The 240-seat grandstand has been removed. The huge painted backdrop of a '50s-vintage high school has been dismantled. The cast has disbanded. And the Aquanettes--a one-woman, five-men-in-drag team of synchronized swimmers--are in dry dock.
Like Cinderella's bejeweled coach that turns back into a pumpkin at midnight, Al Roberts and Ken Jillson's Laguna Beach backyard is back to normal.
The 1996 Big Splash--their annual backyard romp that is one of the most successful annual AIDS fund-raisers in the nation--netted $536,000.
Over the past 11 years, the campy Splash has brought in nearly $3 million for the Irvine-based AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County, which Roberts and Jillson helped found in 1985. Part of what makes the fund-raiser different and appealing to donors, Jillson says, is that every cent donated goes directly to the foundation.
Longtime business and life partners, Roberts and Jillson are guiding lights at ASF, the largest provider of services for people with AIDS in Orange County.
Roberts, 63, is a businessman known for his keen organizational and fund-raising skills; Jillson, 49, once described by a friend as "a theater event waiting to happen," last year co-produced an off-Broadway show, "Swingtime Canteen," and has proposed building a replica of Long Beach's onetime landmark Cyclone Racer roller coaster.
The two donate their time and talents to ASF throughout the year. But nowhere does the best of what they have to offer show up more than in their backyard each September.
Their show outperforms a number of higher-profile AIDS fund-raisers. The annual Morning Party on Fire Island for the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, for instance, netted about $430,000 last year; the AmFAR Fall Event in 1995 netted about $115,000.
The Splash doesn't compare, though, with the dollar power of big-production fund-raisers: July's star-studded Commitment to Life variety show for AIDS Project Los Angeles at the Universal Amphitheatre netted $2.75 million.
But, for a "little backyard show," as Jillson calls it, the Big Splash more than holds its own.
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Roberts works behind the scenes lining up major donors and arranging the gourmet dinner for guests and volunteers after the last performance. Jillson writes, produces, directs and performs in the show.
A handful of Hollywood celebrities supplied taped voice-overs to which the show's strictly amateur cast members lip-synced their dialogue. Voices this year included Whoopi Goldberg, Carrie Fisher, Penny Marshall, Bea Arthur, Tom Bosley and Tony Dow (the Beav's brother, Wally).
"I love the work they're doing, and I think that Ken is enormously talented," says Arthur, who provided the first Big Splash celebrity voice in 1991. The shows, she adds, are "absolutely outrageous!"
This year's theme was a '50s-style high school spoof complete with cheerleaders, football players and the usual complement of adult authority figures ranging from the frumpy and slow-to-react principal to the officious school nurse.
The 90-minute production comes together with the help of a cast, crew and support group (ushers, waiters, bartenders and security types) that has grown to 200 volunteers.
Roberts and Jillson underwrite much of the production. Others--including Anne and Kirk Douglas--also help cover costs. As in past years, the carpenters, grandstand company owner, sound engineer and many others all donated their goods and services.
Other individual donations help boost the revenue from the sale of tickets--from $50 to $25,000--for the show's three-night run.
Among the traditions at the Big Splash: sheets of plastic handed out to those who dare purchase poolside seats within splashing distance of the ever-vivacious Aquanettes.
"We joke that the more you pay the wetter you get," Jillson says.
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So many ASF support meetings are held in Jillson and Roberts' home that Priscilla Munro, ASF executive director, jokingly refers to it as "our branch office."
"We got everybody here last night and talked about how well [the show] went and how much money we raised and how we can improve it," says Jillson, standing on the upstairs deck overlooking the now-recovered backyard of the hill-hugging home in Arch Beach Heights.
Inside, ASF Board President Roberts is winding up a meeting at the dining room table with members of a steering and planning committee for AIDS Walk Orange County next June. Roberts spends 20 to 30 hours a week attending various ASF committee meetings, nurturing new board members and reaching out into the community for donations.
As businessmen, Roberts and Jillson say they have always maintained a low-key, conservative lifestyle. They were charity-minded in the past, Jillson says, but from arm's length as donors.
Then AIDS began claiming lives. Nearly 50 of their friends--including actor Rock Hudson--and acquaintances have died from complications of the disease.
