THEATER FORUMS A HIT : PLAYGOERS GET SOME GIVE AND TAKE

Trivia question: What local sociological group has expressed a common interest in the following cultural phenomena--Mick Jagger, antique bicycles, saltwater dimmers, physicists, signing for the deaf, Irish politics and Anton Chekhov?

That last item is the giveaway, of course. Where but in the theater are such diverse topics likely to come under scrutiny?

And who but a group of rabidly curious playgoers would linger for after-performance dialogues, demanding to know more about the Old Globe’s “Spokesong” or the La Jolla Playhouse’s “The Sea Gull,” or the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s “Oppenheimer?”

For the actors, directors, tech crews and designers brave enough to field questions, and the theaters wise enough to arrange these opportunities, audience education sometimes works the other way around.

“So often what people read is what one reviewer thought about the play. You start talking to the people. . . . and very often most of the people seeing (the play) don’t have the same opinion,” explained Diane Sinor, education director for the Old Globe. And some audience members are surprisingly quick to mention where they think a play has failed.

At a recent Globe Dialogue on “Spokesong,” Stewart Parker and Jimmy Kennedy’s play with music, someone wanted to know how actress Annabella Price could find it in herself to play a character who made such an irrational change of mind near the play’s end.

Price wasn’t on the panel that night, but moderator Sinor and the cast members present responded diplomatically. Yes, they admitted, that motivational problem had come under discussion during rehearsals.

Another questioner wondered if leading actor Thomas “Randy” Oglesby was frightened when a bomb blast in the script sent bicycle parts plummeting to the stage around him, fallout from the dozens of two-wheeled antiques dangling artfully, but precariously, overhead.

He wasn’t afraid, of course. It was all carefully planned and choreographed. The only scary moment, Oglesby told the group, came the night everything that was supposed to fall did not. For the rest of the play, the actor wondered when the sticking wires might finally give way--and whether or not he would be standing underneath.

To ease his mind, Oglesby ad-libbed a few pokes at the hanging bicycles, hoping to jostle them loose when he was prepared to duck. It didn’t work, but neither did anything fall unexpectedly.

Why was he spending his only night off seated in front of the bicycle shop set, chatting with Globe subscribers?

“When I was young and thought of myself as an ‘artist’ or whatever, I (would) keep myself away from people,” he admitted. “But I think . . . some of those early, revolutionary or sort of anti-social notions get tempered the more you realize how much the ensemble includes more than just the people you’re working with on stage, the audience and the public.

“Suddenly the public is somebody that I think about and I’m curious about--think about in terms of what they really have to say other than just their applause or their laughter.”

The Old Globe’s Seminar/Dialogue program (purchased separately from tickets) is a two-part affair. Each takes up a full, separate evening. Before seeing the play, participants attend the seminar, which focuses on the play’s background, with designers, builders and directors present to talk about the work required to bring the writer’s imagination to life on stage.

The program gives audience members a glimpse backstage, where, in the case of the Old Globe, an underground maze of work spaces hides dozens of stitching seamstresses and a crew of wig-makers patiently hand-tying hairpieces from scratch, strand by strand. Here carpenters build set pieces with careful craftsmanship that is surprisingly solid for mere illusory effects--and all according to a director’s interpretation and exploration of the play at hand.

The dialogue’s panel discussion and champagne mingling is scheduled late in the run, when most of the group has already seen the play.

The goal, Sinor reminded the group, is a richer experience--the more you bring to the theater, the more you receive. Seminar/Dialogues are scheduled for each of the summer’s three Shakespeare productions at the Globe.

Most of San Diego’s theaters offer similar programs--often free--that let their audiences peek behind the scenery. A few phone calls or the right question asked when purchasing tickets will uncover new ways to enhance your evening of theater without the need to wade through lengthy textbooks or enroll in time-consuming classes.

Most popular are after-performance discussions with actors and artistic staff.

The few who stayed in September after a La Jolla Playhouse performance of “The Sea Gull” heard director Des McAnuff, composer Michael Roth and sound designer John Kilgore make a startling revelation. Never mind the thickly traditional feeling of Chekhov’s play. The three explained that all evening long the audience had been listening to unrecognizable variations on a Rolling Stones theme. Those who missed composer Roth’s confession may have wondered why their evening of high culture had left them humming “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”

The Tuesday Evening Symposiums will be repeated this summer at the Playhouse, according to spokesman Stephen Gray. They are held every Tuesday, moderated by Arthur Wagner, and free to anyone with a ticket stub, even if you’ve attended the play on another night of the week.

Douglas Jacobs, artistic director of the San Diego Repertory Theatre, likes to bring in outside specialists for the Rep’s Friday Night Forums. Signing translators for the deaf were popular in discussions after “Children of a Lesser God,” he said, while social scientists helped audiences digest the violent topics of William Mastrosimone’s “Extremities.”

Lamb’s Player’s Theatre will bring out the cast of “The Diviners” after every performance to answer questions during the play’s run from April 4 through May 3. Artistic director Robert Smyth decided to reinstitute the practice, which was once common at the National City theater, because he thinks the play’s “spiritual nature” will stimulate some lively discussions.

The Bowery Theatre and the North Coast Repertory Theatre also like to set up such forums when a play’s topicality demands it, while the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre invites this interaction only when requested as part of a group package. But like the San Diego Rep, which is also awaiting a move to a new theater, the Gaslamp management plans to expand its audience education programs once they’ve settled into their new space--they hope by December.

The San Diego Civic Light Opera (Starlight) plans to try something new this summer. On Aug. 14, artistic directors Don and Bonnie Ward will host a special inside look at the problems inherent in staging a large-scale musical.

They’ll begin with a slide presentation, then lead the curious down to the Starlight Bowl, where “Oklahoma!” will be in a “pre-tech, push-around rehearsal”--a strange theater ritual that involves moving large, potentially difficult pieces of scenery and actors around the stage, according to Bonnie Ward. She and husband Don will be on hand to deliver a kind of tour guide explanation for those who’ve never watched this side of playmaking.

The event, free for Starlight members, is open to the public for a fee.

Several theaters send regular touring programs into the schools, offer speakers for community organizations, and hold in-depth workshops and seminars, particularly for children and teen-agers.

But as one mother discovered, simply exposing her 16-year-old daughter to the Old Globe’s Seminar/Dialogue added considerable fuel to the girl’s fascination with the theater. She was eagerly standing in line to ask just one more question after the “Spokesong” Dialogue, not the least concerned with being one of the youngest among the group.

Another Globe subscriber was just glad the theater was providing more chances to hear actors talk about their work.

“How many times I’ve seen ‘Othello,’ ” she mused. “The first time I saw Paul Robeson play Othello, and Laurence Olivier. . . . Well, I came last year and Paul Winfield was playing Othello and in the forum, for the first time--and I’ve read the play, I’ve studied the play--he made it all come clear to me what Othello was all about, why he played the part as he did.”

So what is a saltwater dimmer and how does it fit here?

According to the Globe’s master electrician, William R. Franklin, the name signifies a long-vanished hand-manipulated technique for achieving lighting effects on stage. The term came up while the bearded electrical wizard was delighting a dialogue audience with witty tales of unions and computerized miracles--backstage magic in a high-tech era.