Noise Within Out Hunting for a Home

A Noise Within is, at least for now, without--without a home.

After eight years in Glendale, the classical repertory company moved to Cal State L.A.’s Luckman Theater last year. The new venue offered a larger capacity and space to expand, plus plenty of modern amenities that were lacking in the former Masonic Temple that used to be the group’s home.

Most of the group’s subscription audience followed along, although single ticket sales dipped by 15% to 20%, said Julia Rodriguez Elliott, one of the group’s artistic co-directors along with Art Manke and Geoff Elliott.

However, it wasn’t a diminution of the audience that prompted the company to head back to Glendale in search of another site.

The three co-directors blame the Luckman management.

“The first big bump in the road,” Geoff Elliott said, was a dispute over rival student outreach programs--one that A Noise Within had been doing for years that sold individual tickets for $10 and another that the Luckman sponsored, with tickets to A Noise Within performances selling at $3. The company contends that the two programs were being marketed to some of the same schools, undercutting A Noise Within’s program.

The Luckman finally relieved A Noise Within of the obligation to perform for the Luckman outreach program, but then notified the company that the university was presenting its own “Christmas Carol”--in competition with A Noise Within’s--and requested the use of A Noise Within’s set. The company refused, citing issues of liability and reputation.

“It’s our belief that a pattern of harassment developed” after these initial disputes, Elliott said.

In November, the Luckman asked the company to remove all of its belongings from the theater complex for the period between “A Christmas Carol” and the company’s spring programming. “As the company in residence, we thought we had a right to leave some things there,” Elliott said. A Noise Within’s lawyers sent a counterproposal but never received a specific response, claim the company’s directors.

Instead, the company’s belongings were removed Dec. 27. When the three co-directors and their attorney arrived for a meeting that had been called to discuss what needed to be moved, they found costumes, sewing machines, wigs, computers and other items outside, under a tarp. Throughout the rest of the group’s residency, which ended last Sunday, the company was not allowed to use the Luckman’s shops and offices, except for the box office during small windows of time before performances. The company had to rent additional space for set construction and storage off the Luckman site.

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The final events that pushed the group out of the Luckman occurred in the spring, when the Luckman asked A Noise Within to increase its payments for front-of-the-house personnel expenses from about $50,000 to $250,000 in the coming year. The group’s total budget is $800,000, so this was a prohibitive request, said the three co-directors. “They wanted to reduce services and add expenses,” said Rodriguez Elliott. According to Manke, the Luckman also asked the company not to repeat “A Christmas Carol” next year, because December was needed for other bookings.

The two parties have gone into arbitration over their disputes, as required by their contract that began last year. A Noise Within’s leaders are charging breach of contract and say they want to recover some of their expenses. Luckman Executive Director Clifford Harper declined to comment, but a spokeswoman for the university denied breach of contract. Still, she added, “it doesn’t mean we’re going to force them to stay.”

“It has been the hardest year of our life,” A Noise Within’s Manke said.

“Well, stick around,” retorted Elliott.

Indeed, even though the Glendale City Council approved a lease agreement Tuesday that would provide space for a facility for two years at a downtown parking lot, a happy ending is not quite in sight for the troupe.

The proposed aluminum-frame, canvas-covered, air-conditioned, sound-insulated structure would seat just over 200 in a thrust configuration similar to the one at the company’s previous Glendale home, as opposed to the proscenium arrangement at the Luckman. “We so miss the intimacy” of the thrust stage, “and so did our audience,” Elliott said.

However, the structure costs $500,000, and the city--which had previously allocated $2.5 million and spent about $700,000 for improvements of A Noise Within’s first home--is offering only $50,000 this time around. Furthermore, the proposed structure may not meet Glendale codes.

If Plan A fails, Plan B might be a temporary return to the former Masonic Temple, said the co-directors--only this time A Noise Within would try to carve a new and larger space out of the first floor, as opposed to the previous upstairs space. That too would require some fund-raising, and time is growing short before the company must commit to a fall season. *