Fairy Tale Ending to Act One

By Jorge Casuso
Staff writer

Feb. 3 -- Call it a Cinderella story. There are 15 minutes left before the January 31 midnight deadline, and the Santa Monica Playhouse needs $1,000 to reach its $200,000 fundraising goal.

It can't just be a pledge. The money must be in hand by midnight. If not, the non-profit group's dream of owning the theater complex off of a Promenade alley it has occupied for 40 years would vanish and another Santa Monica institution would be forced to shut down due to escalating rents.

"The deal to purchase would be gone," said Evelyn Rudie, the playhouse's co-artistic director. "The contract (with the property owner) is very well structured to protect everyone. Everyone (at the theater) had already put in what they owned."

That's when Cinderella came to the rescue. Literally. Someone who had heard a last-minute plea from Gayle Anderson and KTLA Channel 5 called the playhouse. "My daughter saw her first production of 'Cinderella' there," said the voice on the phone.

And before the clock could strike midnight, $1,000 had been charged to the caller's credit card, and the Save the Playhouse Campaign had reached its goal.

"It was amazing," Rudie said. "Everyone started screaming. The kinds started jumping up and down…. It's like doing a new play. About two minutes before going on stage, your body goes numb. You can do all you can, and the rest is up to fate."

In the case of the playhouse, the community had done all they could do, Rudie said. Between 3,000 and 4,000 contributors -- including children who have attended plays and workshops and established actors who have graced the theater's stage - had donated everything from small change to $5,000, with most giving between $25 and $50.

"The community support has been unbelievable," Rudie said. "Of the $200,000, it's all been in community support. This has been the kids, the actors, people putting money in the basket."

Now that more than half of the $500,000 needed has been raised -- the City kicked in a critical $75,000 last year that lent the fundraising effort crucial credibility -- Rudie hopes the large foundations and corporations will come on board to help raise the $225,000 balance by the June deadline.

"In December (2001) when we started, we went to the foundations," Rudie recalled.

"They said, 'Come back when you reach 50 to 60 percent.'

"We went back when we had about $100,000 and they said, 'Who are your funders?'

"We said, 'We have 3,000 to 4,000 people.'

"They said, 'That doesn't count.'

"Basically," Rudie said, "what they want is other corporations."

If the playhouse meets its $500,000 goal, the money would go towards a down payment and some much-needed upgrades to the old brick building at 1211 4th Street. In the long run, the investment will pay off, bringing down the mortgage payments to half the current rent, Rudie said.

"It's going to save us a tremendous amount of money and give us leverage in fundraising," she said. "People know the money is going into rent, not programming. We'll have more for scholarships and artistic support."

Buying the building would also be cheaper than relocating the playhouse, which has four spaces, two of which double as rehearsal spaces, Rudie said.

"Moving would cost us $1 million," she said. "We would have to reestablish what we have. Everybody knows where we are."

From the start of the campaign in December 2001, playhouse officials have had to throw out the script and hope an improvised effort would tug on $500,000-worth of heartstrings.

"I've taken a lot of fundraising classes, and if we believed everything they teach you in school, we wouldn't even try," said Sandra Zeitzew, a playhouse staff member who helped organize the fundraising campaign.

"You normally hire consultants to go into the neighborhoods and do a survey or a study to see if it is the right time," Zeitzew said. "We just had this opportunity presented, and we had to go for it. We turned everything upside down."

Friday's Cinderella finish wasn't the first time playhouse supporters barely beat the clock. The race was nearly lost on its very first day, when playhouse officials received the paperwork from their landlord setting the first benchmark -- raise $20,000 in 24 hours.

Unable to mount a formal campaign on such short notice, playhouse officials turned to parents, friends and family. "All through the night, emails and calls kept coming in, from students, teachers, alumni thousands of miles away," Zeitzew said at the time.

The following day the final donation came via Western Union at 4:57 p.m.- - three minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline.