For a Believer in Happy Endings, ‘Corny Works’

James Raitt, musical director of the Old Globe’s “A . . . My Name is Alice,” hasn’t seen his cousins, Broadway musical veteran John Raitt and pop singer Bonnie Raitt, for a while now, but he often comes close.

There was the time when the three were booked in three consecutive weeks at the same theater, James as conductor for American DanceMachine, John as the lead in “Kiss Me Kate” and Bonnie as a concert headliner.

They never actually saw each other, but James left a bottle of bourbon (given to him by Bob Hope) with a stagehand to give to Bonnie.

Soon, James Raitt will miss Bonnie again. He’ll finish up conducting and playing piano on stage in “A . . . My Name is Alice” June 18, less than two weeks before Bonnie sails into town to play the California Theatre on July 1.

Bonnie’s father, John, inspired James’ career.

“When I was a kid growing up, I wanted to be him,” James, 36, said outside the Cassius Carter Centre Stage, where “A . . . My Name is Alice” is playing. “All the other kids wanted to be baseball stars. When I was 6 years old, I’d put on his recording of ‘Carnival’ and sing the soliloquy.”

Eventually, James resigned himself to the fact that he was not going to be a singer (“One legend in the family is plenty,” he says) and moved into orchestration, musical arrangements and musical direction for the Broadway and off-Broadway productions of “Stardust” and two new musicals, “The Four Plaids,” a story about a boys’ singing group in the 50s, and “Mike,” a story about Mike Todd.

After this show, he’ll do the dance arrangements for the musical version of the 1940s movie, “Meet Me in St. Louis.” The backers are now raising money to send it to Broadway.

It’s no accident that even the new musicals James Raitt has worked on have been nostalgic. Despite a Tony season that has found only one new musical worthy of any nominations, “Starmites,” James Raitt still believes that the tale of the old-fashioned American musical is far from played out.

“The thing about musical theater is that it’s an amazing art form that imitates itself. These dead periods have happened before, but then some genius comes along and pulls it all together with ‘A Chorus Line’ or ‘Oklahoma.’ I believe indomitably in the happy ending. I love corny and sentimental. I think corny works like crazy.”

For years now, directors William Virchis, Jorge Huerta and Floyd Gaffney have been trying to rally community support for a multicultural theater in which they could feature plays by, for and with Latin, black and other minority artists.

They are still trying, but now they’ve taken a different tack. They’re putting the work on first and hoping the support will come later--somewhat in the spirit of “Build it and he will come,” the line that inspires Kevin Costner to build a baseball diamond in the belief that Shoeless Joe Jackson will show up to play on it in the movie “Field of Dreams.”

This weekend, Virchis and Huerta are featuring the premiere of the English translation of “Ordeal in Bogota,” a play by Guillermo Schmidhuber de Mora that won Mexico’s top drama prize, Letras de Oro, and “I Too Speak of the Rose,” by popular Mexican playwright Emilio Cardallido, both at the Progressive Stage Company through Sunday. “Ordeal in Bogota” shows at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; “I Too Speak of the Rose,” plays Sunday at 8 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee Saturday and Sunday.

Meanwhile, Gaffney is rehearsing “Williams and Walker,” an off-Broadway hit based on legendary black vaudevillians Bert Williams and George Walker, for a May 18-June 11 run at the Lyceum Space in Horton Plaza.

Virchis said he has confidence that the plays will help him find the audience he needs to start his theater.

“If the meal is there, people will eat it.”

PROGRAM NOTES: Don Victor, a very funny man who is still best known as the former comedy partner of Whoopi Goldberg, will premiere “Picture Postcard,” a story of one man’s travels through small-town America, commissioned and shown by Sushi for its Neofest, through Saturday, with nightly shows at 8 p.m. He will bring the act back to Sushi for a six-week run in late June or early July. . . .

Anthony Bowles, the original musical director for many of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals, including “Evita” and “Jesus Christ Superstar,” will fly in from London to help guide the North Coast Repertory Theatre in its West Coast premiere of his own musical, “Mandrake,” opening June 9. Based on a farce by Machiavelli, called “La Mandragola,” “Mandrake” tells the story of an old man seeking a potion to help him get a son by his young wife, a young man who wants to go to bed with that same young wife, and a potion seller who concocts a scheme to make everyone happy. . . .

The music may change, but the director doesn’t miss a beat. George Ferencz, who directed “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” set to a jazz score by Max Roach at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, is returning to the Rep to direct “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” This time, the show, which is about Elvis Presley, features a score of the King’s hits. . . .

You know you’re dealing with new work when the names keep changing on you. First “Tango Orfeo” at the La Jolla Playhouse became “Dangerous Games.” Now “Squire Haggard’s Journal,” the San Diego Rep show about a British nobleman in Revolutionary America, becomes “The Scandalous Adventures of Sir Tobey Trollope.” It seems that Michael Green, the author of the novel “Squire Haggard’s Journal,” decided the play veered too far afield of his book to share its name. “Thin Air,” another world premiere due at the Rep, will become “Thin Air: Tales from a Revolution.” Quipped Laura Preble, staff member and sometime member of the San Diego Rep’s Underground at the Lyceum comedy ensemble: “We’re going to keep expanding all the titles until they’re longer than the plays.”