3 Shows Make It Sunday in Southern California With Sondheim; ‘Cats’ in the Cradle: Did It Make Money or Didn’t It?

Everything’s coming up Sondheim in Southern California.

First San Diego’s Old Globe announced that it would be premiering a new James Lapine/Stephen Sondheim show called “In the Woods” beginning Dec. 4. On Saturday came the luscious surprise of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera’s “Sunday in the Park With George.” And now comes news of an Equity Waiver staging of yet another Sondheim show--the 22-year-old “Anyone Can Whistle.”

Well, not anyone can.

“Whistle,” which has a book by Arthur Laurents, played just a handful of performances on Broadway. Sondheim has jealously guarded the rights ever since. It was ahead of its time. It’s rarely been done. Fran Soeder, who staged “Sunday in the Park” in Long Beach, did “Whistle” Off Broadway in 1980. It’s never had a professional outing in Los Angeles.

Now Ronald A. Lachman, in association with Josh Schiowitz and Joanne Jacobson, will be producing it at the Dupree Studio Theater (where, in 1983, we also saw a rollicking “Merrily We Roll Along”). “Whistle” will open Dec. 12 and feature B. J. Ward (in a role created by none other than “Sweeney Todd’s” Angela Lansbury), Ann Morrison, Sandy Kenyon and Jon Menick. Glenn Casale directs.

Sondheim has agreed to reinstate two songs, “one that’s a little bit famous,” Lachman said, “called ‘There Won’t Be Trumpets’--and another called ‘There’s Always a Woman.’ It’s one of the last numbers in the show and gives the two ladies a chance to square off.

“I’m fond of saying that ‘Anyone Can Whistle’ opened in 1964--the same year as ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ ‘Hello, Dolly!’ and ‘Funny Girl.’ People weren’t ready for this.”

The run is set for six to eight weeks. It’s financed, Lachman said, “in tiny increments. I’m hoping the investors get their money back. I think I’ve produced it so they can.”

Back to “Sunday in the Park.” Not only is the Long Beach production impressive, but so is the producers’ footwork. It seems that some of the show’s percussion instruments and electronic equipment were stolen late Saturday (including the computer terminal and keyboard for the laser sequence in the second act) and the robbery discovered less than two hours before the Sunday matinee.

“We did some fast scrambling,” said associate producer Keith Stava. I’ll say they did. The matinee went off without a hitch.

COMING AROUND: Martin Sherman’s “Bent” is a play that’s overdue around here. It’s been seven years since it made the Ten Best Plays list on Broadway and it has repeatedly resisted production in Los Angeles, perhaps because the stark nature of its contents intimidates producers. It deals graphically with homosexuality, bigotry, brutality and death against the gathering Nazi German storm.

Now Catalina Productions and Hart/Grant/Joseph and Associates (the Grant is David Marshall Grant who was in the original Broadway version) will co-produce “Bent” beginning Feb. 15 at Catalina’s Coast Playhouse.

Playwright Sherman will be on hand for casting and possible rewrites some time after the first of the year. No director has been set. According to Catalina producer Matthew Rushton, “a limited run is planned. We’ll see if the response warrants a move (to a contract house) or to another city.”

FELINE REVISIONISM: “Cats” has announced a closing date of Jan. 4 at the Shubert--one week short of its second birthday at the Century City address. At $40 a ticket you’d think the show would have made money in two years. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t.

In Saturday’s Calendar, The Times Dan Sullivan wrote that the Shuberts’ Bernard Jacobs told him “Cats” had lost money in Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, the organization’s Philip Smith claimed “Cats” requires “almost $300,000 weekly at the box office” and “some of the weeks, several, have been under $200,000. Others have been around $220,000, $230,000.”

Moments later, Jacobs, Smith and “Cats” executive producer R. Tyler Gatchell Jr. made a conference call to The Times to say that information was wrong. “Cats” in Century City, Jacobs assured The Times, had “recouped its costs and paid back 10%,” adding, “but we perceive that, if we keep going, we will start losing money.”

BLOCKBUSTER: There’s no such uncertainty at the Mark Taper, where “The Immigrant” ended its run Oct. 12, setting a new box-office record. It grossed $568,116.37 for 63 performances, topping the other all-time grosser “ ‘night, Mother.”

WAIVERING ON: It looks now as if Actors Equity Assn. and the Waiver Theater Operators Commitee will finally be meeting some time after Friday to discuss Equity’s proposed operational changes in the Equity Waiver Plan. (This is a 14-year-old plan whereby Equity in Los Angeles “waives” certain rules, but not its jurisdiction, in theaters of 99 seats or less.)

The projected encounter--or series of encounters--comes in response to a sense-of-the-meeting vote taken at the Sept. 5 membership meeting of the actors’ union.

At that time, an overwhelming majority of the nearly 500 members present had requested that no further steps be taken in the Waiver issue until Equity and the Waiver Operators Committee could get together and discuss all aspects of the matter.

Meanwhile, Equity’s next membership meeting is set for Friday at the Variety Arts Center, 940 S. Figueroa St., 1 p.m. The agenda includes a continuation of the discussion of the proposed changes to the Waiver and the presentation of the Philip Loeb Humanitarian award to Florida Friebus.