THEATER : Troupe’s ‘Big River’ Plans Hit Snag : The agency controlling the rights accuses the Laguna Playhouse of unethical behavior in its publicity. The theater maintains that it is being unfairly singled out.

The Laguna Playhouse is facing a major test this week over the right to stage “Big River” after being accused of “unethical” behavior by the agency that controls the rights to the 1985 Tony Award-winning musical.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein Theatre Library in New York maintains that the amateur playhouse, which has roughly 8,300 subscribers and a $1.1-million budget, has scheduled a “Big River” revival from May 14 to June 9 without having acquired or even applied for permission to do so.

In a telephone interview with The Times on Friday, library director Tom Briggs was emphatic: “Laguna did an unethical thing. We therefore sent them a letter last fall saying they did not have the right to do the play.”

The playhouse nevertheless has continued to publicize “Big River” as part of its season.

Meanwhile, playhouse artistic director Douglas Rowe said that Briggs reiterated the library’s position in a separate phone conversation, also on Friday.

The repeated rejection would seem to have ended the matter--except that unrestricted amateur rights to “Big River” have been made available by the library for the first time this week to any theater troupe willing to pay for them.

“We are being singled out for a spanking,” said Rowe, who concedes that he did not apply in writing for permission to do the show before announcing it last July--although he said he did ask for rights verbally after getting the library’s letter. “That was my mistake,” he admitted. “I didn’t follow through.”

Rowe denies acting unethically, however. He maintains that, because of the nature of the business, “it is not uncommon” for theaters to schedule shows and to publicize them before rights have been obtained.

Subscription campaigns require long lead times, he said. That sometimes forces theaters to anticipate acquisition of play rights not nailed down at the time a season must be announced, and to presume that they will be routinely granted at a later date.

Indeed, the library itself “had anticipated releasing the amateur rights last fall,” Briggs acknowledged.

Now that they have been released, Rowe says he believes that the library should be able to come to some sort of agreement with the playhouse despite the admitted transgression.

Rowe has a contingency plan (see accompanying story), but, he said, “if there is any way on earth we can get the rights, we will. ‘Big River’ is our absolute first choice as the final production of the season.”

Even so, there is a further complication with equal if not greater significance in Briggs’ view: In April, 1990--three months before the playhouse announced its unauthorized plans--the Fullerton Civic Light Opera Company obtained professional stage rights to “Big River,” which have long been available, for a revival to run from May 17 to June 2 at Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton.

It was light opera producer Griff Duncan, in fact, who first alerted the Rodgers and Hammerstein Library to the playhouse announcement. According to Briggs, Duncan sent the 1990-91 playhouse brochure to the library and lodged a complaint that he did not want to compete with another “Big River” scheduled at the same time.

Briggs noted that although Fullerton’s rights are non-exclusive, “if Fullerton got a verbal assurance from us that Laguna would not have the show during that period, and Fullerton went ahead on that basis, we would try to keep that commitment.”

Duncan said in a separate telephone interview with The Times that “I was never told we could have the rights exclusively. I have nothing in my contract that says that either. They simply told me Laguna did not have the rights.”

Besides, he added, “I have no problem with Laguna doing the show. My position is: ‘Let them do it. But give me a break on the high (royalty) rate I’m paying.’ I don’t see Laguna at fault here.”

For his part, Rowe finds those comments surprising, given what he called Duncan’s previously unyielding attitude: “Griff Duncan told me personally he was not going to let us do the show unless he gets a cut in the royalty, period.”

Briggs, however, moots the possibility of a reduction: “Fullerton is paying the same royalty everybody else pays for professional rights. They’re not paying more. And that wouldn’t be negotiable.”

The royalty for “Big River,” according to knowledgeable sources, is 13% of gross ticket sales.

Meanwhile, it’s arguable that the issue of competitive productions shouldn’t come up at all, given Rowe’s assertion and Duncan’s concurrence in remarks to The Times on Friday that there is little, if any, market overlap between the playhouse and the light opera company. Their venues are separated by more than 25 miles.

The Solomonic wisdom of Judge Wapner may be needed to sort out this three-way dispute. But what Rowe finds particularly galling is that, now that amateur rights are available, any community troupe in Orange County except the playhouse could do “Big River.”

Indeed, the library customarily releases amateur rights “without restriction,” according to Briggs, which means that they may be acquired regardless of whether a professional production has been licensed nearby.

Briggs concedes that of the 72 play properties represented by the library--including musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin and Andrew Lloyd Webber--only one, “The Sound of Music,” currently has a slight restriction because of a small Midwestern bus-and-truck tour in secondary markets.

Whatever the outcome, the rights problem over “Big River” already has exacerbated tensions between the playhouse’s two top leaders.

Executive Director Richard A. Stein said he is taking “a wait-and-see” attitude toward the negotiations and will not get involved directly because “it is the artistic director’s responsibility” to acquire play rights. But, Stein said, he will discuss the situation later this week with members of the playhouse board.

“I’m averse to cleaning up other people’s messes here,” he added pointedly. “I don’t like somebody creating a mess and saying, ‘OK, you handle it.’ This is not the first mess I’ve been asked to clean up here.”

Rowe, who has been artistic or managing director of the playhouse since 1976, announced in September that he was resigning his post, effective in June.