‘Selena’s’ Harmony Strained Backstage

The latest version of a theatrical production on the life of slain tejano singer Selena Quintanilla has experienced bumps on the road to opening night: the replacement of its director, a one-week delay in its premiere and complaints about budget constraints and a weak marketing campaign.

The musical, formerly known as “Selena Forever,” has been renamed “Selena: A Musical Celebration of Life” and is now scheduled to debut at the James Doolittle Theater in Hollywood on April 19. The production had been scheduled to open this week, but co-producer Joe Bradberry announced the postponement on Tuesday. Co-producer Tom Quinn said the director needed a few more days to perfect the show.

The musical, featuring Veronica Vazquez in the lead role, will be the first production at the Doolittle under its new owner--the Ricardo Montalban Nosotros Foundation. The foundation purchased the theater last year with the hope of increasing Latino theatrical productions in Los Angeles.

“Selena Forever” played last year in Texas and Chicago, and was scheduled to come to Los Angeles and San Diego before it was abruptly canceled due to poor ticket sales.

“Selena: A Musical Celebration” is different from “Selena Forever” in that it is narrated through the eyes of one character instead of a chorus of 20. The cast has been reduced from 32 to 18, said the musical’s playwright-lyricist, Edward Gallardo.

Daniel Valdez, who played Selena’s father, Abraham, in the previous production, was the original director of the revamped show, but he was replaced in February by Miranda Garrison, whose professional experience has been mainly as a choreographer.

Valdez, younger brother of stage and film director Luis Valdez, said he was concerned that the show’s producers were sacrificing artistic content because of lack of funds. He said he was never given a choreographer or a set designer--two positions crucial for any musical--and that his cast was cut almost in half. Valdez said his successful push last fall for the show to be a union production--which would make it more expensive--likely soured his relationship with Quinn.

“There was a lot of vagueness and uncertainty as to which direction the show was going in,” Valdez said, adding that he was never formally told of his dismissal from the show. “I come from a theater background of making do with spit and glue--where you do what you can to put it together. This was more spit than glue. Profit came before production values.”

The director of last year’s musical, Bill Virchis, also had concerns about the show’s production values and said he is still owed money by the producers. Virchis said he too was kept in the dark as to why he was replaced.

“They were trying to minimize their overhead and get their maximum return,” Virchis said by phone from his Chula Vista home. “The problem is that the artistic side suffers because what matters is the bottom line.”

Co-producer Quinn said he and Valdez were not understanding each other.

“We just weren’t getting along,” Quinn said of Valdez. “I wanted the show to be an enjoyable process and it was not going in that direction.”

Quinn said the show always had a set designer, although a choreographer had not been hired, and anybody owed money from the last production will be paid as soon as a lawsuit against the former promoters is settled.

The producers of “Selena Forever,” who included Quinn, sued House of Blues Concerts after the promotion company abruptly canceled the dates at the Universal Amphitheatre last year, saying ticket sales were weak. The suit is still pending.

Although “Selena: A Musical Celebration” has tried to distance itself from the troubles of “Selena Forever,” the current musical has also struggled with budget restraints. It cost a little less than $1 million to mount, Quinn said.

Many observers have been critical of what appears to be a low-profile marketing campaign this time around. Few, if any, paid ads were placed in newspapers or on radio stations in the last weeks. None of the previews, which began in late March, has sold out.

The producers have hired Maracas Entertainment for Spanish-language publicity and consultant Robert Trevino to handle the show’s marketing. Trevino and Maracas Entertainment’s West Coast publicist, Victoria Lichtman, say they are focusing on a word-of-mouth campaign and street promotion that includes fliers and free publicity in the city’s Spanish-language newspapers.

Trevino said the show has several sponsors attached to promote the show, including Vons, Coca-Cola and cheese manufacturer Cacique Inc. He added that a full-fledged marketing campaign will begin next week.

“This is a very different kind of program,” said Trevino, whose company, Promotional Management, is based in San Antonio, Texas. “With Selena being the icon that she is, I don’t go out and solicit. They usually come to us and ask us if they can get involved. A lot of this is word of mouth.”

But some are frustrated by the apparent lack of publicity.

“There are things that need to be done better,” said Jerry Velasco, head of the Ricardo Montalban Nosotros Foundation. The foundation, which is also co-producing the show, has leased the theater to the producers for the play’s run of at least eight weeks.

“This should not be just for the Spanish [language] market--it has to cross over as well,” Velasco said. “We need to get to other people. . . . There is no way a theater of this size is going to make it with just [Latinos].”

Selena’s popularity was enormous among Latinos, with her Spanish-language albums landing at the top of the charts. Her career in English was beginning to take off when she was killed in 1995 by an employee whom Selena’s family suspected of diverting funds for personal use. Her father has carefully protected her image since her death, making sure to approve the content of the movie based on her life as well as the musical.

Despite Selena’s popularity, selling tickets to the musical has proven to be a challenge before. “Selena Forever” opened in San Antonio in March 2000, and moved on to Dallas, Corpus Christi, Houston and Chicago. But the venues, which seated more than 6,000 in some cities, never sold out.

Part of the problem is that the Latino audience traditionally has not been a large theater-going crowd. In addition, Latinos are not accustomed to buying tickets ahead of time, preferring instead to buy tickets for the show that evening. But U.S. promoters gauge a show’s success by advance ticket sales in order to estimate if a production will make its money back.

“Raising money for a show like this has been, to put it mildly, difficult,” Quinn acknowledged.

Nosotros’ Velasco said a lot is riding on the show’s success.

“If this is a positive thing, this could set the trend as one of the hottest theaters to put your productions in,” he said of the 1,000-seat Doolittle. “[Establishing a Latino-run theater] has been 31 years [in the making]. It’s Ricardo Montalban’s dream that is at stake here.”