Loretta Devine Will Join Move as ‘Lady Day’ Goes to East Coast

Loretta Devine, star of the Old Globe’s smash hit, “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” used to compete with herself Friday nights, performing live at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage at the same time her new series, “Sugar and Spice,” was being seen on television.

As it turns out, “Sugar and Spice” wasn’t picked up, but “Lady Day” has been--by a producer in Montclair, N.J., who flew into town to check out the show and fell in love with it.

The Old Globe will be credited on the New Jersey program but won’t share in the profits, said Managing Director Thomas Hall. Hall added that the one regret he has about the sold-out show, which has broken all Old Globe box-office records, is that he didn’t have a place, or room in the season, to extend it for six more months.

The final performances are tonight at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.

Saxophone player Charles McPherson won’t be heading to New Jersey; McPherson left the show last weekend to fulfill recording contracts.

But Devine will go, and take with her an unexpected dividend, a Lhasa apso named Oscar, an animal-shelter veteran that didn’t cut it at the audition as Billie Holiday’s dog (a chihuahua named Rodan did).

Oscar did succeed in leaving a lasting imprint on her heart.

“He was the wrong type, but I fell in love with him, so I kept him,” said Devine. “He’s cost me a fortune because he had to get all these shots, but he’s got these big brown eyes, so now I’m stuck.”

Devine said she even has a song in the show, “Them There Eyes,” that makes her think of her dog.

Devine’s next project is the filming of “The Colored Museum” for the “Great Performances” series on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

The success of “Simply Maria, or the American Dream,” selected by the California Young Playwrights Project in 1987, fulfilled a dream for a teen-age writer named Josefina Lopez. At the time Josefina wrote the semi-autobiographical piece, she was a 17-year-old Mexican-born illegal immigrant, living in fear of being deported from her home in Los Angeles.

The San Diego-based California Young Playwrights Project (which has since been shortened to the Playwrights Project) honors four to five playwrights 18 and younger from across the state by selecting their plays and giving them professional productions.

Today, thanks in part to the encouragement of having the Playwrights Project produce “Simply Maria” at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company in 1988, Lopez has continued to write works that are shown at a number of venues.

Now, however, the author of “Simply Maria” has other things to celebrate--she’s a student at UC San Diego and the holder of a green card.

Meanwhile, “Simply Maria” keeps right on working, fulfilling others’ dreams.

Last year, KPBS-TV senior producer Sarah Luft filmed “Simply Maria” in the station’s first collaboration with the Playwrights Project.

On Wednesday, Luft and Deborah Salzer, director of the Playwrights Project, flew to Dallas to accept a gold medal from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting for offering the best in 1990 children’s programming from among the nation’s PBS affiliates. “Simply Maria” was one of 11 top winners in a field of 347.

Luft, speaking on the phone from Dallas, said she plans to rebroadcast “Simply Maria” in September during National Hispanic Heritage Week. More than 50 stations across the country have also expressed interested in airing the show over the next few months, she said.

The award couldn’t come at a better time for Salzer, who just moved her organization from the umbrella of the Gaslamp, which housed the fledgling project for its first five years, to independent quarters in February.

Salzer recently expanded the program to include the fostering of work by senior-citizen playwrights.

Discussions, too, have been on the table for a while now for a new collaboration between KPBS-TV and the Playwrights Project, said Salzer and Luft from Dallas.

With luck, an award such as this one may be just the kind of grease needed to get the next such project going.

‘Twas the night before opening and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” the show that was scheduled to open last Friday at the Lamb’s Players Theatre.

Robert Smyth, artistic director of Lamb’s, said he blames “no one but myself” for the series of contract mishaps that led to the show’s last-minute cancellation.

Smyth had planned to do an original adaptation of the C.S. Lewis classic, but when the C.S. Lewis estate refused permission, he pursued three other avenues: Samuel French in London (which did not distribute American rights to its version), an English theater (which decided to retain the rights to its version in the hopes of touring to the United States), and finally, as his last choice, the American adaptation licensed by the Dramatic Publishing Co. in Chicago.

But, while Smyth negotiated with the British organizations, a Los Angeles touring company, Little Broadway Productions, bought all the rights to all the Lewis material for the next nine months from the very licensing company that Smyth had thought of as his last resort.

Little Broadway will bring “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” to San Diego in December of 1990.

Rights came through on Monday for the Lamb’s replacement show, the Douglas Post adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows,” a classic children’s tale about Mr. Toad and his obsession for cars.

Smyth has completed casting and had his first full rehearsal Tuesday night.

That leaves barely two weeks for Lamb’s to put the show together in time for a July 6-29 run. It will be a challenge, Smyth said.

“We’ve scrambled in the past to put up a show quickly, but this will be a new record.”

PROGRAM NOTES: James A. Strait, the co-producer of T.S. Productions, has raised $20,000 toward his goal of $30,000 to open a commercial production of “Nunsense.” With several parties expressing interest in kicking in the final amount that would make the project a go, he has tentatively booked July 20 as his opening date at the Sixth Avenue Playhouse. . . .

Lee Julien, one of the general partners of the Kingston Hotel, said the Bowery Theatre, which is housed by the hotel in the Kingston Playhouse, will not be affected by the Kingston going into Chapter 11 as of June 1.

“I am confident of landing on my feet,” said Julien. “And besides, the Bowery has a three-year written agreement. Even if a foreclosure or a transfer of the property would be made, it would be subject to this encumbrance.” . . .

The San Diego Theatre League’s interpreted series of performances for the hearing-impaired continues with the June 27 performance of Starlight Musical Theatre’s “Singin’ in the Rain” at the Starlight Bowl.