Advertisement

Playhouse swaps out 2 shows next season

Tom Titus

It’s not easy to plan a community theater season. Often,

circumstances beyond your control cause you to make changes even

before the season gets under way.

Take the Huntington Beach Playhouse, for example. This past season

-- it’s 40th -- the theater was primed to celebrate the big

anniversary in September with the first play it ever staged in 1963,

the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy “Harvey.”

A few miles to the south, however, the Laguna Playhouse also had

its eye on “Harvey,” with a name cast and a revival ultimately

ticketed for Broadway. When a professional theater pulls rank on an

amateur group, the latter has no choice but to alter its schedule.

Fortunately, there was another Pulitzer Prize-winner available,

William Inge’s “Picnic,” and director Terri Miller Schmidt put

together a terrific production. The big white rabbit wasn’t missed at

all.

A year ago, the playhouse intended to close out its 2002 season

with the venerable comedy “Born Yesterday.” But problems existed with

playwright Garson Kanin’s estate and the property wasn’t available.

That, as far as I was concerned, was the best thing that could

have happened -- since the playhouse then contacted me and asked if I

still were interested in directing Larry Shue’s marvelous comedy “The

Foreigner.”

It was an outstanding cast and a great experience, as well as

being part of a terrific personal trifecta -- sandwiched as it was

between the Angels’ World Series triumph and my meeting a very

special lady named Jurine, with whom I’ve just celebrated our first

year together.

Recently, the Huntington Beach Playhouse announced its 2004 season

of eight productions. Now, We’re not quite finished with 2003 yet and

already there have been not one but two alterations in the schedule.

The playhouse’s opening production was intended to be a down-home

musical comedy called “Last of the Honky Tonk Angels,” the first

local staging of that particular property. Well, the Angels have

faded from the picture much like Anaheim’s this past season, and the

new leadoff show will be another unfamiliar title, the musical “Stars

in Your Eyes,” which will be making its West Coast premiere at the

Library Theater.

The rest of the Huntington Beach schedule is pretty much as

announced, that is, until we get to the October show, which was to

have been a revival of Agatha Christie’s “The Spider’s Web.”

Perhaps the playhouse directors decided two Christies in two

seasons (the most recent show was her “Ten Little Indians”) was one

too many, but in any event, it’ll be replaced by another mystery --

Vera Caspary’s haunting “Laura,” which the playhouse presented back

in the early 1980s at the former Seacliff Village theater.

Aside from these changes, the playhouse’s schedule remains as

announced, with “Proposals,” “The Dining Room,” “The Desk Set,” “The

Tempest,” “The Pirates of Penzance” and “Over the River and Through

the Woods” rounding out the 2004 lineup.

You can glean more information about the Huntington Beach

Playhouse, which performs in the theater in the city’s Central

Library, 7111 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach, by contacting the

theater at (714) 375-0696. You may even want to get involved. Take it

from me, it’s a rewarding experience.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.

Advertisement