PLAYWRIGHT ALBEE TO TEACH S.D. WRITERS

The fledgling California Young Playwrights Project got a big boost last week when Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, author of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” agreed to a four-day residency with the project in December.

Albee, who won two Pulitzers--for “A Delicate Balance” in 1966 and “Seascape” in 1975--will work directly with students in the 9-month-old Young Playwrights Project, according to Deborah Salzer, the project director. Co-sponsored by the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, the San Diego Unified School District and the county Department of Education, the workshops are based in selected schools throughout the county.

As part of his residency, Albee will discuss the craft of play writing with high school students who are enrolled in the project. He is expected to be in attendance during rehearsals for the winning plays, written by students in a contest earlier this year.

“Mr. Albee brings these students a connection with some of the most exciting theater in this country in 20 years,” Salzer said. “He’s an intellectual, who loves ideas. The opportunity for the students to see that intellectual life in a context other than school is thrilling.” Albee will also hold workshops in directing and acting at San Diego State University during his Dec. 10-13 residency.

PUBLIC ART: Remember sculptor James T. Russell? He is the Redondo Beach artist who was picked in a national contest sponsored by the county in 1982 but later dumped when the Board of Supervisors decided not to pay for his monumental artwork at the East County Regional Center in El Cajon. The supervisors reneged, deciding that the public art money budgeted for the project should be spent on something else. Russell filed suit for breach of contract last year.

Now it appears that an agreement may be near. Russell will not comment because of the lawsuit, but Supervisor George Bailey, who now represents the 2nd District where the sculpture could eventually reside, confirms that it is likely that Russell’s sculpture will be installed at the regional center. “I felt frankly that we had a contest; we had a winner and at the last minute backed out,” Bailey said. The cost of the building was $38 million. Under county guidelines, the appropriation for art was $150,000. Russell’s estimated cost for his sculpture was $90,000. As Bailey said, “The money is there.”

LONDON NOTICES: Maestro David Atherton returns for rehearsals with the San Diego Symphony beginning the final week of October. After a peripatetic summer conducting in Australia, he returned to his native turf, presiding over the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a Promenade Concert at London’s Albert Hall. The concert earned raves as “surpassingly rich in expressive content,” richly varied and possessing a highly charged atmosphere--elements all too rare, in one critic’s view.

AIRPORT 10/STARLIGHT: Starlight’s staging of “A Chorus Line,” playing under the Lindbergh Field flight path through Sunday night, appears to be a runaway hit. With tickets that range from $5 to a $20 top, turnout for the first four nights was larger than expected. “For all 10 performances, I think the audience and gross dollar figures will be greater than any show in our history,” said Leon Drew, Starlight general manager. Although a more serious piece than the confectionary musical delights usually staged by Starlight, “A Chorus Line” suffers less from the frequent overflights than other plays, Drew claimed, because it is designed as a series of monologues. “In one sense it’s easier for us. The interruptions are not that bad.” “Top Ticks,” half price $5 tickets to “Chorus Line,” are available after 6 p.m. on the day of the performance.

ARTBEATS: The Old Globe Theatre has received a $200,000 grant, its largest to date from the National Endowment for the Arts, to support three of its emerging programs: the Play Discovery Program, the Young Globe Company and Teatro Meta, its bilingual theatrical arm. . . . Globe Executive Producer Craig Noel had barely let slip the news that he was semi-retired, according to Artistic Director Jack O’Brien, when he received six offers of work. . . .

William Hauptman, the librettist for the musical “Big River,” has been commissioned by the La Jolla Playhouse to write a play for its next season. Hauptmann, artistic director Des McAnuff announced after Saturday’s final performance of “The Sea Gull,” is rafting down the Colorado River, researching the play, which will be about the Civil War in the American West. . . . San Diego Gas and Electric Co. has challenged other businesses to match its $125,000 grant to the San Diego Symphony Capital Campaign to renovate the Fox Theatre. The pledge makes available $50,000, payable over the next two years, with an additional $75,000 for matching donations from the local business sector.