THEATER NOTES : Glendale Site Has Colony All Fired Up

Before 1994 ends, the Colony Studio Theatre plans to submit an official proposal to use $2.5 million of Glendale redevelopment money to convert a defunct fire station and an adjacent area into a new mid-sized theater.

The site is one block west of busy Brand Boulevard, one block north of Colorado Boulevard, on the southeast corner of Orange and Harvard. The old fire station, built in 1925, had an address at 210 S. Orange, but the Colony plan would switch the entrance to the east side, which could give it a Brand Boulevard address.

According to the plan, the fire station would contain a 99-seat theater, a cabaret and a lobby for the mid-sized theater--which would be housed in a new building south of the fire station. At first the larger space would have 299 seats, but expansion would be possible. A large forecourt would connect the theaters to Brand Boulevard; the rest of the block would be a city-run plaza.

Earlier this year, the Colony had focused on two locations near the Alex Theatre, east of Brand. But one of them was leased in the interim, and the other would have eliminated a badly needed parking lot. By contrast, the fire station site offers plenty of parking, plus more interior space (22,000 square feet, not counting the site for the larger theater next door), said Colony development director Earl Katz.

Money remains a major hurdle. Although the city approved $2.5 million last summer to help the Colony move from its 99-seat Silver Lake theater to a then-undesignated larger facility in Glendale, Katz estimates that the Colony will have to come up with another $1 million. He believes the group could raise $200,000 a year, which would still leave $600,000 to be raised if the new facility were to open, as hoped for, in the fall of 1996. So the group is investigating loan possibilities.

Although the city must still approve the fire station plan, the City Council has already appropriated $100,000 to clean up the site. Derrill Quaschnick, assistant director of Glendale Redevelopment Agency, said the Colony is the preferred user of the space, although other uses could coexist with the Colony--part of the fire station would be available for use as small shops. A proposed farmers’ market on the block might also work, he said--but it would have to be “the right kind” of “upscale” market. “Fish heads would not go over well.”

THEY GOT RHYTHM: Last minute Christmas shoppers might want to consider the double CD/cassette “George & Ira Gershwin: A Musical Celebration.” One of the few home-grown L.A. theater recordings available, it features many of L.A.’s best musical theater talents in 27 Gershwin selections. It was recorded at the 1993 S.T.A.G.E. benefit for AIDS Project Los Angeles, and part of the proceeds go to the same cause. Since the recording’s release in June, 15,000 copies have been shipped. More than 5,000 had sold as of early last week.*