Laguna Playhouse to Stage ‘I’m Not Rappaport’

The Laguna Playhouse will stage Herb Gardner’s “I’m Not Rappaport” as a replacement for “Legends” in its subscription season at the Moulton Theatre in Laguna Beach. “Legends” was canceled because of casting difficulties. “I’m Not Rappaport,” to run from Jan. 19 to Feb. 12, is about a black janitor and a retired white waiter who meet daily on a Central Park bench. It won a Tony for the best play on Broadway in 1986 against such formidable competition as Michael Frayn’s “Benefactors,” Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot” and John Guare’s “The House of Blue Leaves.”

Douglas Rowe, the Laguna’s artistic director, had hoped to stage “I’m Not Rappaport” later in the season but pushed it forward because the rights to “Breakfast With Les and Bess,” which he had also considered as a replacement for “Legends,” could not be secured in time to commence rehearsals.

Rowe said Wednesday that the playhouse would also mount D. L. Coburn’s “The Gin Game” as its entry for the biennial competition to be held in February by the American Assn. of Community Theatres. The Laguna Playhouse won the national competition in 1987 with “Quilters,” a musical.

The Coburn play, a 1978 Pulitzer Prize-winner about a welfare couple who meet in an old-age home over a no-win game of cards, will star Betsy and David Paul. They will be directed by Joan McGillis.

“Basically we’ll be remounting a production we did in 1983,” Rowe said. “Betsy and David go way back to the ‘30s and ‘40s with us. Most of the plays you see in the competition have youngsters in them. I want to shake things up.”