Auditorium Work to Proceed

Glendale Community College officials said this week that the $2.3-million remodeling of the school’s auditorium will continue as planned, despite protests that the Glendale Music Theatre might not survive if its longtime venue is altered.

Supporters of the 42-year-old musical production troupe on Monday pleaded with college trustees to reconsider plans to remove about 650 seats from the 1,059-seat auditorium and replace the space with classrooms. The reduction in seats will leave the theater group financially unable to produce its biannual musicals, supporters said.

“I think it’s just disgraceful that we’re being booted out of the college,” said Jack Keidatz, a La Canada realtor and music theater production associate.

Eight classrooms, a small experimental theater and a television production room will replace hundreds of seats in the two-story, 58-year-old auditorium.

The remodeling is part of a campuswide expansion that includes $43 million in projects planned in the 1990s. Campus officials expect student enrollment--now at 17,000--to grow by 25% during the decade. But they say it is difficult to find additional classroom space on the hillside campus.

“We are an educational institution and that is our purpose in life,” said Ted Tiffany, the board’s president. xx