Theater : A Noise Within Moves Out : The acclaimed Glendale troupe ventures to a newer, larger home stage at Cal State L.A.

As Los Angeles distances go, it’s not that far from A Noise Within’s old home in Glendale to the classical theater company’s new residence at Cal State L.A.’s Luckman Fine Arts Complex. But in professional terms, it’s a proverbial world away.

Housed since its 1991 inception in a Depression-era Masonic temple on Brand Avenue, A Noise Within had long coped admirably in a building equipped with only the rudiments of the facilities a theater needs. Yet despite the site’s limitations, the company grew and expanded, in both size and reputation.

Founded by three former American Conservatory Theater classmates, the company took on the daunting task of bringing classical repertory theater to a region more typically associated with pop culture. It has consistently garnered critical acclaim, and at the same time has built a loyal audience, allowing it to grow from a sub-100-seat theater to a mid-size venue faster than any other comparable local troupe in recent memory. In truth, the Masonic temple wasn’t a bad place for a troupe to spend its early years. But as the company has grown, it became clear that it needed a home better fit to its artistic maturity. And so the company’s inaugural season of classical repertory will open Friday at the Luckman with Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac,” directed by company artistic co-director Art Manke.

“My initial reaction was some apprehension, and at the same time I was incredibly impressed with the facility,” artistic co-director Geoff Elliott says of his first view of the campus theater.

“We’re used to being in a building built in 1929 that has really no amenities,” says Elliott, who co-founded the troupe and runs it with his wife, Julia Rodriguez Elliott, and Manke. “This place was state of the art. It was hard to imagine doing what we do in a building like this. It was too clean, too bright. It just didn’t seem possible. Then, when we walked into the theater itself and walked out onstage, it was thrilling to me. And at that moment I knew we could do this here.”

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The growing pains at the old place, where performances frequently sold out, had been acute for several years. “We had plateaued where we were,” Manke says. “If this company was going to survive and reach its potential, it had to grow.” Indeed, A Noise Within had plans to expand by building a larger stage inside the Masonic temple, transferring the hub of its activity from its 144-seat room to a new 450-seat theater.

“We were deeply committed to the Masonic temple, to making it work,” Elliott says. “We did a feasibility study that the city of Glendale paid for that told us we could do what we needed to do in that building. It was going to take a lot of work and a couple of years of construction, much less a couple or three years before that raising the money. But we were going to do it. It was only after a 3 1/2- or four-year period that we began to realize that it was just not going to happen.”

The plans fell apart because the theater company could not secure a long-term lease from the temple’s owners. And once they’d realized the impasse, Rodriguez Elliott, Manke and Elliott started spending a good deal of time scouting for an alternate location.

“We had gotten as far as we were going to get there, just in terms of audience recognition, and the work had gotten to a certain point,” Rodriguez Elliott says. “And I think we all felt that we were heading down. We just weren’t interested in continuing to produce at that level. So this was a critical move for us.”

The Luckman arose as a possibility rather suddenly--thanks to a board member with ties to both A Noise Within and the 6-year-old Cal State facility, and the decision to move was announced earlier this summer. So the company is having to make the move very quickly.

“The negotiation period was seven weeks,” Manke says. “It feels a bit like a pressure cooker right now, because ordinarily you’d have six months to a year to plan for this kind of a move and transition. It’s happening over the course of the summer and, bam, it’s off and running. We have been all summer running to catch up and survive.”

Not only are there seasons to plan, but also countless administrative systems need to be set up. Yet Elliott says the primary concerns now are artistic--the challenges posed by moving into a new theater that is both larger and arranged differently from the old space, which was a thrust stage with converted church pew seating on three sides of the performing area.

“Our first home really served us,” Elliott says. “That intimate feel allowed our audiences to feel as though they were coming home every time they came to see a show. They grew to love that space and the close contact with the artists, and hopefully we’re not going to lose that here.”

Now, the group will perform in a 252-seat configuration of the proscenium house (which can potentially seat 1,150). “We hope to keep doing what it is we’ve been doing and build on that,” Manke says. “I think there are certain plays that will benefit from being in a proscenium house, that are just written to be on a proscenium stage.”

The proscenium is not wholly unfamiliar to the company’s principals; in their training as actor-directors at American Conservatory Theater, they worked on the same kind of stage. Nor is this kind of setting new to the company’s other members, who have experienced similar situations when touring company productions.

“When we first started touring, I was very anxious to see how the work was going to translate to that kind of a [larger, proscenium] venue,” Rodriguez Elliott says. “I didn’t know if there would still be the kind of emotional availability that the actors had with the audience in our environment in Glendale. And it was very interesting to see that we didn’t lose that. A connection with the audience and an openness that is part of what we do was still there in these larger venues. The plays really needed that airspace around them.” Yet even if many of the classics that they stage are well-suited to a proscenium stage, there are still other aesthetic challenges ahead.

“We spent eight years knowing exactly what the rehearsal rooms were like, exactly how the work was going to transfer to the stage and what the sight lines were like,” Manke says. “It was all a given. This is completely unfamiliar.”

One of the primary concerns is how to facilitate the actor-audience relationship. “One of the challenges in coming into this space was what the heck we do with it to focus the audience’s attention and yet not get into building huge sets,” Rodriguez Elliott says.

“We need to find creative ways of filling that space,” Elliott adds. “The audience-to-actor ratio is still very close. And particularly with the [angled stage floor] rake that we’re putting in, there’s going to be quite a sense of the old home here in this new place--but with hot running water.”

Mixing the best of the old and new was also a key factor in choosing the company’s first Luckman season, and particularly in reviving “Cyrano de Bergerac.” “We wanted to consciously bring something of our past with us so that people knew our work was not going to change fundamentally,” Manke says.

Indeed, the company will aim to continue growing in the way it has from the start. And now it has a place that will allow it to do that. “I feel as though the stars have aligned,” says Elliott, who plays the lead in “Cyrano.” “It wasn’t seamless making it happen, but when you come into the building and you see all those familiar faces in this bright, new beautiful space, I can’t help but feel it’s absolutely right.”

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“CYRANO DE BERGERAC,” A Noise Within, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State L.A. Dates: Friday, 7:30 p.m.; next Sunday, and Oct. 24, 7 p.m.; and Nov. 7, 2 p.m. Ends Nov. 7. Prices: $26 to $30. Phone: (818) 546-1924 or (323) 224-6420.