Long Beach to Go Beyond Light Opera : Theater: New director Barry Brown plans to include non-musical plays, to tour and to shoot for cable TV.

Barry Brown has big plans for Long Beach.

The new producer/artistic director of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera wants his organization to “become more than just a civic light opera.”

He wants to do new, non-musical plays in the 840-seat Center Theatre of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, adjacent to the 3,054-seat Terrace Theatre, where Long Beach Civic Light Opera has traditionally performed its shows.

He plans to do at least one original musical each season, to expand the Terrace season from four to five musicals, to take LBCLO productions on tour, to shoot them for cable television. Availability of screen rights will be a factor, though not a prerequisite, when he selects shows.

The Long Beach complex, he said, should “become the Kennedy Center of the West Coast--but without the Kennedy Center’s financial problems.”

The first item on his agenda after he begins work Sept. 10 is finding a replacement for “Meet Me in St. Louis,” which has moved from Long Beach to the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera season, simultaneously with a move from Long Beach to Los Angeles CLO by Brown’s predecessors, Martin Wiviott and Keith Stava. The rest of the Long Beach season, selected by Wiviott before Brown was appointed, will probably remain intact, said Brown.

Which will give him more time to develop his plans for the Center Theatre next door. This is the same theater that was going to be the home of a new company called Long Beach Repertory Theatre. Its first season of non-musical plays was scheduled to open earlier this year--until its sponsor, the Regional Arts Foundation, pulled the plug, citing a lack of support from the community.

Pegge Logefeil, executive director of LBCLO, said she disagrees with the foundation’s conclusion regarding the potential for a theater group in that space. However, she also noted “it should be more economical for us” than it would have been for Long Beach Rep, which was starting from scratch. “We have a subscriber base (of nearly 28,000), the marketing tools and a staff in place.”

Shashin Desai, the artistic director of Long Beach Rep, gave his blessing to LBCLO’s plans to use the space: “The more theater, the better. If I can’t use that space, I’ll do theater in some other space or share it. It proves I was right--that Long Beach wants theater there.”

No definite plans have been made for the LBCLO expansion into the smaller theater. “We’re working on it diligently,” said Logefeil, “negotiating the figure as far as rent goes,” but nothing will be settled until after Brown begins his job.

Although Logefeil and Brown wouldn’t rule out using the Center Theatre for small musicals as well as plays--a plan that Wiviott was developing before he left--they said the house is best suited for spoken drama. The idea that people might wonder why a civic light opera would program non-musicals doesn’t appear to concern them. Logefeil pointed out that San Bernardino Civic Light Opera already presents non-musical plays as well as musicals. And Los Angeles Civic Light Opera presented two “straight” plays last season.

Brown, best known for co-producing “La Cage aux Folles” and the Angela Lansbury and Tyne Daly revivals of “Gypsy,” moved from New York to Hollywood at the beginning of the year to take a job as director of entertainment at Universal Studios. But he said the job required too much paperwork and not enough creativity. So, when film producer Ross Hunter, a member of the LBCLO board, sounded him out about the Long Beach position, he was very interested--though he has seen only two LBCLO productions, “Follies” and “1776,” both earlier this year.

Brown and his late partner Fritz Holt produced more than 10 Broadway shows. “The one part I never liked was raising money,” he said--one of the reasons he’s looking forward to the Long Beach job, where other people are responsible for the fund-raising.

He and Holt spent 1976 running the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, Mass. There, he recalled, “we spent too much time wondering if there were enough M & Ms and toilet paper.” These, too, are responsibilities that won’t be his at Long Beach.

JAZZ MUSICAL ADDED: “Black and Blue,” a revue about the early years of jazz, will become the third entry in Los Angeles Civic Light Opera’s 1990-1991 season, arriving next summer. It joins the previously reported and now confirmed runs of “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “Grand Hotel,” coming next spring. But no dates have been announced for any of the shows.

LACLO subscribers also will be offered the opportunity to buy priority tickets for the return of “Les Miserables,” slated to arrive at the Pantages in January, and the Georgian State Dance Company, scheduled for November.

“Black and Blue” had been scheduled to open the 1988-89 LACLO season, but its producers canceled it six weeks ahead of opening, citing the expenses of building a set that could travel from Los Angeles to New York, where it opened that October.

Does this mean a scaled-back L.A. version next year?

“We’re bringing the full-out Broadway production to L.A.,” said producer Mel Howard. “It’ll take three weeks to put it up. Obviously it’s not meant to tour. After L.A., we’ll reduce the scenic side.” Howard said he also intends to bring as many members of the New York cast as are willing to cross the country.