ANAHEIM THEATER GETS TENTATIVE OK

A plan to build a 2,300-seat theater-in-the-round for major musicals and big-name acts has won preliminary approval from the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency.

Construction on the $6-million Freedman Forum in the city’s downtown sector may begin next month, according to Leo Freedman, the project’s developer-owner.

The target is to have the theater opened by late 1986, he said.

Although the city is not directly involved in constructing or financing the project, the City Council--acting as the Redevelopment Agency--has jurisdiction over the design and uses of the project.

Freedman, a longtime hotel developer in Anaheim’s Harbor Boulevard tourist corridor, also built the original Melodyland--a 3,270-seat theater-in-the-round across from Disneyland--in the early 1960s. Melodyland was then the county’s leading show place, presenting touring musicals and such headliners as Sammy Davis Jr. and Johnny Carson.

(In 1969, Melodyland was bought by the Anaheim Christian Center and is now part of a major religious complex.)

Freedman said he was not ready to discuss bookings at this time.

“But I’m going to bring in the tops in musicals and Vegas-type acts. We need a big showcase again in this part of the county,” he said.

The proposed four-story complex, being designed by the Sheldon Pollock firm of Los Angeles, is to include a 100-seat restaurant and “state-of-the-art” facilities for cable broadcasting, Freedman said.

Final city action on construction plans is expected in the next few weeks. Freedman has already bought the one-acre site at Broadway and Philadelphia Street, near the Anaheim Civic Center. The land cost about $500,000, city aides said. Freedman announced that the project’s ground-breaking ceremony will be Nov. 6.

When Freedman first proposed the venture in 1977, it was for a 2,000-seat proscenium theater. But the theater-in-the-round design will be less costly.