Basement stage to golf course

It was 30 years ago that Gary Sinise and partners Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry founded Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. “It was January 1974, and I had just graduated from high school,” Sinise recalled in a telephone conversation last week. “We were just a group of kids in a basement. Now, we’ve been around for 30 years, our organization has grown, and we have a strong board of directors.

“Now,” he added with a laugh, “we play golf.”

Indeed. Beginning Friday and continuing through next Sunday, Sinise, along with the national committee of the board of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, will co-host Steppenwolf’s first celebrity golf classic at Westin Mission Hills Resort in Rancho Mirage. Celebrities slated to attend include Peter Gallagher, Dennis Hopper, Greg Kinnear, Jack Scalia, Robert Wagner and Dweezil Zappa.

The irony of going from garage to golf course is not lost on Sinise. “I never golfed 30 years ago,” mused the actor, who has played seriously for only a couple of years. But he added that a golf fundraiser may create links with a new crop of theater patrons. “We have a lot of supporters in California,” he said. “We thought we’d give it a try.”

In other theater fundraising news, the Benevolent Theatre Company is living up to its name by dedicating three performances of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” to Laura Marchant, who was diagnosed in October with a fast-growing brain tumor. From 2000 to 2003, Marchant co-produced the annual Feb. 14 “V-Day” presentation of Ensler’s play at Cal State Long Beach under the aegis of the loud*R*mouth Theatre Company. During the four years, the event raised more than $20,000 for the V-Day cause, a global movement to raise money and draw attention to violence against women. The company will donate 20% of the proceeds from the Feb. 13 to 15 performances at CSULB to Marchant, with the rest going to various women’s organizations. Information: (562)439-5098; www.thebenevolenttheatrecompany.com.

-- Diane Haithman