CTG NAILS DOWN ITS NEW SEASON

After a good deal of speculation (including some in last week’s column), the Center Theatre Group-Ahmanson has buttoned down its 1987-88 season: It’s meat and potatoes.

In place are a rewrite of Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man” (Oct. 1-Nov. 25); the West Coast premiere of Tina Howe’s “Coastal Disturbances” (Dec. 3-Jan. 31); a revival of William Inge’s “Bus Stop” (Feb. 11-April 10), and the touring production of Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” (April 12-June 5). It’s a modern American sampler. Casting remains to be announced.

“I feel this 21st season will stand on its feet,” said artistic co-director Martin Manulis, who is new to the job, but not new to the Ahmanson, which he has attended assiduously over the years. Robert Fryer and Manulis (well remembered for television’s unmatched “Playhouse 90”) are jointly producing this season, after which Fryer leaves and Manulis goes it alone.

“The Gore Vidal play,” Manulis continued, “is a satirical comedy that could be taking place at the 1988 political convention. All Vidal had to do is change a few references. It couldn’t be more current.”

Jose Ferrer will direct.

“Coastal Disturbances” was an off- Broadway success by the author of “Museum” and “Painting Churches” that moved to Broadway where it has received three Tony nominations. The Ahmanson production will be locally staged, but its New York director, Carole Rothman (recipient of one of the nominations), will do the staging.

“Bus Stop,” to be directed by Marshall W. Mason, is further evidence of the current resurgence of interest in Inge’s plays. If this production comes anywhere near the quality of Mason’s 1986 staging of “Picnic,” we could have plenty to crow about.

“To me, it’s Inge’s best play,” Manulis said. “It’s important that these plays don’t leave the literature of the theater.”

(Manulis, who was director of the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut for five years, vividly recalls the time “Come Back Little Sheba” had its out-of-town tryout there, “when no one knew the play and no one knew William Inge.”)

Capping the season will be the touring production of Simon’s “Broadway Bound,” the bittersweet conclusion of his autobiographical trilogy that began at the Ahmanson with “Brighton Beach Memoirs” (1982) and “Biloxi Blues” (1984). Gene Saks directs.

How does Manulis envision the future of the Ahmanson?

“I don’t want to make any concrete presumptions,” he cautioned. “I’d like to see a combination of the best of the new plays and revivals worth reviving. I believe the Ahmanson should have a varied program but that it should be an American theater. When there’s something as extraordinary as ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ we wouldn’t pass up the chance (of bringing it in), but in some cases we’ve been stymied by taking plays that were not that transferable. And we mustn’t do plays that have no importance at all--in any arena.”

Does he plan to do any classics?

“I’m very keen on (Royall) Tyler’s ‘The Contrast,’ ” he said, mentioning the American play that heralded the dawn of American drama in 1787, and underscoring his general desire to salvage important works that he believes may have languished too long.

“We also hope to bring young people into the theater by devising new programs.” Among them: possible formulas for reduced prices.

LATE FLASH: “Into the Woods,” the playful James Lapine/Stephen Sondheim musical based on Grimm’s fairy tales, will be opening on the Great White Way next season. According to Michael David of Dodger Productions, the show, which had its first outing at the San Diego Old Globe last December, is bypassing London (rumor had it headed there) and the Ahmanson (rumor had it also headed there) and will have its first performance Sept. 22 at the Martin Beck.

ZEROING IN: The California Theatre Council annual conference will take place on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto June 19-21.

This year’s theme--”Remember the Artist”--is intended to offset the massive attention paid to institutional planning and stability in recent years because of diminished federal support and the theater’s rapid growth in California.

“The major difference,” said Robert Holley, executive director of the council, “is the focus on long-term aesthetic planning and artistic growth. There’s so much going on. The surge of minorities means we have to encourage their participation as artists and as audiences. Attention to nontraditional casting becomes important.”

A number of out-of-staters also are scheduled to attend, among them Canadian director John Hirsch; John Dillon, artistic director of the Milwaukee Rep; Elizabeth Huddle, a former San Franciscan who now heads Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, and Sarah Lawless, executive director of the Denver Center Theatre Company.

“We want fresh perspectives and new ideas,” Holley said. “We need to expand our horizons.”

Conference panels will focus on aesthetics, the nonprofit workplace, women in theater, nontraditional casting, performance art and something called “The Perils and Promise of Institutionalization.” A series of “Nuts and Bolts” preliminary sessions are also scheduled.

Fees for the conference are $100 for members, $125 for others and include most meals. For more information (including accommodations) call the Theatre Council offices at (213) 874-3163. Registration deadline is June 12.

THE RUMOR MILL: Word that Alan Miller and Laura Zucker, the husband-and-wife team who run the Back Alley Theatre in Van Nuys, have found a space where they can start an Equity theater was denied Monday by Zucker.

“I’m not sure we’re ready to talk,” she said.

But have they been looking?

“For years. The reason we don’t want to talk is that there’s a very good chance the space we’ve looked at won’t work out.”

Call it a semi-denial.

PIECES & BITS: For the regular matinee price of $18, students can now choose to see three shows for the price of one at the La Jolla Playhouse. This is in addition to the Playhouse’s creative Pay-What-You-Can matinees (where you can do just that for one designated matinee per the run of each production; this Saturday’s the one for “The Matchmaker”). Information: (619) 534-3960 . . . .

The New York-based Improv group Interplay returns Monday to the Tiffany for a limited run through June 24 . . . .

Anyone who won’t get enough of Sinclair Lewis’ “Babbitt” in the Mark Taper’s season opener, can tune in to the entire novel--11 hours--in November. “Babbitt” has been recorded by the L.A. Classic Theatre Works ensemble, a project of L.A. Theatre Works, and will be heard over KCRW-FM . . . .

A.R. Gurney’s “Another Antigone” (which played the Old Globe this winter), and the San Diego Rep’s production of Romulus Linney’s “Holy Ghosts” are off to New York. Arthur Whitelaw will produce the “Antigone” mid-October with the Globe cast and director intact; the Rep’s “Holy Ghosts” is one of four productions chosen by the Joyce Theatre Foundation to be presented during the foundation’s second American Theatre Exchange. A stage adaptation of Dickens’ “Hard Times” (a sort of mini-”Nick Nick”), which had its West Coast debut at the Berkeley Rep last winter, was also chosen for the Joyce. And just to confuse everyone, it is now having a second production at the San Diego Rep.