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9 Good Innings--Years, That Is--for ‘Bleacher Bums’

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Call it “The Miracle of ‘Bleacher Bums.’ ”

The nine-inning comedy about a crazy collection of Chicago Cubs fans in the stands at Wrigley Field (ongoing at the Century City Playhouse) has become the longest-running show in local history. This month, “Bleacher Bums” celebrates its ninth anniversary, a feat that Burbage Theatre Ensemble artistic director Ivan Spiegel admits amazes him as much as anyone else.

“Some of the people are repeaters,” he said of the audience. “A lot are people who go to the Groundlings, the Comedy Store--those kinds of places. It’s also a good first-date show. A guy can show a girl that he’s cultured--and since it’s about baseball, men aren’t threatened. It’s not like going to see Chekhov. We also have a lot of parties and, of course, everyone who’s visiting from Chicago.”

The director maintains his own interest by keeping a bit of a distance. “I don’t go that often anymore,” he explained. “Every once in awhile, I’ll go in, do some cleanup work, run a section of the play, make sure the actors are where they should be. But I’ve got assistants now who work with me. Also, the show is double-cast--and we recast it every three months. So that helps keep it fresh.

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“I don’t think it’s my best work,” he said. “But I am proud of it. And it’s provided a way to do the work I want to do. I’m an artist; I’m not here to make money. I wanted to effect some change in society--and our children’s theater has done that. When the Burbage started in ‘69, we were a street theater doing political, avant-garde work. We thought ‘Bleacher Bums’ would be a nice light comedy we could do for three months over the summer.”

Glowing reviews changed that. The morning they appeared, “the phones were ringing off the hook,” Spiegel recalled. “In two hours, we sold out the first month. Since then, it’s just fed on itself. How long will it go on? Who knows? Probably till I get tired of it--or people stop coming.”

NEW IN VAN NUYS: Jeremiah Morris has been chosen artistic director of Actors Alley in Van Nuys, a post he’s finding “wonderful and hectic--well, more wonderful than hectic. Part of me’s always been a teacher,” said the actor/director (who once ran the Seven Arts Center theater complex in New York and also taught at Boston University), “and part of me is a pain--always complaining about what everyone else is doing.

“Now I can put my money where my mouth is,” he said. “I’ve got some strong ideas about theater--and about this theater. For example, every year, I’m going to do one play that hasn’t been given its due. This season, I’m doing ‘Big Fish, Little Fish’ by Hugh Wheeler--which had a small run on Broadway in 1958 with Jason Robards and Hume Cronyn, and was picked apart by the critics. I want to give these plays a second chance.”

NOTABLE OPENINGS: Julie Harris and Brock Peters star in Alfred Uhry’s 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy, “Driving Miss Daisy,” about the friendship between an older woman and her chauffeur. It opens Friday at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.

“Widowers’ House,” George Bernard Shaw’s rarely done comedy about housing shortages and rent-gouging landlords, opens April 14 at Actors Alley.

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“Fragging”--a term referring to soldiers killed by their own side (as 800 Americans were in Vietnam)--was written by Louis Cimino, who experienced the war as an 18-year-old. A semi-finalist at the O’Neill Playwright’s Competition, it opens April 11 at the New Playwright’s Foundation in the Fairfax district.

“Absurd Person Singular,” Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy of class relations and marital strife, gets a revival at the West End Playhouse in Van Nuys, opening April 21.

Donna Deitch, who directed the recent “The Women of Brewster Place,” will stage another women’s tale, Anne Devlin’s “Ourselves Alone,” the story of three women in contemporary Ireland. It opens April 22 at the Tiffany Theatre in West Hollywood.

Playwrights Express holds its annual marathon April 22 and 23 at the First Methodist Church in Hollywood, with a continuous program of new works--plays, screenplays, monologues, one-acts, excerpts and works-in-progress. Information: (213) 850-6271.

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