The Actors Studio heads West

The Tiffany Theaters are being resurrected, at least briefly.

The twin 99-seat Sunset Strip theaters closed in 2002 because the building that houses them was to be demolished as part of a mixed-use real estate development. That’s still the plan, but the wrecking ball isn’t expected until next year. So the developer of the proposed Sunset Millennium project, Apollo Real Estate Advisors, is donating the use of the Tiffany spaces to the Actors Studio for at least the rest of 2004.

The famous acting academy will reopen the space today at 5 p.m. with a staged reading of “The Sunshine Boys” starring Mark Rydell and Martin Landau. Other readings will follow in the next eight weeks.

Full productions are expected in the late summer and fall: Calvin Levels’ “James Baldwin -- Down From the Mountaintop,” Lyle Kessler’s “Unlisted” and George Furth’s “Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex and Sex.”

Paula Holt, the former Tiffany developer and operator, says she is “totally supportive” of the new project, called Actors Studio at Sunset Millennium. She harbors no resentment that she was not asked to return to the Tiffany, noting that she operated the spaces as a for-profit producer, while the Actors Studio is a nonprofit better suited to accept a corporate donation. “Any time a corporate interest supports a not-for-profit, it has my vote,” she says.

Holt adds that she has been asked to help produce the Furth play and that she hopes to resume discussions with Apollo about the possibility of building a permanent theater in the Sunset Millennium.