Laguna Youth Troupe Invited to World Fest

Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre has been chosen to represent the United States at the First International Children’s World Theater Festival, the Playhouse’s general manager, Jody Davidson, said Tuesday.

Davidson said the troupe hopes to make a splash at the April 13-21 festival in West Germany with several performances of “Troubled Waters” by prize-winning playwright Brian Kral. The festival will be held in the town of Lingen, near Dusseldorf.

The theme of “Troubled Waters” revolves around environmental issues and threats to animal species, and focuses on the ambiguous moral choices people must make in dealing with these concerns.

The Youth Theatre was named in the summer of 1989 “the outstanding new children’s theater” in the United States by the American Alliance of Theater and Education, the national group that governs amateur children’s theater in this country.

The troupe is going to the festival at the invitation of the American Center of the International Amateur Theater Assn., Davidson said. The festival, which has been organized by that association, the town of Lingen and West German governmental agencies, has invited at least 18 troupes from Eastern and Western Europe, the Soviet Union and the Middle East.

The trip is expected to cost $15,000 for an entourage of 18 people. Nine actors--one adult and eight children, ages 11 and 17--will be going. A support group, the Playhouse Parents, is planning a fund-raiser.

The Youth Theatre, which has a budget of $60,000 this year, staged five productions last season at the Moulton Theatre in Laguna Beach. The troupe has staged two this season, including its first outdoor production (“Alice in Wonderland”), and plans three more at the Moulton: “Codebreaker” (opening Feb. 3), “Draw Fire” and “Bluebird.”