San Diego Spotlight : Rep Rides Out Rough Road With ‘Bumpy Johnson’ Play

Good news for 1991: The San Diego Repertory Theatre, which had described its season as endangered a few months ago, will complete its 1990-91 program on schedule. Rehearsals began Tuesday for the final play scheduled, “The Life and Life of Bumpy Johnson.”

Money still needs to be raised, but the cast is set and composer Max Roach, playwright Amiri Baraka and director George Ferencz flew in this week to get the ambitious world premiere musical about real-life African-American gangster Bumpy Johnson under way.

Lance Roberts, the Los Angeles-based actor who starred in “Cats” in Los Angeles and in the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company production of “I’m Not Rappaport” in 1988, will star as Bumpy Johnson. Veteran San Diego actor Damon Bryant will play Langston Hughes, and Ronelle Bey will reprise the role of blues singer Bessie Smith that she created at the show’s workshop in Newark earlier this year.

Still reeling from the critical reception of its premiere-laden 1989 season, “The Life and Life of Bumpy Johnson” is the San Diego Rep ‘s one new show on its 1990-91 schedule, and it is just part of what promises to be a better year for new plays on the San

Diego theater scene. Last March, the Old Globe Theatre launched Neil Simon’s ill-fated “Jake’s Women,” which, despite some promising moments, will go down in history as the first of Simon’s plays not to go to Broadway. And the La Jolla Playhouse produced a shaky production called “Don Quixote de la Jolla,” as well as a highly successful West Coast premiere of “My Children! My Africa!” There was also some critical support for the Old Globe’s “White Man Dancing” and the La Jolla Playhouse’s “Life During Wartime.” Still, 1990 was a better year for the classics, revivals and even contemporary plays than for new work. But 1991 begins auspiciously with the first of two new plays to be funded by the nationally based AT&T; New Plays for the Nineties Project: “The White Rose,” opening Jan. 17 at the Old Globe Theatre. The next play to be funded by AT&T;, “The Heliotrope Bouquet by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin,” will be at the La Jolla Playhouse in mid-August.

The Old Globe’s entire winter season, in fact, heavily emphasizes new work: the West Coast premiere of A.R. Gurney’s newest play, “The Snow Ball;” the California premiere of August Wilson’s latest, “Two Trains Running,” and the world premiere of Larry Ketron’s “Sun Bearing Down.”

Starlight Musical Theatre is investing in a new musical, “For My Country--the USO Musical.” Even the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company is in the process of negotiating the West Coast premiere of a new musical, “Tales of Tinseltown,” that comes complete with a New-York based producer, Celso Gonzalez, and Broadway ambitions.

“The Debutante,” the Gaslamp’s previously announced world-premiere-in-progress, seems not to be talked about much now.

All six shows scheduled for the Gaslamp’s 1991-92 season, all of which are to be done at the Hahn, will be San Diego premieres, according to Susan Aronson, director of marketing and public relations. The company hopes to make an official announcement of the season by the end of this week, pending negotiations on two shows currently in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, officials at the company are anxious to wrap up the season and start a subscription drive as soon as possible. “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which has been extended through Jan. 20, and “A Woman in Mind, which opens Feb. 7, are both part of the 1990 season. So the Gaslamp is looking to the new season as its first opportunity in more than a year to raise money through subscription sales. Its 1991-92 season will run from April, 1991, through April, 1992.

Another question on the minds of Gaslamp officials is what to do about the Elizabeth North Theatre.

The Gaslamp, at present, continues to make the 99-seat space available as a rental facility to small theater groups. This might be a good time to think about creating a consortium of San Diego’s homeless theaters that could share the space and the rent at the Elizabeth North.

Teatro Mascara Magica. Southeast Community Theatre. San Diego Actors Theatre. Ensemble Arts Theatre. Sledgehammer Theatre. They are all worthy companies, yet none can afford a year-round space or a yearlong season. If three or four or these could band together, each committing to a two- or three-play season over a course of three or four months, then these theaters would have a permanent home that they could afford and the Gaslamp would have permanent tenants so that it could give all its concentration to the season at the Hahn.

Another space that might be ripe for a consortium is the Sixth Avenue Playhouse, run by the San Diego Repertory Theatre, which has been vacant since “Nunsense” closed in early November. Theaters like to hold onto extra venues so that they can extend hits, but surely even a contract arrangement could allow for some contingencies.

PROGRAM NOTES: More promises for the new year: One of the longstanding holes in the San Diego theater scene has been the lack of a consistent commitment to professionally produced theater for children. With the exception of occasional programming by Starlight Musical Theatre and community theater efforts, San Diego audiences have had to largely make do with shows that fly in and fly out on a one- or two-day basis. Now Lamb’s Players Theatre’s artistic director Robert Smyth says they will launch a children’s production sometime in 1991 in a space outside the group’s National City home. If the show attracts the hoped-for audience, a new children’s theater company may be developed. . . .

The La Jolla Playhouse has joined the growing list of theatrical companies planning a December holiday show, although it may not be ready to do so this year. It is, however, likely to extend its season through December to add a show in 1992, according to artistic director Des McAnuff and managing director Alan Levey. . . .The Old Globe may add a holiday show as early as 1991 and Lamb’s Players Theatre, which experienced remarkable success with both its holiday shows in 1990, may add a third one in 1991.

Diversionary Theatre, San Diego’s only gay and lesbian theater company, will launch the American premiere of “Coming Soon,” by Debbie Klein, in February. Klein, who is half of a British comedy duo called Parker and Klein, wrote the play as a spoof of soap operas from a woman’s point of view. Auditions are Jan. 7 and 8 at 7 p.m. at Diversionary’s home at 23rd Street and Broadway in Golden Hill.