Stage Extras

NoHo will get two stages closer to reaching critical theater mass in a few months when Ed Gaynes--a producer and president of the Valley Theater League--opens two 49-seat theaters on Magnolia Boulevard near Vineland Avenue.

He found out about the vacancy at the former piano store on a Monday morning. That afternoon, he got a call from the Zeitgeist Theatre Company. Turns out that Zeitgeist, which doesn’t have a theater of its own, needed a place to store its equipment--risers, sound equipment, lighting boards--between shows.

“Within a few hours I had everything I needed to put in a theater,” Gaynes said.

In return for use of the equipment, Zeitgeist will use the space for two productions a year. When not producing his own shows, Gaynes will rent the theaters out to other companies.

He already has one show lined up: “Onizuka: Kona’s Son,” a dramatic musical about one of the astronauts killed in the Challenger space shuttle explosion. Gily Productions staged part of the show at the NoHo Arts Festival last spring.

Gaynes also operates the Two Roads Theater in Studio City. The new stages, not yet named, will have a comparable number of seats but larger stages and backstage areas, Gaynes said.

Already six theaters are within an easy walk of the Lankershim/Magnolia hub--and about 30 total are clustered in the East Valley. Within the next year, Actors Alley will open two larger stages at its El Portal complex, and the American Renegade will open its newly built theater.

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So whatever happened to Serendipity, the children’s theater company that was facing eviction from the city of Burbank for non-payment of rent on the Little Theatre?

Well, the company moved out. But perhaps not forever.

Like a romantically feuding couple, Serendipity and the Burbank Department of Parks and Recreation keep getting back together to talk, and even have a meeting scheduled today. But to protect its legal position, the city also filed a lawsuit to force the company to move. “The litigation moved faster than the negotiation,” said Jim Preis, a parent who has been heading Serendipity’s negotiations with the city.

So, right after the closing night--and sold-out--performance of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” on July 12, the Serendipity crew and volunteers struck the set and moved everything into storage. Since then, Katy Realista, Serendipity’s artistic director, has run the summer drama camp for 40 students out of Campbell Hall School in Studio City.

She hopes to find at least a temporary home--perhaps sharing a stage with an adult theater--by September so she can continue to offer after-school and Saturday classes.

“I’m hoping it’s in the Valley. I love Los Angeles, but the Valley has been very supportive,” she said. Until she nails something down, however, she’s reluctant to announce a 1998-99 season. “That’s kind of a scary thing, to put my neck out and say I’m going to do seven shows but not know what the address is going to be.”

Even if Serendipity doesn’t return to Burbank’s Little Theatre, there remains a lot to resolve. For three years, Serendipity was paying only about $250 a month in rent, even though it had a lease stipulating $1,500 a month.

The city claims it is owed about $50,000. The company claims it has made capital improvements to the facility that should be credited. How much money and how it will be paid back is the main order of business.

Mary Alvord, Burbank’s director of parks and recreation, said the ball is in Serendipity’s court. The city still needs verification of the group’s nonprofit status and financial documents, not to mention the back rent, she said. Other legal action may be forthcoming, she said, and there’s little-to-no chance that the City Council will let Serendipity return to the theater without repayment of the debt.

“The city won’t walk away if they can recoup their rent. But they are not going to shake hands and look the other way. Absolutely not,” Alvord said.

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American Renegade is the latest Valley theater company to make the leap: Artistic director David Cox has taken “Chaim’s Love Song” off-Broadway.

“Chaim’s Love Song,” written by CSUN professor Marvin Chernoff, ran weekends for five months at North Hollywood’s Bitter Truth Theatre. The story is centered on Chaim, a crusty Brooklyn Jew, and Kelly, a young newcomer to the city whom he meets in the park.

It was a nostalgic show to many, Cox said, but “it’s really a love story about someone who can’t love because of being in the Holocaust in a concentration camp as a child . . . and also a love story between two friends. So it touched a lot of people.”

While the reviews were mixed, word-of-mouth spread and eventually people were turned away at the door. The play seems to have found the perfect venue: the 148-seat American Jewish Theater on West 26th Street. With the help of 30 backers, Cox has a guaranteed 12-week run. The theater managers have indicated that if they like the production, however, it may stay for an open-ended run. Previews start Aug. 18 and the play opens Aug. 25.

Allen Bloomfield, the 74-year-old actor who played Chaim in Los Angeles, has followed the show to New York, as has Arnold Weiss, who plays his best friend, Oscar. Cox has redirected the whole show, he said, and feels it now better deals with its important themes.

“I knew this play had a shot in New York,” Cox said. “I thought, OK, this is the one to start off a path with. I also think we could take this on a national road tour and it would do very well in Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix--cities with large Jewish populations. And it could open doors for future plays, give us more of a national reputation.”