Opening Doors on 3 Shared Visions : Valley coalitions launch diverse programs at city-owned buildings in innovative cultural partnerships.

“San Fernando Valley” and “arts innovations” aren’t usually spoken in the same breath, but three diverse arts coalitions are out to change that perception.

These coalitions range from an art center tucked in the woods of Tujunga run by two self-proclaimed “little gray-haired old ladies” to an Art Deco former Department of Water and Power building in North Hollywood transformed into a theater complex by a group of performers, to an Encino darkroom where professional photographers teach children the art of animation.

It’s been happening slowly but surely over the last two years as the final details are worked out between the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and the Valley coalitions of dance, art, theater, history and visual arts groups. A total of 54 groups applied to run the centers, which are all opening this month.

The city saves money by turning over these city-owned buildings to responsible local groups that seek to run programs for the community. Three of the five Los Angeles centers to transfer into the hands of a coalition are in the Valley. (The other two are in MacArthur Park and South Central Los Angeles.)

The three Valley coalitions have endured their share of bureaucratic and construction delays, but this innovative program is being studied by the federal government to see how new community arts centers thrive--and it could end up being a model for other cities.

“It’s a partnership; we’re not throwing them out there to see if they can sink or swim. Right now we’re going through a honeymoon period,” says Joan DeBruin, the city’s cultural affairs director of public and private partnerships. “My goodness, we’re there to help them out. Look at the circles under my eyes.”

At the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood, Taylor Gilbert is bringing in her desk and buying telephones just a few days before the center’s late March grand opening celebration.

“What do you think this looks like, early 1940s?” Gilbert says about the donated desk. “Nothing matches, but we don’t care.”

The actress and director is with the Road Theatre Company, established in 1991 to focus on presenting locally written plays, which has joined forces with three private groups to run the center. The other groups are the 30-year-old Los Angeles Printmaking Society; the Martin Dancers, a modern dance troupe; and Synthaxis, which provides theater for children and senior citizens. None of the groups compete with each other--except for space.

The Lankershim coalition has worked out a complicated rehearsal schedule for the 49-seat theater in the converted utilities building and hired a part-time administrator.

But the performance schedule has been delayed by construction work yet to be done by the city, Gilbert says. Giving a tour of the center, Gilbert is excited that what was once a utility bill drop-box at the front is now a ticket booth. But she has to leap over a huge hole in the floor to get there.

“It’s frustrating, but we’ve been delayed a few months and can’t officially move in until it’s all done,” says Gilbert, who expects shows to start in late May at the space, which was the most-requested venue.

Brad Hills, assistant director of the Roads, says he isn’t competing with the other troupes in the NoHo arts district because “we’re all doing different kinds of shows. We won’t be stealing audiences. We want to work with everyone in the community.”

One community outreach program involved a contest for a logo that was won by Studio City architect Stanley Brent. Brent’s design bears some resemblance to a cornet that holds the letter A in its loop. His prize is a pass, good for a season, to all shows at the center. The Road’s first play is “Akela,” a two-person drama by Ron McLarty, a Valley playwright.

Gilbert’s wish list for the Lankershim facility includes obtaining a suspended dance floor that could cost $5,000, employing a staff of eight and having an operating budget exceeding $100,000, the amount needed to pay for the 1995-’96 season.

The building was saved partly through the efforts of Estelle Busch, executive director of Synthaxis, who in 1978 urged the city to restore the Art Deco building.

“We were going round and round with the city about saving it, and I’m glad we did,” Busch says. The basement of the 1939 building now holds hundreds of the dance troupe’s costumes that were stored in Busch’s house since the 1980s.

Keeping a close eye on the coalitions is the particularly arts-minded Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who has worked with the three Valley centers.

“It may seem like an unfair burden for the Valley right now, but if it works, the Valley could get something even better than we have had to start with,” says Wachs, whose district is mostly in the northeastern section of the Valley. “A lot more of the council members have acquired understanding of the important role of the arts.”

At a council meeting, Wachs said he would ask the city to “take back” the community arts center in Tujunga, the center that seems most like a small family business, if it doesn’t stand on its own. That center is in a 72-year-old rustic stone house on an 11-acre bird sanctuary called the McGroarty Arts Center. About 340 students from age 3 to 80 come each week to the center, which is the historic home of the late journalist and Congressman John Steven McGroarty, who was named the state’s poet laureate in 1933. It’s run by Susan Cheyno and Isabella Barone, who went from city employees to workers paid by the McGroarty coalition under the new arrangements.

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“It’s been a confusing process for the past two years, and I’m glad it’s finally over and we can continue doing what we do best,” says Cheyno. About 380 students have signed up for the spring session, a registration record for the center’s 53 classes.

It’s a family at McGroarty. Barone offers visitors coffee and homemade carrot cake, and jokingly refers to Cheyno as “director of the latrine.” At 79, Barone also teaches Tai Chi Ch’uan, exercises in movement, defense, dance and meditation.

