‘Mail’ Revival on Pasadena Playhouse Bill

A new musical by Ray Bradbury and Jose Feliciano will play the Pasadena Playhouse next fall, and the theater’s popular “Mail” will return next year.

They’re part of the theater’s all-American 1990-91 mainstage season, announced Monday.

The season will open July 6 with a revival of William Inge’s “Bus Stop,” directed by Warner Shook. It will be up through Aug. 19.

Bradbury wrote the book and Feliciano the music and lyrics for “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit,” scheduled for Sept. 7-Oct. 21. It’s based on Bradbury’s story about six young men from East Los Angeles who pool their paltry funds to buy a magical white suit, which may be worn by each of them one night of the week. Bradbury turned his story into a play which was introduced at the Coronet in 1965 and later became a hit for Chicago’s Organic Theater Co., which brought it to UCLA in 1977. Charles Smith will direct this version, which will be updated to 1990.

The premiere of “Ad Wars,” by Vince McKewin, is slated for Jan. 4-Feb. 17. It’s a comedy about a Madison Avenue agency’s “image” campaign for a large defense firm. It was read in the playhouse’s Discovery series last year. Jenny Sullivan will direct.

The March 15-April 28 slot will be occupied by an American play, still to be selected. It will not be a world premiere, but it might be a local premiere, said the playhouse’s Susan Dietz.

On May 17, “Mail” will return to its original sender. This Jerry Colker-Michael Rupert musical was such a hit for the playhouse’s 1987 subscription season that it was brought back for an extended non-subscription run from September, 1987, through January, 1988. Then it bombed on Broadway.

This will be the version that was seen on Broadway, including one number never seen in either of the previous Pasadena productions. Dietz said that offers to do “Mail” at five or six theaters in other cities collapsed when it failed on Broadway, and she expects this revival will renew interest by those theaters.

Won’t a few subscribers be unhappy over a repeat production? “Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t ask us to bring it back,” replied Dietz. “I don’t think those tickets will be worthless. Anyone who doesn’t want to use them can give them away as a gift.” Besides, she added, the playhouse will have three times as many subscribers next spring as it had in 1987 for the initial production.