San Gabriel Group Eyes the Alex

Musicals may return soon to the Alex Theatre in Glendale.

Four years ago on New Year’s Eve, when the refurbished Alex opened its doors, musicals were expected to be the centerpiece of the programming at the former movie palace. The company that operated the hall, Theatre Corp. of America, hosted a season of musicals that winter and spring. But by the end of 1994 Theatre Corp. had collapsed, taking the musicals series with it and leaving a number of subscribers in the lurch.

Theater League stepped in for two seasons of musicals at the Alex but left earlier this year, with its president, Mark Edelman, noting that the Alex’s stage, backstage and subscription audience were all relatively small compared to the other venues he uses, such as Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza’s Probst Center.

Now ready to step up to the musicals plate at the Alex, pending final approval of plans, is the Music Theatre of Southern California, a 15-year-old company based in San Gabriel. The plan is for the troupe to add a week at the Alex following its usual three weeks at its home base, San Gabriel Civic Auditorium.

The Alex’s 1,450 seats are only 12 more than San Gabriel’s, noted Music Theatre’s executive director M. Roger Lockie. Union requirements are the same. The Alex stage is smaller, “but we can make our sets adaptable,” he said.

But are the audiences for the two theaters, separated by only nine miles, sufficiently distinct? Lockie said that 65% of the Alex audience comes from the north and the west--opposite the directions of the San Gabriel audience.

“The way we’ll survive is to reach another audience with some of the same advertising and marketing,” he said.

In contrast to the Theater League, Music Theatre doesn’t use familiar star names. Lockie said the cost of TV-name stars is often “prohibitive.” But if the Alex audience--accustomed to the Theater League’s star names--appears reluctant to sign up without them, “we might have to adjust to it.”

If approved as looks likely, the plan will go into effect with the company’s May revival of the Arthur Kopit/Maury Yeston “Phantom” and continue with the four shows of the 1998-99 season. An expansion to two weeks at the Alex for the 1999-2000 season is a possibility.

NOISES OFF: Speaking of Glendale, its classical theater company, A Noise Within, is looking at spaces without.

The company’s master plan has always called for it to gradually expand from 99 seats to 450, all within the walls of its current home, a former Masonic Temple. It’s currently at the 144-seat level.

But now, unable to secure a long-term lease on its current home, the company is looking with greater curiosity toward other sites in Glendale.

The problem goes back to that familiar L.A. bugaboo: parking. Frank De Pietro and Sons, which owns the Brand Boulevard building and the rest of the southern half of the block, would like to build a retail/office development around the theater building but lacks the space for enough parking to accommodate daytime workers and customers or--should A Noise Within expand--evening theatergoers. The firm has tried to secure parking at neighboring sites, to no avail.

“We don’t drive the almighty car--it drives us,” said the firm’s Dennis De Pietro.

A Noise Within can’t wait much longer, said artistic co-director Art Manke. “We’re at 97% capacity. In order for us to capitalize on it, we’ve got to expand. But in order for us to begin a capital campaign, we need a long-term lease or ownership.” Manke credited the De Pietro firm’s generosity in providing several years of rent-free space but noted that the company’s master plan has already fallen behind schedule--the troupe was supposed to have entered a 200-seat space by last fall, he said.

And so A Noise Within’s staff has, with the assistance of the Glendale Redevelopment Agency, looked at a few other sites. The agency’s director, Jeanne Armstrong, identified them as an old fire station at Orange and Harvard streets, the Newberry Building across from the Alex, a parking lot near the Panda Inn off Maryland Avenue behind the Alex and a city parking lot at California Avenue and Orange.

As of now, Armstrong said, none is large enough to accommodate all of A Noise Within’s activities, though “if you had $20 million, any of them could be feasible. We’d love for a David Geffen or a Jeffrey Katzenberg to come along.”

“We hope they stay,” De Pietro said of his tenants. “But that doesn’t mean it will happen.”*