S.D. Theater Will Acquire Multicultural Look in ’89

The preeminent question San Diego theater directors are puzzling over as 1988 slides into the past is how they can top themselves in 1989.

Expect more world premieres from the San Diego Repertory Theatre. Producing director Sam Woodhouse has not yet disclosed the choices for the new season, but he said this week that as many as six will be world premieres and the rest probably will be San Diego premieres.

The Rep and the Old Globe are planning multicultural seasons that may include an all-Soviet show at the Old Globe and a Soviet-directed production at the Rep to coincide with the Soviet Arts Festival in the fall.

Both theaters, which this year offered Latino productions (“Blood Wedding” at the Old Globe, “Burning Patience” at the Rep), will continue a commitment to Latino theater with Latino play festivals. If successful, the Old Globe may pick up one such play for inclusion in the regular season. Woodhouse’s plan for a successful Latino play would be to tour it in Mexico.

The Globe will take a step back from its premiere-laden season of last year by presenting just one new play in 1989, Terrence McNally’s “Up in Saratoga” in March. That one bears watching. New York producer Elizabeth McCann was the matchmaker between McNally and Jack O’Brien, artistic director of the Old Globe. The new play is based on Bronson Howard’s “Saratoga,” an 1870 farce about a man who proposes marriage to four women at once.

McNally and O’Brien are a hot pairing. O’Brien is fresh from successful direction of A.R. Gurney’s “The Cocktail Hour,” which debuted at the Globe before landing off-Broadway to rave reviews. McNally is the much-in-demand playwright of another off-Broadway smash, “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.”

O’Brien sees the Globe as being at a crossroads. Despite the financial and critical success of this year’s 13-play season, he sees the Globe as stretched to its limits and soon in need of changing course.

“As they say about Kansas City, ‘We’ve gone about as fur as we can go,’ ” he noted. “The size and range of the Globe’s work is a double-edged sword. It’s wonderful, but it’s also a danger sign. I don’t know how long this organization can produce that much work at this clip without killing the personnel. We don’t have any time off. In order to maintain the overhead, to keep this place rolling, we have to keep producing. I finally got two weeks off for the first time in two years this year.”

If the watchword for the Globe is retrenchment, the mood at the La Jolla Playhouse is decidedly expansionist. While the Playhouse season is likely to remain at its customary five plays during the summer, the opening of the Mandell Weiss Forum in 1990 may mark an extended season, according to Robert Blacker, associate director and dramaturge.

But since the Playhouse will share the Mandell Weiss Forum with UC San Diego, the theater won’t achieve its ultimate goal of a full-year, eight- to nine-play season until funds are provided for an independent theater--which Blacker hopes to have by 1992.

Also looking for a year-round space is the San Diego Civic Light Opera (Starlight), which plans to present a record two of its five productions in the San Diego Civic Theatre this summer, and the rest in its own space--under the stars and, of course, under the roar of those big jet engines. Starlight has in the works a co-production of its first new musical, which it hopes to premiere--indoors--by 1990.

New plays are being developed as well at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach and the Lamb’s Players Theatre in National City. The Gaslamp’s annual world premieres often highlight unknown playwrights. The show that managing director Kit Goldman has already talked about with New York producers is “The Debutante,” the black Pygmalion play due to premiere in 1990.

Steady growth at the North Coast Rep may lead to artistic director Olive Blakistone’s dream of using Equity actors by 1990. North Coast will drop its toes in the Equity waters with “Little Footsteps” in January, signing Equity actors for the leads.

Blakistone has new plays cooking for next season, including a rarely done musical, “Mandrake,” based on the writings of Machiavelli. Abe Polsky, author of last season’s hit, “Devour the Snow,” the story of the Donner Pass party, is sending Blakistone his newest play. So is Jack Neary, who’s presenting the West Coast premiere of his latest play, “To Forgive, Divine,” in Solana Beach in March.

The Lamb’s Players will present their seventh world premiere by David McFadzean, now getting recognition in Hollywood as head writer of the hit series, “Roseanne.” The Diversionary Theatre is still looking for a semi-permanent home, and the Bowery is hoping to get firm footing in a new space it hopes to unveil in the Gaslamp Quarter by spring.

In the meantime, “Suds” returns to the Lyceum Stage after closing in New York. But San Diego may stage yet another assault on New York in 1989 with “Up in Saratoga” and a New York workshop production of the La Jolla Playhouse’s “80 Days.”