Theaters Join in Bid to Bring Professionalism to Children

San Diego is a terrific theater town--for adults.

Now Lamb’s Players Theatre and Starlight Musical Theatre want to make it a terrific theater town for children too.

This week, Lamb’s is launching a show geared for children age 4 and up, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” based on the character in the Peter, Paul and Mary song. It will be presented through July 7 at Theatre East at the East County Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Main St., El Cajon. If the run is successful, producing artistic director Robert Smyth said he hopes to produce a full season of children’s programming by 1993.

C.E. (Bud) Franks, executive director of Starlight, said he is also exploring venues for a series of professional shows for children--possibly as early as this fall.

“We’re interested in the whole repertoire of large children’s musicals as well as another repertoire that is more educational and intimate in nature,” Franks said.

Lamb’s current plan is to move one small step at a time: “We’re using ‘Puff’ as a trial balloon,” Smyth said. “If we get the audience response for it as far as numbers and enthusiasm at the performances, we hope to repeat that kind of thing in the 1992 season and look for a three-year plan to begin a short series in 1993.”

If Lamb’s sells 400 tickets a performance, or a third of Theatre East’s 1,197-seat house, Smyth will consider the venture a success.

Smyth and Franks say they are well aware that San Diego does not have a history of supporting professional theater for children. But both say they think this void is one that cries out to be filled.

The difficulty in producing shows for children is primarily economic. Putting on a show can cost as much as putting on a professional show for adults, but, although enough adults are willing to pay the kinds of ticket prices that can help offset the cost of such productions, not enough parents are willing or able to do the same for kids shows.

Even in recent attempts at working with the local schools, theaters have found that ticket prices and other fees can be a stumbling block. Starlight, for example, planned a children’s matinee of “The Wizard of Oz” this spring and found only a small number of schoolchildren able to come up with the $10 ticket price. Starlight canceled the matinee.

“You really have to have the donor support to underwrite the ticket costs,” Franks said.

The La Jolla Playhouse, which had a Performance Outreach Project touring show for children from 1987-1989, suspended its program in the absence of sufficient funding.

Because children’s theater is considered a financially tough market, there are not much more than a half-dozen such professional companies nationally. There are more non-professional companies, whose operational costs are lower because they are non-equity. Among them is the San Diego-based National Theatre for Children, which tours nationally and only performs in San Diego a few days a year.

Smyth believes that Lamb’s will be able to pull off a local children’s theater, in part, because it has the advantage of having a full-time paid acting ensemble. “Puff the Magic Dragon” will be performed largely by its touring company, so the company will not have to hire a cast just for this show.

Tickets for “Puff” cost $8 for children, $14 for adults, with group rates for children at $5 apiece.

El Cajon’s Theatre East, formerly known as the East County Performing Arts Center, has been struggling for some time to get into the black and to establish an identity as a presenter.

Robert Peck, a retired professor who plans special projects for the space, wants to move toward presenting more work by local companies.

“So many times I’ve gone to some of these smaller theaters and seen something excellent that was seen by very few people,” Peck said. “At the same time, people in East County want to see good product. It seems to be a marriage made in heaven.”

Peck arranged for Lamb’s Player’s Theatre to present “Puff the Magic Dragon,” as well as “Damien” in October, “The Gift of the Magi” in December and either “Cotton Patch Gospel” or “Godspell” in March, 1992. Theatre East may also be the site for some still-to-be-named Coronado Playhouse productions in the spring of 1992, he said.

PROGRAM NOTES: Rhodessa Jones will return to Sushi Performance Gallery Sept. 12-21 with her one-woman show about women in prison, “Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women.” . . .

The La Jolla Playhouse will present a Pay What You Can matinee performance of Bill Irwin’s “The Regard of Flight” and “The Clown Bagatelles” July 13 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre. . . . The Playhouse has also lined up Mandy Patinkin for its Monday Night Live benefit July 15 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre. Monday is Patinkin’s day off from “The Secret Garden,” the show he is starring in on Broadway. His show here is called “Mandy Patinkin in Concert--Dress Casual” after the one-man show he did on Broadway. . . .

Sales are brisk for the San Diego Playgoers presentation of “Les Miserables,” opening Tuesday at the San Diego Civic Theatre. Seventy-five percent of the house has been sold, according to Dixie Burton, the Playgoer’s general manager. . . .

Despite the fact that executive director Reuel Olin is planning upcoming shows, Diversionary Theatre, a gay and lesbian theater troupe, will be homeless at the conclusion of “Rules of Love,” which ends July 13. After Diversionary’s 18-month residency at 2222 Broadway in Golden Hill, the administration of the neighborhood outreach program that owns the building is making it available to a social service group.