A Change of Scenery : The Lancaster Performing Arts Center plans to offer fare more geared to its patrons' tastes. The new director endorses the turnaround.

By DAVID COLKER

Sept. 4, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Lancaster Performing Arts Center is barely a year old, but the city-owned, $10-million theater has already changed its director and its direction.

Susan Davis, performing arts manager for the theater’s first season, left at the end of the season when her husband was transferred from Edwards Air Force Base to a position at the Pentagon. Her replacement, Bruce Spain, took over the position in June.

The inaugural season did slightly better financially than expected, said Lyle Norton, Lancaster’s director of parks and recreation, which oversees the 758-seat facility. The first-year budget of $680,000 proved to be close to accurate. Ticket sales and theater rentals recouped part of that outlay, but the city was left with a $400,000 deficit, about the amount expected, Norton said.

Several shows on the first season’s schedule were highly popular. The opening concert by Henry Mancini and Gloria Loring, for instance, was a sellout. Other hits were magician Harry Blackstone, the Nebraska Theatre Caravan’s production of “A Christmas Carol,” the Oakland Ballet’s performances of “The Nutcracker” and a concert by the Antelope Valley Symphony that included the popular “Peter and the Wolf.”

But a number of the programs were box-office disappointments. Among them were the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which presents politically charged plays, the Joe Goode Performance Group, which does abstract dances on contemporary themes including AIDS, the Traveling Jewish Theatre and the Repertorio Espanol that performs plays in Spanish.

All these shows were in line with Davis’ booking philosophy. In an interview last year she said, “We have an obligation as a civic center of exposing people to different things in the performing arts.”

But the ticket-buying public was not much interested in these events.

“We found that there was an appeal for family type performances,” Norton said. “They went over really well. It’s what people wanted to come out and buy a ticket to see.”

While Norton said he received no complaints about the content of the more serious, political or avant-garde presentations, they generated little excitement either.

“This is a young town with lots of first-time home buyers,” Norton said. “They are looking for opportunities to do things with their children.”

The second season--which Davis booked before she left--has an expanded schedule. The City Council set a budget of $931,000, which includes about $200,000 in artist fees. Norton expects the deficit will again be in the $400,000 range.

But the fare at the theater will be more strictly middle of the road. The season, which begins Sept. 16 with a concert by the 5th Dimension, includes several prestigious offerings, such as the Handel & Haydn Society chamber orchestra with Christopher Hogwood conducting, the Camerata Musica of Berlin original instruments ensemble, the Shanghai Acrobats and Dance Theatre and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

There will also be several plays and musicals, including “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” and a one-man show about Groucho Marx, plus concerts by veteran performers such as Rita Moreno and Jack Jones. Jazz is represented by the Turtle Island String Quartet and the Rebirth Brass Band.

Children’s programming includes singer Linda Arnold, a staging of the “Snow White” story and a series of matinees presented by the Antelope Valley College theater arts department. Groups making a return visit this season are the Oakland Ballet and Nebraska Theatre Caravan.

“Susan and I never had a discussion where we sat down and said, ‘Let’s play it safe this season,’ ” Norton said. “But we learned from the first season what worked here.”

The theater’s new director endorses that policy. “This theater is owned by the people of this town,” said Spain, 33, who previously ran the 1,065-seat theater at Northeastern Oklahoma State University in Tahlequah. “I will give them what they want. It’s not my theater, I don’t own it.

“When I was being interviewed for this job and they asked how I would go about booking a season, I told them my philosophy is, you book what the people want to see.”

Spain, a graduate of the university, didn’t plan on going into theater management. While earning a degree in accounting, he helped out at the campus theater just for fun. Then in 1983, shortly before he was to leave the university at the end of the summer season, the head of the theater was killed in a highway accident.

“The president of the university called me in and said, ‘Don’t leave,’ ” Spain said. “I told him that I already had a truck rented and that I planned on going.”

But Tahlequah is a small town (population: 10,398) and the university president, Roger Webb, had a lot of influence.

“I went to pick up the truck I rented and was told that the president had canceled it,” Spain said. “So I went to see him again and ended up taking the job.”

Spain got an all-around education while running the theater, which was used for classes as well as numerous entertainment programs. During his last season there, he oversaw 199 performances in just 10 months.

“I did the booking, managed the theater, was the technical director, did the light design and sound, organized security, hospitality and public relations,” said Spain in his soft Oklahoma accent.

He knew he was close to the breaking point when he heard a student talking about the verdicts in the Rodney King case. “I was working so many hours a day that I didn’t even know that the police officers were on trial,” he said. “That really bothered me.”

Spain, who is forever telling receptionists “just like the country” when leaving a phone message, answered an advertisement placed by the city in Artsearch magazine and traveled to Lancaster at his own expense for the first interview.

“It sure doesn’t look like Oklahoma here,” he said with a laugh.

But he liked the well-equipped theater, and city officials obviously liked him. After a trip to Oklahoma to see the theater he ran there and to talk to several people at the university, city officials hired him.

Webb was still president when Spain turned in his resignation to the university. “He asked me to reconsider, but I said no and he was nice about it,” Spain said.

But Spain wasn’t taking any chances.

“This time,” he said, “I rented the truck in Muskogee.”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: Lancaster Performing Arts Center.

Location: 50 W. Lancaster Blvd., Lancaster.

Price: Individual ticket prices range from $5 to $25; series are available.

Call: (805) 723-5950

Schedule:

Sept. 18: The 5th Dimension in concert.

Sept. 30: Shanghai Acrobats.

Oct. 17: Night of Comedy, hosted by John Byner.

Nov. 5-6: “The Quilters,” a play about pioneer women.