Daily News from New York, New York • 152

ui Ota sifi ftCc Celebs enlist to save venerable theater periled by church's plans for tower yDDDllDDSf By DOUGLAS FDD EN FEATURE WRITER ozens of well-known entertainers are quietly ganizing a crusade to save the I amhc Thoatar DAUyNEWSFS GDI OWiy NEWS (the famed Times Square stage where Irving Berlin composed, Fred Astaire danced and Georee M. Cohan sn if that was the only way to save that wonderful old theater," said Lionel Hampton, the 90-year-old jazz great. Veterans of the unsuccessful street protests to spare the Helen Hayes from the wrecking ball say they'll take to the pavement again to save the Lambs, a six-story treasure from 1905 designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. "It would be a crime to lose this little gem," said Rosemary Harris, who is co-starring with Lauren Bacall in "Waiting in the Wings" on Broadway. "We've lost so much of our heritage already.

Under no cir- The 349-seat Off-Broadwav iewel whpra Alan ia Lerner and Frederick Loewe met and composed "Bri-gadoon" may be doomed, because the church that owns it needs cash and wants to erect a $20 million hotel COVER aiop me Duiiding. I he project would mean major changes to the existing structure, possibly gutting most of the interior. The Manhattan Church of the Nazarene, an evangelical group that has owned the theater for 25 years, signed a deal late last year with HamDshire Hotels and Rpsnrts (-uiiiaiaiices snouia we let it nappen again. The fight began last week when Anne Phillips, co-producer of "The Jazz Nativity," which played the Lambs in December, and the Rev. Paul Moore, a former Nazarene pastor, formed a Save the Lambs Committee.

develop a 135-room hotel on the site, church and hotel officials said. Word that the Lambs building on W. 44th St. could be gutted has galvanized Broadway, angering performers who recall the demolition of the Helen Hayes, Morosco and Bijou theaters in 1981 to make way for the Marriott Marquis hotel. "I'm pretty old and not in the greatest health anymore, but I'd demonstrate on the cold streets of Times Square Supporters, addition to Hampton and Harris, include Latin-jazz star Tito Puente and Hal Holbrook, whose one-man Mark Twain show debuted at the Lambs more than 40 years ago.

Their strategy: Seek landmark designation for the interior of the building in order to preserve the theater. Only the exterior is currently Iandmarked; the group filed an application last week with the city Landmarks Preservation Commission to extend the protection to the interior. "Now we're ready to man the barricades," Phillips said. "To lose this would be to lose still another glorious piece of Broadway history." Officials of the Kansas City, church said they needed a development deal because they can no longer afford to maintain the building without tapping money for programs that feed the homeless and provide day care and job training for the poor of Tunes Square. "We had to ensure a stable financial base for the church to pursue its mission," said Bruce Reeves, the Nazarene's development consultant.

"We were sitting on a ticking time bomb financially, and we refused to take money away from our ministries." So the church formed a joint venture with the Manhattan-based hotel chain and drew up plans for a sixstory, foot addition atop the existing building. The hotel would be alcohol-free, a condition the church insisted on, and would have space for church offices and prayer. Preliminary plans call for gutting or reconfiguring most of the interior of the Lambs Club, which was used as a theatrical social club whose members included John Wayne, Richard Rodgers, Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan. The building now houses the third-floor theater, first-floor Grill Room and fifth-floor dorm rooms once used by Gene Autry, John Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson and John Philip Sousa.

'Gutted is a strong word," said Howard Zipser, the lawyer for both the church and the hotel developer. "It's going to be changed." Zipser said the developer is doing an economic feasibility study to see if a modern theater could be built, either in the current theater's space or elsewhere in the building. That's not envisioned in the current plans, however, and the Save the Lambs Committee argues that it would still mean wrecking the original theater. "I can't believe anyone would even think of tearing it down," says Puente. "My members can't afford to lose another theater," said Alan Eisenberg, the executive director of Actors Equity.

"There aren't too many of them around anymore, so we'll fight to preserve this one." The preservationists may face an uphill fight at the landmarks commission. While the exteriors of 1,027 buildings are official city landmarks, only 102 interiors have been so designated. "We've received a request to consider the landmarking of the interior space of the Lambs Club, and we're considering the request and taking it seriously, as we do all requests for evaluations," said Terri Rosen Deutsch, the agency's chief of staff. -s 1 a 17 -'th i mi rTV. 4m III! K1 If 1 1 1.

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