Pasadena Has Designs for a Bigger Balcony

The Balcony Theatre, above the restaurant at the Pasadena Playhouse, will be revived as a mid-size theater. David Houk, owner of the property, decided to renovate the theater so that it will seat “at least 150, maybe 160,” he said Tuesday.

Last month, Actors’ Equity rejected a proposal to bring the theater back to life as a 99-seat venue, which would have operated under the union’s 99-Seat Theatre Plan. For nearly a decade starting in 1982, the Balcony Theatre had a capacity of 120, and its productions used Equity contracts that required higher wages for actors than does the 99-Seat Plan (or its predecessor, Equity Waiver), as well as health and pension fund payments that aren’t required at all in sub-100-seat theaters. The union refused to permit the pay scale in the space to reverse course.

Confronted with this obstacle, Houk decided to enlarge the seating capacity rather than fight the union, he said. An architect has drawn up some plans that would entail “changing some doorways, creating one center aisle instead of two side aisles, shrinking the lighting booth.” All of this will have to be approved by city inspectors, of course--a permit to seat no more than 99 was obtained just a couple of months ago.

Assuming that construction and approvals proceed as fast as Houk hopes they will, however, the play “Panache” might open as early as Oct. 22, presented by C&G; Productions, with Gary Sandy and Lisa Pelikan. Other producers also have expressed interest in the renovated Balcony Theatre, Houk said.

The initial production, and probably future ones, will use a letter of agreement in reference to Equity’s Hollywood Area Theatre contract, somewhat similar to the arrangement Equity has with East West Players, said the union’s western regional director, John Holly.

Productions that rent the Balcony are not to be confused with the seasons of shows presented in the larger downstairs theater by the nonprofit Pasadena Playhouse State Theatre of California.

Meanwhile, theater classes also have returned to the Pasadena Playhouse building, as Houk has rented space for a year to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. The school is using the Balcony Theatre for some student productions. Houk expects the arrangement to last only a year, however, as he believes an entertainment company--which he declined to identify--will move its offices to the same spaces in September 2000.

FOOTE-STEPS: Fans of playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter Horton Foote may want to get used to frequent trips to Whittier.

The first complete public reading of Foote’s nine-play “The Orphans’ Home” will begin this week at Whittier College, produced by the professional company the Lost World, and will continue with an additional play each month until all nine have been read.

Then, next summer, the Lost World will present the fully staged premiere of Foote’s long-in-progress play “The Day Emily Married.”

All productions are slated for the college’s 400-seat Robinson Theatre of the Shannon Center for the Performing Arts.

“The Orphans’ Home” focuses on Horace Robedaux, a character based on Foote’s father, between the years 1902, when Horace’s father dies, and 1928, when the now-married Horace’s father-in-law dies. Most of the action takes place in the fictional town of Harrison, Texas, based on Foote’s father’s hometown of Wharton, Texas.

The schedule of readings: Wednesday, “Roots in a Parched Ground”; Oct. 27, “Convicts”; Nov. 17, “Lily Dale”; Dec. 8, “The Widow Claire”; Jan. 26, “Courtship”; Feb. 23, “Valentine’s Day”; March 29, “1918”; April 26, “Cousins”; May 24, “The Death of Papa.” Only four of these have been previously produced in Los Angeles.

The play to be fully staged next summer, “The Day Emily Married,” is also set in Harrison--but in 1956. It does not involve the same characters that are in “The Orphans’ Home,” said Lost World artistic director (and Whittier College faculty member) Crystal Brian, who will stage all of the readings and the summer play.

Information: (562) 907-4203.

Don Shirley is The Times’ theater writer.