Five Broadway Musicals on Tap in Orange County

Five Broadway musicals, including the first touring versions of two current hits and the “farewell” tour of Broadway’s longest-running show, have been announced for the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s next season.

Beginning with “A Chorus Line” in November, the Center’s 1990-91 Broadway Series will include “Grand Hotel” in April, “Meet Me in St. Louis” in May, “Les Miserables” in June and “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” in July.

The series, announced Monday, is being touted by Center officials as a coup because of the acclaim garnered by the original productions and the fact that key artistic personnel will remain connected with several of the touring versions. Officials also point to what they call the relatively fresh currency of the shows, which has not always been the case at the Center.

Tommy Tune, who won two Tony Awards earlier this year for directing and choreographing “Grand Hotel” on Broadway, will re-create the $5-million musical for the road production, which itself will cost several million dollars to launch, according to a spokeswoman for the tour’s New York producers.

Jerome Robbins, who won a 1989 Tony for directing “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” is restaging his Broadway production (still running) for a multimillion-dollar touring version, to begin a four-month engagement at Los Angeles’ Shubert Theatre in October. This song-and-dance anthology of numbers taken from the director-choreographer’s work dating back to the 1940s then goes to Japan for several months, returning to this country and the Center next summer.

The national farewell tour of Michael Bennett’s 1976 hit, “A Chorus Line,” which closed in New York in April after a record 6,137 Broadway performances, will retain the services of Laura Gamache, who starred in the production for the past year in the key role of Cassie.

“Meet Me in St. Louis” is expected to cash in on nostalgia for the 1943 movie directed by Vincente Minnelli and best remembered for Judy Garland’s performance. The score for this period piece about the domestic adventures of an all-American family in turn-of-the-century St. Louis is expanded from the movie’s that includes such tunes as “The Boy Next Door” and “The Trolley Song.”

The $4.2-million touring version of “Les Miserables” coming to the Center has been on the road since November. By the time it reaches Costa Mesa it will have played in 100 theaters around the country, according to a tour spokesman.

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