LAS PALMAS: A NEW LIFE WITH ‘HEART’

Josh Schiowitz is reopening the Las Palmas Theatre, where as producing director he’ll present Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” in its West Coast premiere Dec. 11. Richard Dreyfuss heads the cast of nine, and Arvin Brown directs.

Some of Schiowitz’s more recent credits include “Wrestlers,” now at the Cast; “Fire Out There,” whose run at the Odyssey was quickly extinguished by the critics, and the production of “Second Lady” which starred Elizabeth Huddle and played the Fringe at this summer’s Edinburgh Festival.

He’s also renaming the theater, fittingly enough, the Las Palmas (for the last 3 1/2 years it’s been L.A. Stage Co., to which one frequently directed visitors by saying, “You know, the old Las Palmas”).

Kramer, who produced and adapted D. H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love” for the screen, has been an unsentimental observer of gay life, as his novel, “Faggots,” attests. “The Normal Heart” deals with AIDS.

Said Schiowitz: “The play chronicles the creation of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York, which is something like the AIDS Project L.A., though it’s never mentioned by name. It uses the organization’s formation to present what has happened in one man’s life, and the life of his lover, who has AIDS. It shows the four-year fight to get acknowledgement of the crisis in the New York Times and the mayor’s office, as well as the non-gay community. The play is close to the kind of political play we haven’t seen for 30 or 40 years. People are dying and we have to do something.”

On Dec. 10, “The Normal Heart” will play an AIDS Project L.A. benefit.

This is the year for “Painting Churches.” Tina Howe’s play about a grown daughter visiting her Boston parents has been produced this summer at the Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts and at San Diego’s Old Globe.

Yet another production opens Friday at South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage. Patricia Fraser, Joan McMurtrey and Ford Rainey will be directed by Lee Shallat.

Here’s an irresistible title: “More Good Reasons to Laugh.” It’s one of the productions Canada’s five-member Theatre Beyond Words is bringing to Cal State Long Beach for four performances beginning Nov. 15. Theatre Beyond Words, which offers adult and family entertainment, has created its own genre for the latter in a theatrical cartoon series that goes under the rubric of the Potato People. This trip, the troupe will be up to something called “The Piggyback Caper.”

The productions will play the University Theater. For further information, call (213) 498-5526.

Dick Shawn, who’s cutting up nightly at L.A. Stage Co. West in “The 2nd Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World,” will be guest host at Glendale Civic Auditorium today, site of a toast to the Los Angeles Federation of Senior Citizen club members who are 90 years or older. Shawn’s appearance will be preceded by an act called Dottie’s Dancers, a Woodland Hills tap-dance troupe of 12. Shawn had better make sure he doesn’t leave any banana peels around. Dottie’s Dancers range in age from 60 to 84.

LATE CUE: El Teatro Campesino is going uptown for its 20th birthday celebration Saturday night. The Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco will be the site for the occasion, which will feature some of founder Luis Valdez’s shorter works. Edward James Olmos and TV newswoman Ysabel Duron are emcees.

In the last days before the Huntington Hartford Theater closed down, anyone who got the munchies before a show or at intermission had to stare mournfully across the street at the shadowy facade of the Brown Derby restaurant, now condemned to extinction. Now that the theater has reopened as the James A. Doolittle Theater, it has brought in a culinary surprise with the new name. La Toque’s chef, Ken Frank, is creating cakes and tarts that can be savored in the Upstairs Lounge, along with espresso, in the European tradition.