Theater Will Try to Weed Out the Wicked : Proposal: After last week’s violence at a rap show, theater owners plan to screen prospective performers to try to keep out troublemakers.

Officials of the Celebrity Theatre, site of a violent melee during a rap show last week, said Wednesday that they will screen prospective performers and bar those they believe would present a threat to the safety of concert-goers.

A. Raymond Hamrick III, a Universal City attorney and a spokesman for California Celebrity Theatre, said the theater’s management has proposed not to book acts that would attract a “negative element into the community.”

Hamrick’s concerns were addressed in a letter to Mayor Fred Hunter on Wednesday, less than a week after unruly patrons at the downtown arena clashed, leaving a 16-year-old boy wounded and forcing city police to clear the theater and cancel the performances of rappers Ice Cube and Too Short.

“The theater management and board of directors are extremely concerned that some of the acts in various fields may bring a negative element into the community, and with respect to those acts, the theater has determined that they will not be booked (there) in the future,” Hamrick’s letter stated.

Hamrick said the theater would not bar any “particular type of musical performance” and asked Hunter to consider Saturday’s performance of rapper Vanilla Ice as an example of a successful and safe rap production.

Hunter, who called for a ban on all rap concerts at the theater following last week’s violence, said Wednesday that he was pleased with the response but wanted a meeting with theater representatives, the police chief and the city manager to work out details of the proposal. He said he wanted the screening applied to all acts.

“We could have a punk rock act that could get out of hand, too,” Hunter said. “It’s great on their part that they are voluntarily taking some action.”

Hamrick’s letter did not discuss how the acts would be evaluated or answer questions other council members had raised about theater security.

Councilman Irv Pickler said he wanted time to consider the theater’s proposal before making a decision.

“What I’m concerned about is keeping out the element that causes these problems,” he said.

Danny Goldberg of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Southern California affiliate said he objected to the screening proposal and offered to represent artists who believe that they will be discriminated against by future theater policy.

“I think politicians should stay out of the entertainment business,” Goldberg said from his Los Angeles office. “It’s a sad but predictable example of politicians’ reactions to fear.”

Meanwhile, promoters who have booked rap acts in California theaters generally accepted the proposal.

“We look at every band we book,” said Morris Jacobs, general manager of Encino-based Avalon Attractions, which books acts at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. He also said attention is paid to performances at other arenas. “We watch it very carefully. We watch what the crowds are doing and the temperament of the audience when the band is playing.”

Bill Graham, who promoted last Saturday’s performance of Ice Cube and Too Short in Oakland--the first rappers to play that city after a one-year moratorium on rap shows was lifted--said he believes in defending the free expression rights of performers but also “reserves the right to choose” which acts he represents.

“It’s my name out there,” Graham said. “But there also is the principle of protecting the rights of artists to express themselves. This is a free society.”

Arleail Cannon, a spokeswoman for Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium, site of Oakland’s Saturday night rap show, said officials there now require promoters of rap concerts to provide at least 130 security officers both inside and outside the auditorium.

The auditorium and the Oakland Coliseum imposed the yearlong ban after a series of violent incidents at rap shows, including a chair-throwing brawl at the coliseum involving rival gangs in December, 1989, during a show by controversial rappers 2 Live Crew.

Anaheim police, who dispatched more than 30 officers to the theater last week, have filed no charges in the shooting of Los Angeles youth Willie Baker, 16, who was shot once in the stomach. Baker was reported to be in satisfactory condition at Long Beach Memorial Hospital.

Lt. Marc Hedgpeth said Wednesday that a man who fit witnesses’ description of the gunman was brought in for questioning the night of the shooting but was no longer considered a suspect.