Playhouse swaps out 2 shows next season
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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.
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