Children’s Theater Chief Opts for Burbank Base

The Encino Playhouse will no longer produce children’s theater at the Encino Community Center, according to Stephanie Angelini, the playhouse’s artistic director. Instead, Angelini will offer her children’s shows at the Victory Theatre in Burbank.

The Victory’s newly formed Young People’s Theatre kicked off last weekend with a “totally restaged” version of “Gift Rap,” Richard Hellesen and Michael Silversher’s upbeat musical about giving that originated at South Coast Repertory and was part of last year’s Playhouse season.

“It’s the same wonderful script,” Angelini said. The reason for the move, he said, is that the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, which operates the Encino facility, “told us in May that we were in breach of contract because of our children’s shows.”

“The original intent of her permit was to put on adult theater,” explained Cindy Bertematti, director of the Encino Community Center. She cited the facility’s lack of space and time for additional children’s shows.

But Angelini, who will present an adult production at the center in the fall, likes doing children’s theater--”children are a much more immediately gratifying audience: If they don’t like you they scream, if they do like you they laugh.”

So she was pleased when Victory artistic directors Maria Gobetti and Tom Ormeny asked her to sign on as producing director for its new children’s theater venture.

“We’re planning a full season,” Gobetti said. “We’ve never had anybody to run a children’s theater for us and this is a fabulous opportunity to get this off the ground. I don’t think (adult theater) is going to have audiences in the future if we don’t have children’s theater.”

If all goes well, Angelini plans at least four productions a year at the Victory, “for specific age groups--teen-agers, as well as little kids.”