AHMANSON DIRECTOR TO STEP DOWN

Robert Fryer will step down as artistic director of the Ahmanson Theatre after next season. His successor will be film-TV producer Martin Manulis.

Fryer said Wednesday that he will not renew his contract with Center Theatre Group-Ahmanson when it expires in August, 1988. “I want to go back to where I came from: Broadway and films,” he said.

Manulis will join the Ahmanson in January as artistic co-director, helping Fryer to plan his last season.

Fryer, 66, has produced 64 shows at the Ahmanson since he took over from its first director, Elliot Martin, in 1971. “It has been the most fruitful and gratifying period of my life, but it is time for a change,” he said in a prepared statement released by Center Theatre Group.

“It’s been a long decision,” he told The Times over the phone from New York, where he was overseeing the Broadway transfer of the Ahmanson’s last show, “Wild Honey.” “The CTG board has asked me to do one play a year at the Ahmanson in the future. I might.”

Manulis, 71, has been a member of the CTG board for six years. He was the original producer of TV’s “Playhouse 90” series in the late 1950s. His films include “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Luv.” Recent projects include two 1985 CBS TV miniseries, “Space” with James Garner and “Chiefs” with Charlton Heston.

His theater credits are from the 1940s. He spent five years as managing director of the Westport (Conn.) Playhouse, then a summer tryout house for the Theatre Guild. He directed Tallulah Bankhead in a revival of “Private Lives” and was a production assistant on the original Broadway productions of “Blithe Spirit,” “Present Laughter” and “Kiss Me Kate.”

In a phone interview, Manulis praised Fryer for having achieved “a track record matched by very few” during his years at the Ahmanson and said that his interim year working with Fryer will be “helpful preparation” for running the Ahmanson full time.

The theater’s problems include a fading subscription list--from an estimated high of 70,000 in 1980 to this year’s 46,000.

“Obviously, we’ll be looking for the key to bringing more people into the theater,” Manulis said. “The Ahmanson’s audience seems to be dedicated to stars, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In most cases, stars get to be stars because they’re good.

“We’ll be looking for the right star in the right play. We could well dedicate ourselves to creating productions of our own, rather than looking elsewhere for them. I’m told there will be sufficient money for that.”

With Civic Light Opera leaving the Music Center, the Ahmanson will also have to expand its four-play season by one summer show--probably a musical, Manulis said. As for original scripts, “I love them, but in a theater that large (2,100 seats), it’s a risky business.”

A physical re-shaping of the Ahmanson would “not be practical,” he said. “The acoustics are much improved now, and the sight lines are very good--although I must confess I’ve not sat in the second balcony.”

The Ahmanson’s current attraction is Lauren Bacall in “Sweet Bird of Youth.” Peter Falk and Elaine Stritch open March 8 in “Light Up the Sky” (replacing the canceled touring production of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”). The season closes with Lucie Arnaz and Laurence Luckinbill in “Social Security, opening May 3.