Theater Preview

Tom Titus

If you enjoyed “Gypsy” at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse last month

(I liked it so much I saw it twice), and you wish community theaters

would do more musicals more often--well, your prayers have just been

answered.

Building on the success of “Gypsy,” but actually set into motion long

before that show opened, the Civic Playhouse’s 2000-01 season will be nothing but musicals.

Usually, the theater puts on five shows during the season, with the

finale in the musical genre. Costa Mesa will cut back one show, but all

four remaining slots will be filled with singing and dancing.

Leading off the “musical season” will be a long-absent old favorite,

“Bye Bye Birdie,” first hatched more than 40 years ago and inspired by

Elvis Presley receiving his draft notice.

“Birdie” centers around a songwriter aiming to gain recognition by

having the Elvis type, Conrad Birdie, warble his tune on his last night

as a civilian and plant a kiss on a Middle America teen queen.

Movie fans will remember Dick Van Dyke and Janet Leigh in the leading

roles and a cute young actress named Ann-Margret as the beneficiary of

Birdie’s buss. “Bye Bye Birdie” will play from Sept. 7 through Oct. 8.

Next up, arriving Nov. 16 and running until Dec. 17, is Rodgers and

Hammerstein’s last collaboration, “The Sound of Music,” also from the

early 1960s. Those who missed Richard Chamberlain climbing every mountain

at the Orange County Performing Arts Center a few months ago will have a

chance to catch the show at a much more reasonable tariff.

“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” was a big hit at the

Newport Theater Arts Center a decade and a half ago. It’s the biblical

epic set to music and, like “Birdie,” there’s an Elvis link here as well.

The show -- which demands a large, predominantly male cast and

features some potentially killer choreography--will open Feb. 22 and run

through March 25 at the Civic Playhouse.

Finally, the playhouse will take its audiences “Into the Woods” to

meet Cinderella, Jack of Beanstalk fame, Little Red Riding Hood and some

characters from the fertile mind of Stephen Sondheim, intermingling in

one of the king of all composers’ biggest hits in a 40-year career.

Those who caught the abbreviated rendition earlier this year at the

Trilogy Playhouse can see how it all comes out when the Civic Playhouse

stages the full-length version May 10 through June 10.

Playhouse president Lynn Reinert said, “Our audiences want to see

musicals, so that’s what we’re giving them--a whole season of them.”

If they’re all as well done as “Gypsy,” the Civic Playhouse is in for

a banner season.

Meanwhile, the Newport Theater Arts Center also has announced its

lineup for 2000-01, bookending Neil Simon’s farcical “Rumors” with some

certified senior citizens. The first oldie of the Newport season will be

Paul Osborn’s “Mornings at Seven,” a warmhearted comedy set in Middle

America 80 years ago. The show plays from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

“Rumors” may seem like an old-timer because of the mileage it’s been

getting locally, but it’s actually one of Simon’s more recent endeavors.

It’s also one of his best, intertwining verbal sparring with pure

physical farce. It runs Nov. 17 to Dec. 17.

Up next, from Jan. 26 to Feb. 25, is a rare commodity, a play that

hasn’t been done locally--at least not in the 35 years I’ve been sitting

on the aisles.

“The Winslow Boy” by Terence Rattigan centers on an English lad

wrongly accused of theft and culminates in the boy’s family suing the

Crown in open court.

I must admit a certain fondness for Moss Hart’s “Light Up the Sky.”

I’ve been involved in four productions of this showbiz comedy (and hope

to make it five when my own theater does it in October). This 1948 gem

still tickles the funny bone as it traces a new show’s traumatic tryout

in Boston.

It’s ticketed from March 30 to April 29.

The sounds of music will be represented in Newport’s closing

production, “Sweet and Hot: The Songs of Harold Arlen.” Arlen penned a

lot more hit numbers than “Over the Rainbow,” and this show promises to

offer most of them from June 1 through July 1.

Those seeking to get in on the ground floor of the Costa Mesa and

Newport seasons can call (949) 650-5269 for Civic Playhouse tickets and

(949) 631-0288 for NTAC.TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His reviews appear Thursdays and Saturdays.