‘Grand Hotel,’ Maybe Other Top Musicals, S.D.-Bound

“Grand Hotel,” “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” “Les Miserables” and “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

For those San Diegans licking their lips over these Broadway babies already announced to be heading to the Orange County Performing Arts Center next year, there’s even better news on the horizon. At least one of them will be coming to San Diego in the fall of 1991.

“Grand Hotel,” winner of five Tony Awards, is definitely on its way to San Diego after it plays in Los Angeles and Costa Mesa, a press representative from the theater’s New York office confirmed.

Miles Wilkin, chairman of Pace Theatrical, which is packaging the shows for the Orange County Performing Arts Center, said that some, if not all of the others, are likely candidates for San Diego as well.

“I’m virtually certain that many of the shows that go to Orange County will go to San Diego,” Wilkin said, adding that only representatives from the Nederlander Organization in Los Angeles, which produces the San Diego Playgoers Series, are in a position to confirm those choices.

Dixie Burton, director of special events for the Nederlander Organization, would not confirm any choices, but she did say that, if any of these shows appear in San Diego, it will not be until 1991. San Diego Playgoers will make its next announcement of upcoming plays in September, but will address only this fall’s schedule, she said.

Rumor has it, too, that the San Diego rights to Wendy Wasserstein’s Tony award-winning “The Heidi Chronicles” were sold in a package deal with “Cats.” San Diego Playgoers has already announced that it is presenting “Cats” Sept. 18-23 at Copley Symphony Hall. Speculation is that San Diego Playgoers may present “The Heidi Chronicles” in San Diego in January.

Bill Silva of Bill Silva Presents is throwing his hat into the producing ring. Silva grossed more than $1 million on Ken Hill’s “The Phantom of the Opera” last year and plans to bring back “Phantom” Dec. 26-31 at Copley Symphony Hall. He also hopes to present Robert Goulet in “The Fantasticks” Jan. 14-19 at Symphony Hall.

One San Diegan rooting for a local run of “Meet Me in St. Louis” is the show’s composer, Hugh Martin.

Martin, a resident of Encinitas, was delighted to hear that the Orange County Performing Arts Center will be producing the show in addition to a probable booking at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. He said he hopes that the director will allow him to work with the orchestra to get out some of “the wrong notes” that are still in the score.

“I want it to be the best it can be,” he said.

Martin, who turned 76 last Saturday, has experienced a renaissance of his career since “Meet Me in St. Louis” made it to Broadway last year. Martin’s previous Broadway successes date back about 30 years. In the intervening years, rock ‘n’ roll music rendered his kind of music obsolete, he said.

But now the offers are coming.

The day after Martin’s birthday, Mickey Rooney asked him to do the vocal arrangements for a new Broadway show--Rooney and Martin have known each other since entertaining army troops together in 1945. Martin said he agreed to do the vocal arrangements but is not yet free to talk about the show.

Rooney will not appear in the musical, but will direct it.

Singer Michael Feinstein also has plans to fly to San Diego Wednesday to plan a Hugh Martin album. However, Martin said he doesn’t think Feinstein will pick any of the “Meet Me in St. Louis” tunes.

“He wants to do those that people don’t know,” Martin explained. Martin said the toughest part was narrowing down his pool of suggestions for Feinstein to about 40.

“It’s like choosing between my babies,” he said. “I’m still so close to them.”

Martin said that he is happy to be working again.

“I’m busier than at any time in my career,” Martin said. “I don’t understand it. But I love it.”

The La Jolla Playhouse negotiated and received the rights to do the West Coast premiere of Athol Fugard’s “My Children! My Africa!” But, when the Playhouse postponed its initial opening date to accommodate its co-production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” with the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the staff of the Palo Alto-based TheatreWorks was surprised and pleased to find itself with the West Coast premiere of Fugard’s play.

The staff at the La Jolla Playhouse was surprised and not as pleased to discover Wednesday that what it will be giving Aug. 26 is the Southern California premiere.

Still, the Playhouse will be the first fully professional West Coast company to do the play; the Palo Alto company, which describes itself as “semi-professional,” used one guest Equity artist in the three-character play.

The La Jolla Playhouse will be the West Coast premiere of Fugard as director.

Still, the Playhouse may be happy to know that “My Children! My Africa!” which opened July 21 and runs through Aug. 25 at TheatreWorks’ Burgess Theatre in Menlo Park, received generally favorable reviews.

The San Francisco Examiner referred to Fugard’s story about a black teacher, a white pupil and a black pupil as a “painfully eloquent new drama” that is receiving “an impassioned West Coast premiere at TheatreWorks.”

It was “too much of a message play” for the reviewer from the San Jose Mercury News, but The Country Almanac found the play “nearly flawless” and reported that the show “brought the audience to its feet on opening night.”

Randy Adams, the managing director for TheatreWorks, said audiences have filled its 275-seat theater to about 80% capacity.

PROGRAM NOTES: Miles Wilkin, chairman of Pace Theatrical, plans to send one of his presidents to the La Jolla Playhouse production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center to see if the show is suitable for touring, he said. He had originally planned to send a representative to the Playhouse production at the Mandell Weiss Theatre, but had to cancel. “We’ve committed to Des (McAnuff, artistic director of the Playhouse) that we’re going to see it. We very much care for his work,” Wilkin said. . . .

“Nunsense,” the for-profit venture that was scheduled to move from the Sixth Avenue Playhouse Aug. 26 will be extended at least until Sept. 30, said James A. Strait, the show’s co-producer and director. Houses are far from breaking records, but they are building steadily, and the show is more than meeting running costs, Strait reports.