Theater Will Offer Classes to Get Funds

In an effort to stave off imminent financial collapse, Illusion’s New View Theatre in Fullerton has announced that it will offer acting classes to bolster its income, in response to dwindling ticket sales for its productions.

The 39-seat storefront theater, which opened a year ago at 3030 Brea Blvd., has failed in recent months to generate enough attendance to break even and does not have enough money to plan a second season, according to producer Jeffrey D. Ault.

Two acting classes--scene study and a musical theater workshop--will begin July 3. They will be taught by Laurie Freed, Ault said. No fee schedule was announced.

Freed teaches at the Orange County High School for the Performing Arts in Los Alamitos and is the producer of “Equus,” now playing at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles.

Ault and Patrick Brambila, a co-founder of Illusion’s New View, said in a press release that they have ruled out organizing a fund-raiser because it would divert them from their “primary intentions.”

“We did not open to do benefits and fund-raisers--we opened to do theater,” they said.

Moreover, they believe that acquiring nonprofit status so as to provide tax benefits for potential contributors is impractical at this point in their development and irrelevant in any case: If they cannot attract 20 people at night to their performances--the number they need to break even, they said--then the county may simply be the wrong place for their theater.

In the meantime, their problems have been complicated by a casting change for Friday’s performance of their current production of Larry McCauley’s Vietnam drama, “Beyond the Orange Sky.” Co-star Andrew Lowery has been called away by a role in a movie, which is being shot that night. James Johnson, who directed the play, will fill in.