CRITICS CIRCLE PICKS ENTRIES FOR ANNUAL AWARDS

“Bouncers,” “The Iceman Cometh” and “Nite Club Confidential” top the list of nominations announced today by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for its 18th annual awards marathon.

Each received seven nominations.

Their closest competitors, at six nominations apiece, are “The Common Pursuit” (Actors for Themselves at the Matrix), and the Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” still running at the Doolittle Theatre.

Other multiple nominees are “Picnic” at the Ahmanson and the Long Beach Civic Light Opera production of “Sunday in the Park With George” with four nominations each. The Mark Taper’s “ ‘night, Mother” and “Asinamali!” the Taper, Too,’s “Rat in the Skull” and Robert Wilson’s “Knee Plays” came in with two nominations apiece.

Altogether, 22 productions were honored in a field of 60 nominations, with 36 of those going to Equity productions and 24 to shows in Equity Waiver theaters.

In addition, members of the circle voted unanimously to honor the Royal Shakespeare Company with an hors concours Special Award, “For translating Charles Dickens’ literary classic, ‘The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,’ into a stunning, once-in-a-lifetime theatrical experience.”

The awards will be presented April 6 in a ceremony in the Harry Chandler Auditorium at The Times. Subscribing to the idea that artists are not race horses and that each piece of art is unique, the circle votes for distinguished achievement (there are no “bests”).

The program, which begins at 8 p.m., will be preceded by a cocktail reception. Tickets, at $35, may be ordered through Ticket Express, 213-465-0070.

SUB-”ROZA”: Everything’s coming up “Roza” at the Mark Taper Forum where artistic director Gordon Davidson has confirmed that the musical based on Romain Gary’s “Madame Rosa,” directed by Hal Prince and starring Georgia Brown, will replace “The Woman Warrior,” April 30-June 14.

Bob Gunton will be featured. “Roza,” which has music by Gilbert Becaud and book and lyrics by Julian More, will be presented by the Taper in association with the Producers’ Circle Co.

“I think I’ve made a good stretch,” said Brown, who plays the title role of an aging hooker who runs a home for the children of other hookers and who also shares a complex history with the peregrinations of this musical. “I’m not playing it as close to me as you might imagine. I’m playing it closer to Marie Lloyd,” a Cockney vaudevillian for whom Brown has had an abiding admiration.

Brown had met with Prince who wanted her for the show as far back as 1983. In 1984 she’d left for London where it was to be staged.

“My name was above the marquee at the Adelphi,” she said, “the sets were built . . . then the show was canceled. I was moving out of the Savoy (Hotel) when I was called to the phone. Someone, they said, was on the line from 42nd Street and all I could think of was ‘Who on that dirty street knows I’m at the Savoy? . . . ‘ “

It was, of course, someone calling from the London production of “42nd Street” to offer Brown a major role. Brown spent the next 15 months with the show and, when it closed, joined the “Roza” project, which had been revived Stateside. It finally opened at Baltimore’s Center Stage in November.

“It was so worth hanging in there,” said Brown. “I’m so happy now to be home--working at home--and so happy we did it through regional theater. That is the best way to get to it.”

Saturday at 4:30 p.m., Brown, wearing another hat, will moderate the “Six Directors in Search of an Audience” colloquy that is part of the AT&T; Performing Arts Festival at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (AT&T; sponsored the “Roza” production in Baltimore).

“I hope I do it justice,” Brown said. “I mean, I know what I know about regional theater, but I’m sure the directors will carry it.”

As for the Taper’s “Woman Warrior,” it is tabled but not abandoned. Tom Cole’s and Joyce Chopra’s stage adaptation of Maxine Hong Kingston’s novels (“China Men” is included), postponed once already from last season, is apparently still in need of work. David Henry Hwang is the latest writer corralled to attempt it.

KVETCHING: Whatever the outcome of Wednesday’s New York opening of Steven Berkoff’s “Kvetch,” the local production of the show has just entered its 12th consecutive month at the Odyssey and continues unabated.