California Youth Theatre Gives the Ivar a Fresh Start

The Ivar Theatre in Hollywood is about to be reborn, adding yet another name to the expanding list of active mid-size theaters in Los Angeles.

The new owner of the Ivar is the 37-year-old California Youth Theatre, which eventually plans to use the 250-seat facility for its own youth-oriented productions but in the meantime hopes to obtain as much rental revenue as possible from other producers.

The first rental production, a French import called “Le Manege,” by Manon Landowski, is scheduled to open April 28. Produced by couturier Pierre Cardin, it will be presented mostly in French, but with English supertitles.

Dating back 50 years, located a block west of the Doolittle Theatre and a block south of Hollywood Boulevard, the Ivar was home to a variety of “legit” productions for a couple of decades. But the theater fell on hard times in the ‘70s and was converted into a strip joint.

Inner City Cultural Center bought the Ivar in 1989 and, after a period of fund-raising and restoration, the venue reopened with a rented production in 1991. Sporadic shows played the Ivar through 1996. But no long-running hit took off, and the venture proved costly for Inner City, which lost the mortgage through foreclosure in 1996--the same year that the multicultural company’s founder, C. Bernard Jackson, died.

The Ivar hasn’t seen much activity since then. Another company owned it for a couple of years, produced no public shows and was foreclosed on. When California Youth Theatre artistic director Jack Nakano first looked at it, “it was an absolute dump,” he said. However, Cardin provided enough rental revenue upfront to help fix up the theater before the April 28 opening, Nakano added.

California Youth Theatre, which was born in Santa Barbara but moved to L.A. in 1980, has been looking for a permanent home for a long time. Since 1992, it has used a sound stage at Paramount Pictures, but use of the facility was subject to shooting schedules. Two years ago, the Community Development Department of the L.A. city government offered a $400,000 loan to help the organization with a down payment as soon as a suitable site was found--a loan that might be forgiven if the theater company accumulates enough “service credits” for doing good deeds over the next 15 to 20 years.

At first, Nakano had his eye on a former fire station just south of Sunset Boulevard. Then he turned his attention to the Doolittle Theatre, which UCLA was trying to sell as part of a Hollywood redevelopment deal. Last year, however, it became clear that another nonprofit--actually a coalition between the National Council of La Raza and Ricardo Montalban’s Nosotros group--had obtained the city’s blessing to go into the Doolittle.

Nakano initially was disappointed. But now, he said, he’s able to look at the Doolittle from the Ivar and ask himself the question: “What was I thinking?” Booking the Doolittle, which is about four times bigger than the Ivar, would be a formidable full-time job that would distract him from his own work, he said. (Despite last summer’s announcement of the Ricardo Montalban Foundation/Nosotros plans, escrow on the Doolittle still hasn’t closed, as details of the development project of which it’s a part are changing.)

Nakano credits Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s office with steering him toward the Ivar. And then Cardin’s offer to produce the first show--and refurbish the theater in the process--came as an unexpected bonus. Indeed, the budget for this production of “Le Manege,” which is planned as the prototype for an international tour, is nearly $1 million, said Cardin’s locally based executive producer, Joel Soler.

The Ivar was picked for “Le Manege” because of a desire to do the show in the heart of Hollywood, Soler said, with its “legendary, mythical” name--and in a theater that was “a little cozier” than, say, the Doolittle but not as small as the numerous 99-seat theaters in the area. Soler also likes what he called the “sober” quality of the Ivar--which is another way of saying that the theater has a plain, dark interior. “Everything will be focused on the stage,” he said.

Nakano said he hopes to use paint to lighten the Ivar’s interior in the future. Another problem he will face is the presence of a club called the Opium Den in the rear of the building--not the kind of business that a youth theater director wants associated with his establishment. The club is on a lease that will end in 2001, Nakano said; he hopes the club owners will agree to change the entrance to the club to the other side of the building, so it isn’t next to the Ivar entrance. Ultimately, Nakano wants to use the space occupied by the Opium Den for offices, rehearsal rooms and storage.

The Ivar name will stay on the building--until someone donates enough money to change it, Nakano said. But he also plans to call it the Hollywood Youth Arts Center.

Nakano professed not to be intimidated by the fact that foreclosure struck two recent owners of the Ivar. “The board is sticking its neck out to the tune of $1.35 million”--the purchase price has gone up since the last owner bought it for $1 million--”and we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think we could handle it.” The group’s annual budget has varied over the years, but its last big show, a production of “Oliver!” in 1998, cost about $140,000. In addition to box office and contributions, the company earns money by teaching workshops and assisting other youth theater productions, Nakano said.

The organization’s mission is not “to add to the 40,000 terrific actors who are parking cars and waiting on tables,” Nakano said, but “to develop the audience of the future that will pay those waiters to act.”

ARNEY ON L.A.: A question for Randall Arney, the former Chicagoan who’s the new artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse (joining producing director Gilbert Cates, who will continue to have the final word):

What’s the difference between Chicago theater and L.A. theater? Chicago has seen “a real explosion of grass-roots theater” in recent years, Arney replied. “In Los Angeles, it feels a little less contained, a bit more spread out in the community. There are wonderful resources here because L.A. is such a destination for artists. There is a wonderful audience that in some ways is just begging to be tapped.”

Arney’s former Steppenwolf Theatre colleague, Laurie Metcalf (more famous for her years on “Roseanne”), has become a confederate of L.A.’s home-grown playwright Justin Tanner recently; the only Tanner play ever produced outside L.A. was “Pot Mom” at the Steppenwolf. Arney said he has seen several Tanner plays and finds him “a wonderfully fresh voice. I hope he can find a wider audience.” *