Vidal Sassoon--an Unlikely Producer : Theater: The hairstyling mogul brings Athol Fugard’s ‘My Children! My Africa!’ to Los Angeles.

“If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.”

That slogan, famous from the Vidal Sassoon commercials, will now apply to plays as well as to the buyers of hair-care products.

Sassoon is the associate producer of Athol Fugard’s “My Children! My Africa!,” opening Nov. 11 at the Henry Fonda Theatre.

Although they have never met each other except on the telephone, Sassoon and producer Richard Pardy are importing La Jolla Playhouse’s production of the play about a South African teacher and two students.

The man who brought them to the play, and to each other, is actor Brock Peters, who plays the teacher. “I’ve known Brock for many, many years,” said Sassoon. And when the hairstyling mogul saw the show in La Jolla, “it gave me goosebumps,” he reported.

The title of another play in which Sassoon plans to invest is “Trust Your Goosebumps, Cornelius Puck.” So that’s what he did. As soon as Peters mentioned that he was seeking financing for a move to Los Angeles, Sassoon signed up.

Asked how much he’s investing, Sassoon replied, “Enough to make me an associate producer.” He also solicited other investors. But he’ll be out of town on opening night.

Pardy, who is director of performing arts for the Lexington (Ky.) Center Corp., as well as an independent producer, knew Peters from the actor’s 1989 Lexington appearance, with Julie Harris, in “Driving Miss Daisy.” (The same tour later played the Fonda.) He had been trying to assemble a tour of Harris and Peters in another Fugard play when Peters invited him to La Jolla to see “My Children!” “I was smitten with it,” said Pardy.

This production will cost roughly $160,000 to mount, said Pardy. Hae hopes it will then tour, and he foresees the play eventually becoming a movie: “It can be a great piece of commercial art.”

Compensation for La Jolla Playhouse’s role in the production is still being negotiated, according to Pardy and the Playhouse’s managing director, Alan Levey.

GUESTS AT THE GUEST: L.A. Theatre Works is expanding its play reading series with new and larger quarters at Guest Quarters Suite Hotel in Santa Monica, and a deal with KCRW-FM to broadcast the readings.

The series of 18 readings, called “The Play’s the Thing” and directed by Peggy Shannon, will occupy the Guest Quarters ballroom--which seats 300, compared with the 99-seat former home of the series in Venice--on alternating Thursday nights.

First up is Ed Asner as Moliere’s “The Misanthrope,” as adapted by Neil Bartlett and set in contemporary Hollywood. Also appearing in the Nov. 1 reading are Hector Elizondo, Judge Reinhold, JoBeth Williams, Helen Hunt, Darrell Larson and Billy O’Leary.

Although the Nov. 15 program is not yet set, a possibility is “World War II,” by David Rintels, again featuring Asner with Harris Yulin, Robert Foxworth and others.

The Asner connection was instrumental in bringing the series to Guest Quarters. Denny Fitzpatrick, the hotel’s marketing director, said that the idea was hatched in a conversation he had with a business associate of Asner’s who was staying at the hotel. The hotel is contributing $2,000 per reading, plus advertising expenses, said Fitzpatrick.

Coming up later are a contemporary musical adaptation of the Scheherazade story, “Behind the Veil,” by Lenore Bensinger, Martin Kibbee (a songwriter for Little Feat) and Fredric Myrow, on Dec. 6; three Joyce Carol Oates one-acts, two of them brand-new, on Jan. 10; Velina Houston’s tale of Japanese-American war brides, “Tea,” on Jan. 24, and Sybille Pearson’s “Phantasie,” about an adoptee’s search for her birth mother, on Feb. 7.

Admission to each reading will be $7.50 (six readings for $35). Supported by an $8,000 California Arts Council grant, KCRW (89.9 FM) will tape each reading for broadcast at a later date.

“HEIDI” WATCH: “The Heidi Chronicles” has extended its run by a week, from Dec. 23 to Dec. 30. But that last week, as well as performances on Dec. 21-23, will feature Stephanie Dunnam instead of Amy Irving as Heidi.

Dunnam is the actress picked to replace Irving when the show goes on tour. Ticket holders for the Dec. 21-23 performances who want to see Irving may exchange them for an earlier performance, subject to availability, at the Doolittle Theatre box office or by mail.

The first full week of “Heidi” grossed $235,347--a record for Ahmanson-at-the-Doolittle shows.

“STAND-UP” WATCH: Buffeted by Frank Rich’s review in the New York Times, the Broadway production of the Los Angeles hit, “Stand-Up Tragedy,” closed last week after 12 previews and 13 performances. The opinion of the Times’ Sunday critic, David Richards, who had liked the play at Arena Stage in Washington, wasn’t much help; he made it clear that he preferred the Arena production.