LACLO’s Two New Producers Promise Home-Grown Musicals

Los Angeles Civic Light Opera may be about to take the first two words of its name seriously.

Martin Wiviott and Keith Stava, the recently resigned producers of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera, will become the producers of Los Angeles Civic Light Opera next month--and they pledge to begin producing musicals in Los Angeles, for Los Angeles.

Most of LACLO’s shows in recent years have been imported. Since the Nederlander Companies took over the management of LACLO in 1981 (through their nonprofit American Corp. of the Arts), the organization hasn’t been much more than a stop for pre- or post-Broadway tours.

In the last year, however, a couple of LACLO offerings were derived from productions that originated a lot closer than New York--at Wiviott’s and Stava’s company in Long Beach.

“The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” with Debbie Reynolds, was a Long Beach Civic Light Opera co-production (with a Houston company and with Reynolds’ own company) that played in Long Beach in May, 1989, then arrived at the Pantages for the LACLO audience in September (the tour was solely under the banner of Reynolds’ company). And while the Cathy Rigby “Peter Pan” which played the Pantages for LACLO audiences last month was a different production from the one which played Long Beach in 1986, they both used Rigby and Stava, who was associate producer in Long Beach and co-producer of the “Peter Pan” tour.

The Nederlanders are not relinquishing the LACLO; they are employing Wiviott and Stava. In the past, the Nederlanders’ West Coast staff’s other responsibilities--the Greek Theatre, the Pacific Amphitheatre, and the management of the Pantages, Wilshire and Fonda theaters used by the LACLO--prevented them from devoting their full time to LACLO. Wiviott and Stava’s sole responsibility will be to produce the LACLO, operating out of the Nederlanders’ Hollywood offices.

The New York-based James Nederlander, chairman of the company, will continue to make the final decisions, said Stan Seiden, Nederlander West Coast president. “But to hire two men like this and then try to hold them down,” he added, “would be ridiculous.”

“Our main goal is to bring visibility and continuity to the organization,” said Wiviott. “It has been submerged within the Nederlander company.”

In the past, he added, “the pattern (of LACLO productions) hasn’t been consistent because they had to depend on the tours. They didn’t have the staff to mount a major musical here in L.A. Now we have that option. We won’t have to worry about tours canceling (before playing Los Angeles).”

But won’t local productions require more money from the Nederlanders?

“We’re willing to back it in seed money to whatever extent it needs,” said the company’s Seiden. “We want to bring the CLO back to the glory it once enjoyed.”

“We’re hoping the local productions will be less expensive,” said Wiviott. The new producers have begun discussions with officials of Actors’ Equity in an attempt to arrive at lower pay scales for LACLO’s locally produced shows, in contrast with the tours.

George Ives, the incoming Western regional director of Equity, said no proposal is on the table but confirmed that Wiviott and Stava intend to ask to work under a League of Resident Theatres contract--the model used by such nonprofit institutions as the Mark Taper Forum--rather than the standard contract used by most commercial productions. “It’s a question of whether they qualify, and they probably will,” said Ives.

Besides cutting costs, Wiviott and Stava intend to raise more money from sources other than the Nederlanders and the box office. “We can devote a lot of attention to unearned income, such as grants and corporate underwriting,” said Wiviott. He and Stava hope to begin children’s programming and minority outreach programs that might help attract such income.

Before all that begins, though, “obviously we’ll have to deal with the subscribers first.” Wiviott promised to take the time to deal with subscriber complaints and to survey subscribers about shows and stars they would like to see--a tactic he employed in Long Beach.

“My likes have to come second to what the audience wants to see,” he said. His theory is that a happier, larger subscriber base will eventually provide the financial stability that can “make more daring productions feasible.”

Wiviott said he doesn’t know how many subscribers LACLO now has, but “I think it’s around 30,000”--which would be comparable to the Long Beach numbers. “I would be happy in a year or two to have 50,000,” he said. “They once had the largest subscription in the country--there’s no reason it can’t be up there again.”

The number of offerings will increase from three to four per season, according to Wiviott. Not all will be locally produced--LACLO will still try to book the sporadic hit touring companies. Asked if any bookings will be non-musicals, which LACLO resorted to last season (“Steel Magnolias” and “Driving Miss Daisy”), Wiviott replied, “Our discussions have been only about musicals. A civic light opera is what the title says it is.”

Wiviott and Stava will share the same title, unlike their positions in Long Beach, where Wiviott was in charge. “We work well together,” said Wiviott. “We don’t say ‘This is yours; this is mine.’ Keith is more technical-minded than I am. Of course we sometimes disagree, but then a discussion follows--and then we agree.”

It’s too late for Wiviott and Stava to have much say about the coming season, said Wiviott. An announcement of what’s planned for that season is expected soon.

TAPER WATCH: Artistic director Gordon Davidson has finally announced the Mark Taper Forum’s coming season, and it confirms the season projected in a June 14 Stage Watch column.

To recap:

* “Hope of the Heart” (Sept. 27-Nov. 11).

* “The Lisbon Traviata” (Nov. 29-Dec. 30). Richard Thomas and Nathan Lane will star.

* “The Wash” (Jan. 17-Feb. 16). Unconfirmed speculation is that Sab Shimono and Nobu McCarthy will star.

* “Mr. Jellylord” (March 7-April 21).

* “Julius Caesar” (May 9-June 23). The Taper’s resident director Oskar Eustis will re-create the concept that he used at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., in February: visual imagery that suggests Rome of 44 B.C. and Washington of the 1960s.

* “Widows” (July 25-Sept. 28). Tony Kushner, author of “Millennium Approaches,” recently seen at Taper Too, and adapter of Los Angeles Theatre Center’s “The Illusion,” has collaborated with Ariel Dorfman on the dramatization of Dorfman’s novel.