Gaslamp Theater Gambles on ‘Frankie and Johnny’

The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company has exactly two weeks before opening Terrence McNally’s “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre. But it has have miles to go, financially speaking, before it opens.

“We’re in--as can be expected in the two weeks before mounting the show--a tight situation. We need to raise $50,000,” said the Gaslamp’s managing director Steve Bevans, adding, however, that the theater has some “good prospects” for the money.

But they don’t have the money yet.

One prospect for the deficit-plagued theater is getting “Frankie and Johnny” on stage. Bevans acknowledges that the chances for launching next year’s season hinge on the San Diego premiere of this Off-Broadway being a hit. (A $5 sneak preview to the show’s last dress rehearsal Nov. 25 is available through the San Diego Theatre League.)

Pam Grier and William Anton will co-star at the Hahn in this love story about a short-order cook trying to persuade a wary waitress that they are meant for more than just a quick passionate encounter.

Bevans said he is hoping for $75,000 in single-ticket sales to help finance the theater’s next season. The entire deficit, however, runs as high as $850,000 to $1 million.

If all goes well, Bevans said, the company will announce its 1991-1992 season in January. It will begin with Alan Ayckbourn’s “A Woman in Mind” in late January or early February for a six-week run, which will complete the suspended 1990 Hahn Cosmopolitan subscription series. The season is scheduled to continue in April of 1991 and play through March of 1992. There will be gaps in the season open to rental shows--probably during the summer months.

Nearly 80-85% of the Gaslamp’s Elizabeth North subscribers exchanged one of the shows they were owed from the canceled season for “Dusk to Dawn at the Sunset,” a co-production with Ensemble Arts Theatre that will run through Nov. 25. Bevans said he is happy with the turnout for “Dusk to Dawn”--which averages houses of 60-95%--and is talking to Ensemble Arts about future co-productions.

If you’ve seen Sheri Glaser’s one-woman show, “Family Secrets” at the Hahn Cosmopolitan, you know all about Mort, his long-suffering wife, Bev, their daughters Sandra and Fern (who renamed herself Kahari) and Grandma Rose, who just discovered octogenarian love.

But, unless you’ve caught the show in the last two weeks, you may have missed a new character: a spiritual channeler named Miguel, who is married to Fern/Kahari.

The Mexican-born Miguel is not officially part of the show yet; Glaser still considers him “a work-in-progress.”

He comes out after the curtain closes on Glaser’s five other characters. And he will continue to appear at each show until “Family Secrets” ends Sunday.

Miguel wears a brightly colored bandanna, a green sharkskin suit, a black T-shirt and a beard. He’s also the only character without a Bronx accent. And he’s the only character who asks for audience participation.

“He lets another entity in who died thousands of years ago. Kumbiya,” Glaser said on the phone from Los Angeles.

Kumbiya? That’s right, Glaser said, spelling the name. As in “Someone singing my Lord, Kumbiya.”

Kumbiya is a person in that song?

Glaser laughed. “To me he is.”

“The way to get Kumbiya to come is to sing the song. Then Kumbiya asks the people if they have some questions for him.”

Some of the questions that have come from the audience are:

What’s going to happen to Dianne Feinstein? and Will there be a war in the Middle East?

Kumbiya’s answers?

“Dianne will stay away on a long vacation, and if we keep thinking there will be a war, there will be. It is up to us to meditate. Life is like a salad bar. You can come up as many times as you like and put different things on your plate, and one day you’ll have dessert.”

Part of Miguel’s imagery comes from his former life as a waiter at a health food restaurant, which is how he met Kahari.

She ordered cream of mushroom soup and he advised against it. He told her she was probably allergic to cow’s milk and guessed that her mother didn’t breast feed her. She cried and he held her for a while.

For Miguel’s character, Glaser is still working out slides and music, which accompany all the other characters. Her creative team is taking shots of the people Miguel fashions himself after: Gandhi, Buddha, Joan of Arc and Mother Teresa. She expects to have the presentation firmed up enough to give Miguel a slot in the show right after intermission when “Family Secrets” reopens at Los Angeles’ Heliotrope Theatre on Nov. 24.

Glaser is also expecting investors at the Los Angeles run who may be interested in financing a New York production of the show. Meanwhile, she is working on a “Family Secrets” script for Showtime.

“If they buy the show, we’ll do it like a special and maybe spin off a series, and then they’ll cast the characters with other people,” said Glaser. “Now that will really be weird.”

PROGRAM NOTES: Thomas Hall has been trying to bring the Maly Theatre of Leningrad back to the Old Globe Theatre for about a year. Now, the Maly recently signed an agreement with the Stamford (Conn.) Theatre to appear there next fall. That could be the start of the consortium Hall is trying to assemble to defray the costs of a Maly visit. “I’m hopeful that it will anchor the beginning of a tour,” the Globe’s managing director said. . . .

The current United States International University production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Theatre in Old Town has attracted the attention of the American College Theatre Festival, an annual competition to find the best productions and performers. Three judges have seen it, and three more are scheduled to see it Sunday, closing night. A decision will be made by the end of December as to whether it will go to Sonoma Valley for a regional contest. The winner there will head to the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington in March. . . .

The San Diego Actors Theatre will sponsor what it hopes will be the first annual San Diego Actors’ Festival Feb. 3-10. The event, which will be held at Sushi Performance Gallery, will feature three to four one-acts per evening and judges from San Diego theaters will select “Festival Encores” for additional performances Feb. 22-23. . . .

Teatro Mascara Magica is back at the Bowery Theatre’s Kingston Playhouse to present a one-act play, “Cronica de Un Secuestro” (“Chronicle of a Kidnapping”) by Argentine playwright Mario Diament on Mondays and Tuesdays. The show will be presented in Spanish through Nov. 27, with an English reading to follow Dec. 3-4. . . .

The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company will present comic Don Victor in his new show, “Yada Dada” Dec. 6-15, with a special signed performance for the hearing-impaired Dec. 13.