Clouds Over the Pasadena Playhouse? : An anti-war play is scrubbed. Financial conditions are cited.

What’s happening at the Pasadena Playhouse, now that artistic director Susan Dietz has resigned?

“I’m riding with Lars,” said David Houk, the real estate developer who owns the Playhouse, referring to the theater’s managing director Lars Hansen. No plans to replace Dietz are in the works.

Yet since Dietz’s departure, Hansen has been completely mum about plans for the future.

The next entry in the subscription season, “Ad Wars,” has been scrubbed, according to a playhouse spokesman.

The play’s anti-war theme--it examines the advertising campaign for a new bomb--contributed to its cancellation, according to Harry Gold, agent for playwright Vince McKewin. Gold said Hansen told him that the play “would not be appropriate right now because of the situation in the Middle East.”

“That’s all the more reason to do it,” playwright McKewin said. In fact, he hopes to rewrite the play, incorporating topical references to the Persian Gulf crisis.

Another reason Pasadena nixed “Ad Wars” was that “they don’t feel they can go with an original play right now” because of the financial condition of the theater, said Gold, quoting Hansen.

Asked specifically about the reasons for removing “Ad Wars” from the schedule, Hansen maintained his no-comment stance. Nor would he or Houk speculate on what might replace it, though Houk said an announcement might be made within the next week.

Houk discouraged a rumor that the replacement would be the Wall Street comedy “Other People’s Money,” and a spokesman for the play in New York said he knew of no plans to present it in Pasadena.

Long-running plans to incorporate a restaurant into the north side of the Playhouse, where two smaller theaters are located, are continuing, said Houk. However, “we will always have a small theater at the Playhouse,” he said, whether it’s where the smaller theaters are located or elsewhere on the premises.

He also confirmed his continuing intention to develop a private club in the building behind the theater that formerly housed the playhouse school.

INHERITANCE POSTPONED: That production of “Inherit the Wind,” originally scheduled to occupy a downtown courtroom beginning Nov. 27, has been postponed to Jan. 30.

An initial delay into December was due to casting problems. But then Jason Miller, who will portray the Clarence Darrow character in the play based on the Scopes trial, was arrested at a Pittsburgh airport and charged with disorderly conduct, marijuana possession, public intoxication and terrorist threats.

“He had demons in his life he had to deal with,” said “Inherit” producer Leonard Grant of Miller, who is perhaps best known for dealing with movie-style demons as “The Exorcist.” Miller has now checked into a rehabilitation center, Grant said. Rehearsals might have begun sooner than the end of January, but Grant chose not to compete with the holidays. So rehearsals will now begin Jan. 3.

Tony Geary and Brandon Maggart also are cast in the production. Director James Sheldon, who planned to depart for Australia in January to work on a movie, has adjusted his schedule and remains with the show.

SECOND CITY WATCH: The 90-seat Tamarind Theatre in Hollywood has become Second City’s second Los Angeles theater.

Second City recently closed up shop at the larger Mayfair Theatre in Santa Monica (though some classes continue in a small space nearby). But beginning tonight, the public may attend Second City student workshops on Thursday evenings at the Tamarind. And Second City classes are held there during the day on Thursdays.

Then, on Fridays and Saturdays, Mass Hysteria--a descendant of Second City--is presenting regular comedy/improv performances at 11 p.m., also officially opening this weekend. Mass Hysteria is led by Robin Menken, a former director of the Second City workshops, who left the organization under less than congenial terms last summer. The group is made up largely of her former Second City students.

“It’s a great irony that they (Second City) followed us to the Tamarind,” said Menken.

“It’s purely coincidence,” said Second City’s Andrew Alexander. He said he heard about the theater from David Fury of Mental Cruelty, another comedy group that recently performed there.

There hasn’t been much progress in the search for a new Second City main stage in Los Angeles, said Alexander, who seeks a venue smaller than the Mayfair, larger than the Tamarind. “There doesn’t seem to be the same audience base here as in Chicago or Toronto,” he said. “Or the community is more diversified and it’s harder to find where that community base is.”

In the meantime, what will happen to the Second City’s old home at the Mayfair?

“I have a real hesitance about theater,” said owner Karl Schober. He cited the competition from government-subsidized theaters, and added that “people love that theater, but they don’t want to pay money to go inside it.”

LATC MONEY HELD UP: Los Angeles Theatre Center may have thought its future was assured at least through January, after the City Council approved $998,390 in funds for it Oct. 17. The amount included $478,000 in facilities support and $520,390 that would be used for bond payments and taxes in December.

But last week the board of the Community Redevelopment Agency, through which LATC’s city money is channeled, voted to put the money for bond payments and taxes on hold until hearing the report of a commission studying the long-term future of LATC.

That report may be released Friday--and will certainly be disseminated before the bond payment and taxes are due.

ELSEWHERE: A memorial service for director and actor Clyde Ventura, known for his stagings of Tennessee Williams plays, will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills. Ventura died Friday of AIDS.

Judd Hirsch will appear in a free reading of “The Hunting” Monday at 8 p.m. at the Matrix Theatre, in Los Angeles. It will be the first in a series of readings sponsored by Left Coast Rep. Information: (213) 852-1445.

A special evening performance of “The Phantom of the Opera” on Dec. 2 will benefit the Actors’ Fund. Information: (213) 933-9244, between 1 and 4 p.m.

“Phantom” cast members will also be among those performing in Center Theatre Group’s second annual AIDS benefit, Dec. 10 at the Mark Taper Forum. Among the others scheduled to appear in “An Evening With Noel Coward” are Tyne Daly, Amy Irving and Richard Thomas. Information: (213) 972-7392.