‘42ND STREET’ BOOKED FOR NEW FORUM

The Freedman Forum, a theater-in-the-round being built in Anaheim and tentatively scheduled to open in December, will present a four-week run of the musical “42nd Street” beginning Jan. 13, owner-producer Leo Freedman said Wednesday.

Freedman, who was in New York to sign the licensing rights for the musical, also said he hopes to open the theater in December with a headliner concert. The performer and the date, however, have yet to be selected, he added.

This version of “42nd Street” will be produced by Freedman, longtime Anaheim hotel and showplace entrepreneur, who is building the 2,300-seat, $6-million facility.

Freedman was the developer of the 3,270-seat Melodyland in Anaheim’s Harbor Boulevard tourist corridor. That theater-in-the-round was Orange County’s leading showplace for musicals and headliners until it folded in 1969.

The cast and director of the musical are still to be selected, and staging costs are still being determined, said Freedman. James Woodin, a former Melodyland associate, has been named the theater’s managing director, the chief administrative post.

David Merrick Productions, producer of the original 1980 Broadway production of “42nd Street” and the road version that played two years ago at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles, is not involved in staging the Anaheim version, officials with both Freedman Forum and Merrick said Wednesday. Leo Cohen, general manager of the New York-based David Merrick Productions, said that his company does not plan to produce any further touring versions at this time. The last road company, he said, disbanded in August after a Tokyo and West Coast tour.

Merrick had held exclusive producing rights to “42nd Street.” Licensing rights to stage the musical by other organizations, including smaller local theaters, were recently made available, Cohen said.

Freedman said Wednesday that he has signed an agreement for the musical with Tams Witmark, the New York firm that now holds the licensing rights.

The San Bernardino Civic Light Opera has already announced its proscenium version of “42nd Street” Feb. 13-21 at the California Theatre of Performing Arts as part of that company’s 1986-87 40th-anniversary season.

Freedman has maintained that his new Anaheim theater will offer a mixture of Broadway musicals and Las Vegas-caliber headliner concerts.

Construction began last November on Freedman Forum on a site next to Anaheim City Hall, just east of Broadway and Anaheim Boulevard.