Historic Alex Theatre Launches Fund Drive

The Alex Theatre on Monday launched its first fund-raising campaign, aiming to collect about $500,000 to pay for presenting shows, improving facilities and creating an endowment.

Alex board President John Hedlund made the announcement at the theater, a restored 1925 Art Deco vaudeville and motion picture house that recently was named to the National Register of Historic Places.

“The Alex is healthy and vibrant and ready to fill its role as a performing arts center for the Los Angeles area,” Hedlund told about 150 Glendale residents and theater supporters.

Executive Director Martin Kagan also presented the Alex’s schedule for the 1996-97 season. The 32 shows are divided into seven subscription packages of performances of the same type, such as jazz or dance. Charter subscriptions--which guarantee future rights to the same seats--cost $49 to $129 per series.

The ambitious schedule will cost about $700,000 to mount--double what the theater spent last year to put on 17 shows. Kagan said ticket sales and money from the new presentation fund will pay for the season. While the city of Glendale gave the Alex $250,000 this fiscal year, that money is earmarked for operational costs, not programming.

Kagan characterized the campaign--with its slogan “Advancing the Alex”--as a positive step toward financial stability for the theater.

The Glendale Redevelopment Agency bought the Alex and spent $6.5 million renovating it. It reopened New Year’s Eve 1993 but suffered almost immediate setbacks when the company hired to run it, Theater Corp. of America, pulled out and declared bankruptcy.

The theater’s city-appointed board incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1995, hired Kagan a year ago and came back with about 150 performances in 1995-96, put on by resident companies and others who rented the theater. Turnout for the season has been slightly lower than expected--about 160,000 people since last July--but the theater is in good financial shape, Kagan said.

Last month, the Alex asked the redevelopment agency to forgive $703,000 in debts--money the Alex borrowed from the agency during that rocky first year. Director Jeanne Armstrong said the agency would consider that proposal May 21 but won’t make a decision for several weeks.

Even City Councilwoman Eileen Givens, who said she normally shuns such money-raising efforts while in office, has taken up the torch. The Alex is important to arts lovers, she said, but equally important to the city and the economic revitalization of downtown Glendale. A recent study showed business up 25% at nearby restaurants on performance nights, Givens said.

For $1,000 or $2,000, patrons can endow seats in the 71-year-old theater and have their names inscribed on a brass plaque on the armrest. Kagan hopes to have 300 seats “sold” by June 1997 and believes the seats will appeal to people who have sentimental ties to the Alex. Those who went on their first date when the Alex was a movie theater, he said, or who had their first kiss in the balcony, can become part of the theater’s history.

Alex board member Andrea Humberger, a past president of the Glendale Historical Society, led the drive to save the Alex. She has already named a seat for herself and one in memory of her father. “And my mother bought one, so we’ll be together in the Alexander Terrace.”