Long Beach to Open ‘St. Louis’ National Tour

Meet “St. Louis” in Long Beach.

Long Beach Civic Light Opera has announced a season that will include the first post-Broadway production of “Meet Me in St. Louis” and a new version of “Chess” that’s different from the one that’s playing Orange County Performing Arts Center this week.

The organization’s producer, Martin Wiviott, also reported plans to move into the 861-seat Center Theatre, next door to the 3141-seat Terrace Theatre that serves as the LBCLO’s main venue, with a three-show summer season in the summer of 1991.

But first, next season will open with “Chess,” the Tim Rice/Benny Andersson/Bjorn Ulvaeus musical about a U.S.-Soviet chess tournament, playing Oct. 4-21. In contrast with the national tour that ends in Costa Mesa this week, the LBCLO production will use a revised script that was first produced in a recent staging at Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theatre in Illinois. “It’s more concerned with the love story than with the political conflict,” said Wiviott, acknowledging that this reflects the decreased Soviet-U.S. tensions since “Chess” was first staged in 1986.

A revival of “Purlie” is up next, Feb. 28-March 17, 1991.

“Meet Me in St. Louis” will arrive a year from now, May 9-26, 1991. Based on the 1944 MGM movie, the national tour of the musical is expected to begin in Long Beach--the first time the organization has received a show fresh from Broadway.

The season will conclude July 11-28, 1991, with a revival of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” starring Juliet Prowse.

If all goes as planned, the LBCLO also will produce a separate subscription series next summer in the adjacent Center Theatre. Although no deals have been signed yet, Wiviott hopes to put together two-week runs of “The Robber Bridegroom,” “Candide” and an original pastiche called “The Last Musical Comedy,” using some of the actors and the same basic set for all three shows.

The fate of this mini-season depends on funding; Wiviott says it will cost between $500,000 and $600,000. Although that’s roughly the equivalent of the budget for a single production in the Terrace Theatre, the break-even point in the smaller theater will be more difficult to attain, said Wiviott.

The Center Theatre is the same venue where the aborted Long Beach Repertory Theatre was to have set up shop last March. Shashin Desai, the artistic director of the Long Beach Rep, said he hasn’t given up on the company, despite the withdrawal of its funding by the Regional Arts Foundation. He hopes to have more funding in place by the end of 1990 and begin his first season in 1991. “There may be a conflict” with the LBCLO’s plan to expand to the Center Theatre, he noted.

In the meantime, Desai will present Mayo Simon’s “Elaine’s Daughter,” the play that was to have opened the Long Beach Rep season, at his 99-seat International City Theatre, on the campus of Long Beach City College, Aug. 3-Sept. 9. Renee Taylor and Rachel Levin have been cast as Elaine and her daughter.

A JANUARY ‘JELLYLORD’?: When the Virginia-based W. Alton Jones Foundation announced last week that the Mark Taper Forum had received a $100,000 grant for the development and production of “Mr. Jellylord,” a musical based on the life of jazz composer/pianist Jelly Roll Morton, the Taper declined to confirm that “Mr. Jellylord” was definitely part of its season next year.

But Jan. 16 or 17 are likely dates for the opening, according to one of the New York co-producers, Margo Lion. The Taper will first do a workshop in late July and early August. The show is a creation of playwright George C. Wolfe (“The Colored Museum”) and musical supervisor Luther Henderson (“Ain’t Misbehavin’ ”).

The “Jellylord” grant was one of 11 from the Jones Foundation’s New American Plays program. Another local winner was the Odyssey Theatre, which received $26,000 for a production of “Struggling Truths,” by Peter Mellencamp, scheduled to open in late June. Odyssey artistic director Ron Sossi said the grant will cover 60% of the costs to mount the show, in which “we’ll try to immerse the audience in Tibetan culture.”

ELSEWHERE: Ron Leibman and Jessica Walter will appear in “Rumors,” opening July 12 at the Doolittle . . . Stanley Bennett Clay’s “Ritual” returns to the Ebony Showcase June 8 for 10 performances prior to a tour . . . The Fountain Theatre has the theatrical rights to Vikram Seth’s best-selling novel-in-verse “The Golden Gate,” and Stephen Sachs (who adapted “The Baron in the Trees”) is adapting it for a January premiere . . . “The Illusion” will extend through June 3 at Los Angeles Theatre Center . . . Theatre 40 will benefit from a wine party at Lunaria in West Los Angeles May 23. Information: 818-995-4421.