Theater in the wings
As the now-closed Pasadena Playhouse seeks funding, Glendale’s A Noise Within prepares to make a scene
By Carl Kozlowski 04/29/2010
While the historic Pasadena Playhouse sits eerily silent, a victim of mounting debt and a bad economy, Glendale’s A Noise Within theater is just getting ready to rumble in hopes of restoring a vital theatrical presence to the Crown City.
Having surpassed the $10 million goal needed to commence groundbreaking on its ambitious new $13.3 million theater complex in East Pasadena, the 18-year-old company is planning a ceremony to mark the start of construction in May.
With the recent launch of the troupe’s rotating three-play lineup — John Synge’s 1907 Irish romantic comedy “The Playboy of the Western World,” Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and Clifford Odets’ “Awake and Sing!” — A Noise Within is a rare example of an arts organization that is finding ways to succeed amid the sadness wrought nationwide by scores of arts groups forced to close.
“The groundbreaking did get pushed back, but these things seem to have difficulty having deadlines embedded in them,” explains Geoff Elliott, who co-founded A Noise Within with his wife, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and serves with her as the theater’s co-artistic director. “We originally planned on having the groundbreaking in February, but, unfortunately, due to coordinating people and schedules, that had to be pushed to the first part of May.”
The key to putting the fundraising over the $10 million goal set for groundbreaking was a matching-funds campaign the theater’s board established last fall when it was still $700,000 short. Within a final 10-day stretch, more than $75,000 was raised to bring the project to fruition.
The next step is redesigning the historic former Stewart Pharmaceutical complex, designed by Edward Durrell Stone, who also designed the renowned Kennedy Center for the Arts and a number of other noteworthy US structures. The façade of the building has historic significance and will remain, with the new theater space to be built behind it as part of a new mixed-use development at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue. The actual construction phase is expected to take 10 to 12 months.
Meanwhile, “Playboy” is drawing strong box office sales for its comic tale of rural Irish peasants who are roused from their boring lives when a young man stumbles into town claiming to have killed his father with an angry blow to the head. The production has already received raves from local critics and runs through May 22.
“This was probably the first play we chose when we were building a season this time last year,” recalls Elliott. “I knew of this play but had never seen or read it. I picked it up one day and fell in love with it immediately on first reading. It’s funny, it’s moving and it’s just a great, tight story about a group of people who are painfully human.”
Whatever the play may be, it’s a refreshing sign for Pasadena to have a theater — along with the Theatre @ Boston Court — that’s still alive and kicking. And proving he loves competition, Elliott makes it clear he hopes for the best in the awaited return of the Pasadena Playhouse and believes that there’s room for everyone.
“There’s no doubt that, for all nonprofit institutions, it’s a tough world out there right now. The economy affects institutions like ours or theirs,” says Elliott. “It’s my hope they can restructure, come back and thrive. There’s a legacy in the Pasadena Playhouse that’s very important, and it’s our hope that they’ll stay part of the theatrical landscape. Institutions like the Playhouse, Boston Court and Furious Theatre strengthen each other and the reality of Pasadena being a destination for the arts.”
“The Playboy of the Western World” runs through May 22 at A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Tickets are $40 and $44. Call (818) 240-0910, ext. 1 or visit anoisewithin.org.
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