“If you’re not happy when you get here, we’ll make you happy before you leave,” Barone says.

Although most of their students are younger than 12, many adult classes are taught in such subjects as stained glass, clay, stitchery, beginning piano, Chinese brush painting and visual arts. Their 20 teachers took a recent 25% pay cut because of funding woes, and all agreed to stay on the schedule.

Classes at McGroarty that existed before the coalition took over are mandated by parks and recreation policy to charge no more than $1.50 an hour for children and $2.50 an hour for adults. So, for example, Barone’s 90-minute Tai Chi classes cost $30 for eight sessions.

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“We’re locked into the same price structure for classes that they’ve set about 20 years ago, and it’s hard to keep good teachers at that rate, but we’ve managed to do it,” says Cheyno, who has coordinated classes since 1980.

Their neighbors in Shadow Hills, La Crescenta and Glendale are canvassed about what kinds of classes and exhibits they want. Displays range from such topics as AIDS and immigrant labor to local Native American history.

“I get this attitude that people seem to think we’re a bunch of white rednecks up here who don’t enjoy art and that’s simply not true,” Barone says. “If it wasn’t for this center, there would be nothing in this part of the city.”

Students complain that public school art classes are minimal, so the kilns at McGroarty are often heated up. But, there’s only a small space heater to keep the staff warm, and other items such as tables, chairs, a microwave, air conditioning and supplies must now be paid for by the consortium of groups headed by the Friends of McGroarty. Members include the Little Landers Historical Society, Everywoman’s Village and the Sunland Art Assn.

The city continues to own all the buildings and provide maintenance, but sometimes supplies come late. For example, a city delivery of cleaning supplies went to Barnsdall Park in Los Feliz instead of McGroarty, so Cheyno sent a volunteer to pick them up.

“Volunteers make this one big family, but since the city announced these changes it’s been a headache. I didn’t have gray hair before I started this and now I do,” quipped Cheyno. “Privatization is a good thing, I guess, but I wouldn’t do it again for a million dollars.”

Cheyno and Barone will have to focus on fund-raising to keep the program going. A $50,000 Ahmanson Foundation grant is helping them the first year, but they estimate that they must raise at least that much to fund next year’s program.

“Fund-raising is not something we know how to do, but we love this center,” says Cheyno, who lives a mile away and has been married to a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy for 33 years. “There are gangs moving into this area now, too, and my husband sees some bad kids, so I really believe in the old cliche that if I’ve helped one kid open up his talents and keep from being in a gang, then it’s worth it.”

They tell of a longtime patron who had a brain tumor who told them that he survived the operation specifically to come back to the center to learn something.

“We’ve been cut loose by the city, and perhaps we can now expand our programs,” says Barone, who has wanted to start Spanish classes, but was restricted by the Cultural Affairs Department’s definition of arts.

“At least we don’t have to start a center from scratch. That would be a real nightmare,” Cheyno adds.

Almost no one wanted the Encino Photo Center on prime Ventura Boulevard property. So Matthew Cruz stepped in as executive director of the San Fernando Valley Arts Council and joined forces with the Encino photographers, who are using the low-cost facility, and Everywoman’s Village, a community-based women’s arts group.

“No one really wanted it, so we took it, proposing media-related art,” says Cruz. “It’s a place to host animation festivals and bring schoolchildren in to show them how to make pinhole cameras or teach the Adobe Photo Shop on computers.”

The photo center’s Frieda Kahlo exhibit is now touring South America, of which the city is very proud, says DeBruin, one of the city’s staff who will meet quarterly with coalitions in the next three years, when the contracts will be renegotiated.

Although other coalitions like this have succeeded in Minnesota and at large auditorium complexes in San Francisco and Los Angeles, few have had such close partnerships between city government and private, nonprofit groups.

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“I’ve raised a lot of questions about this whole thing from the beginning,” Councilman Wachs says. “They will need significant help from the private sector, and it may turn out to be a good model. I hope this will help Los Angeles get out of the doldrums.”

Cultural Affairs Department director Earl Sherborn remains optimistic. He got his start in the department working with the women at the McGroarty center. He says, “We want these coalitions to work, and we have staffs at their disposal for questions.”

Many of the people involved with the consortiums, however, feel that their time may be taken away from creative endeavors and spent more on fund-raising and grant-seeking. Cruz concedes that’s part of the arts.

“When I hear an artist crying out for a patron, they don’t understand the value of a partnership like this. We’ll be working with government without compromising artistic integrity,” Cruz says.

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Where to Go

What: McGroarty Arts Center.

Location: 7570 McGroarty Terrace, Tujunga.

Call: (818) 352-5285.

What: Lankershim Arts Center.

Location: 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood.

Call: (818) 761-8838.

What: Encino Photo Center.

Location: 16953 Ventura Blvd.

Call: (818) 584-ARTS.