civic Arts Plaza endowment fund has reeled in nearly $9.4 million in pledges, although slightly over $1 million has been collected.

“I had high hopes when I signed on here,” theater Director Tom Mitze said. “And they have all pretty much come true.”

As the grand auditorium opens tonight, Thousand Oaks council members express optimism that the Civic Arts Plaza will achieve three key goals:

* The Forum Theatre will offer community groups a chance to perform in a professional setting, at a reasonable cost.

* The Civic Auditorium will bring in quality acts without putting the city at any financial risk.

* The Alliance for the Arts endowment fund will generate enough revenue, through interest earnings, to cover the theaters’ day-to-day costs.

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Although tonight’s glitzy opening swings the spotlight to the large, elegant auditorium, Thousand Oaks leaders have always emphasized their affection for the oak-and-russet-colored Forum Theatre, which can be configured to seat 280 or 400 viewers.

When Mitze recommended setting the small hall’s rental rate at $400 a day, some outsiders balked. That seemed too high for nonprofit groups, they said, especially since performers must also pay for professional stage crews and ushers.

But local artists have willingly footed the bills.

“The rates seem quite fair,” said Lane Davies, who stars in “Man of La Mancha,” which plays through next weekend. “This space is a magnet for audiences, no matter what show you’re doing.”

Proving that point, two teen-agers recently staged a recital in the Forum Theatre and packed the hall.

“It went pretty well,” 14-year-old violinist Elise Goodman said. “We sold standing-room only seats.” And then, shyly, she added: “We made a profit also, I think.”

The children’s theater troupe at Cal Lutheran University hopes to achieve similar success with this weekend’s performances of “Jungalbook” on the forum stage. Director Michael Arndt had to double ticket prices, to $6 apiece, to pay an overhead that he expects to reach $10,000 for the four-show run.

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“We’re extending our budgets well beyond normal,” Arndt said.

Even with such hefty fees, the Forum Theatre is expected to lose money--about $120,700 in the upcoming year.

The city will pay a portion of the forum’s utility bill, since both the City Council and Planning Commission use the hall as a meeting chamber. But the council has promised not to subsidize theatrical uses of the arts center.

To bring the books into balance, Mitze is counting on a $250,000 donation from the endowment fund.

Overall, the art center’s two theaters have already earned a $10,000 profit, nearly all of it from speedy sellouts of David Copperfield’s magic show and Hal Holbrook’s “Mark Twain Tonight.”

As a further boost, the large auditorium’s rental income should soar beyond all expectations, Mitze said. Demand for the stage has been so high that he has scheduled a packed season. Each new show brings in $1,800 in rent, plus revenue from the concession stand and parking garage.

“The phone doesn’t stop ringing with people wanting to rent the halls,” Mitze said. “We don’t have enough room for all the people who want to do things here.”

But arts patrons caution that snags are inevitable once the maiden-season glow wears off.

In this first year, they can count on spectators to snap up tickets just to get a glimpse of the theaters. And they can rely on performers to book gigs to test the state-of-the-art halls. When the hoopla fades at the end of the season, the really gritty work will begin.

“This is the first year so it’s a freebie--everything’s a lot easier.” said Larry Janss, a member of the theaters’ Board of Governors. “The second year will be hairier. But if we can get people hooked, maybe we can keep them coming.”