REP SET FOR EXPANSION IN NEW THEATER

When the San Diego Repertory Theatre moves into the Lyceum Theatre April 12 with the musical “Quilters,” chances are that it will expand its professional acting company significantly.

Rep producing director Sam Woodhouse and artistic director Doug Jacobs are about to hit the road for a series of auditions up the coast. Auditions for members of Actors Equity and for non-union actors will be held in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. The tryouts here are by appointment and will be held Jan. 16 to 18.

“We’ll be bringing in a lot of new people this year and new directors,” Woodhouse said. There will be roles for 30 men and 30 women in the course of the season--900 actor work weeks, as Woodhouse likes to put it.

Last March, the Rep modified its agreement with Equity, whereby it had committed to employ its first company of actors on a year-round basis. A financial crunch, Woodhouse said, caused the theater to drop many of its 10 acting company members from weekly salary status. Instead of a weekly salary, they were paid when they worked.

Negotiations between the theater and the actors’ union are under way for the new season.

“Our commitment is for long-term relationships with actors,” Woodhouse said. “To build a company in a mature sense of the word, it takes many years.” But he said that change is inevitable. “I think you can say there’ll be a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new faces.”

PORT ART: Eight sites on San Diego Unified Port District land were recommended for artworks at Monday’s meeting of the Port Commission’s arts advisory board. Though no artists were named, it was the board’s first recommendation of sites for art since an Ellsworth Kelly work was picked for the Embarcadero more than a year ago.

The advisory board estimated the costs of several of the sculptures as part of its recommendation to the Port Commission. Four sites were given first priority. The board placed a $75,000 estimate on the cost of creating one or more sculptures for two adjacent sites on Harbor Island. A site at Spanish Landing requiring a sculpture of heroic proportions and estimated to cost $300,000 was selected, as was a short, sloping rock mole between Grape and Hawthorn streets on Harbor Drive. The sculpture for the mole was estimated to cost $250,000.

The board urged that a competition among regional artists be used for the Harbor Island sites and that there be an invitational competition or outright purchase of a work for the Spanish Landing location.

Sites on the G Street Mole, Fleet Landing and the Embarcadero were given second priority. Third priority was given to Lindbergh Field and a park to be created in Coronado.

The advisory board refused to make a recommendation on a request for conversion of a 5.4-acre bayfront plot near Crosby Street, saying they had been advised by port commissioners that the matter was a land issue and not germain to art. “The port is saying the Mexican-Americans and blacks in Logan Heights have no right to art” while the art advisory board provides art “for the nice areas of town,” said Al Ducheny, chairman of the Harbor View Commmunity Council.

RETURN: Those lovable, laughable neo-lassies of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo return to San Diego for their acclaimed men’s drag dance routines two nights, Jan. 27 and 28. Suzanne Townsend is presenting the troupe in 7:30 p.m. performances at Symphony Hall.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Renowned cellist Nathaniel Rosen will be soloist when the Monteverdi Chamber Orchestra opens its third season at 8 p.m. Thursday at Sherwood Hall in La Jolla. Rosen will be featured in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variation, Op. 33, at the 8 p.m. concert, which includes Respighi’s “Ancient Airs & Dances, Suite No. 1” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2.

In 1978, Rosen, a 36-year-old Southern Californian, became the first American to win the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow since Van Cliburn took the gold medal 20 years earlier.

Leonard Ingrande, conductor and founder of the Monteverde, pointed out that chamber music does not belong in a museum, saying, “A lot of things are written now for smaller groups because of budgetary reasons.” So far the orchestra has sold 150 subscriptions for the 500-seat auditorium.

Other soloists appearing in the 34-member orchestra’s remaining three concerts will be violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg Feb. 17 at the Old Globe Theatre, pianist Andre LaPlante April 11 at Sherwood Hall, and guitarist Pepe Romero May 19 at Sherwood Hall.

RADIO NEWS: Dan Rather, Charles Osgood, Harry Reasoner and Charles Kuralt are among the CBS newscasters and commentators KFMB (AM 76) has added to its news programming since joining the CBS Radio Network. The lineup, including Brent Musburger on sports at 5:45 p.m., a five-minute news report by Rather at 6 p.m., an Osgood “Newsbreak” at 9:30 a.m. and a three-minute news or commentary program between 10 a.m. and noon, will air Monday through Friday.

The audio portion of “Face the Nation” will air at 11 p.m. Sundays. KFMB recently joined the CBS Radio Network, which was dropped last March by KSDO.

ARTBEATS: This month’s San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Maple Leaf promotion for Canadians has found supporters among the city’s arts colony. Two-for-one tickets are available to Canadians at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Photographic Arts. Twenty percent discounts are available at the San Diego Symphony, Natural History Museum, Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater and the Jan. 18 performance of the Romeros Guitar Quartet presented by the La Jolla Chamber Music Society. . . .

Violinist Janos Negyesy hooks his instrument up to Lee Ray’s computer for some experimental music making at 8:30 p.m. Friday at Sherwood Hall. . . . San Diegan Philip Galas’ one-man performance piece, “Baby Redboots Revenge,” featuring Sean Sullivan, has entered its third month at the Richmond Shepard Studios in Los Angeles.