Rate Raises Create a Royalty Pain : The new assessments are for plays scheduled for the 1990-91 season. The increases were not anticipated when the budget was drawn up.

As if the Laguna Playhouse did not have enough trouble trying to acquire the rights to “Big River,” it has been hit with a sudden increase in the royalties demanded for two other plays for this season.

“Our budget was totally emasculated,” says playhouse executive director Richard A. Stein. “We’ve been told we will be paying the same rates as professional theaters like South Coast Repertory and the Mark Taper Forum.”

The new rates have cost the playhouse $9,000 instead of $1,400 for Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound,” which ran Oct. 30 through Nov. 25 in the playhouse’s 418-seat Moulton Theatre. And the royalties on Tina Howe’s “Painting Churches,” which begins previews today and runs through Feb. 10, are projected to cost $6,500 instead of $1,400.

The increases are the result of an across-the-board reassessment of large amateur theater companies by Samuel French Inc., a major play-licensing agency that controls the rights to hundreds of properties, “Broadway Bound” and “Painting Churches” among them.

Another large agency, Dramatists Play Service, also has notified Stein that it is reevaluating the royalty rates to be paid by the playhouse for its properties. The agency licenses Lee Blessing’s “A Walk in the Woods,” which is scheduled to open in March.

Stein said he had not yet been informed of the new rate but that he expects it to rise.

Until now, he noted, the playhouse generally has paid amateur royalties on all non-musical properties of $75 for the first-night performance and $60 for each performance after that.

Professional rates for dramatic plays tend to be about 5% of gross ticket sales, depending on the property. “Broadway Bound,” for example, reportedly commands a 12% royalty because of its popularity.

“Samuel French told us of their new policy after our season began and after we had projected our budget,” Stein said. “We told them we couldn’t afford it and asked to negotiate.

“I’m not at liberty to say exactly what rate we’re paying them, but they agreed to accept a one-time reduction from the going rate until we start the 1991-92 season.”

The playhouse, like other amateur companies large and small, already pays royalties for musicals based upon a percentage of gross ticket sales.

Stein said the 1990-91 playhouse budget had made allowance for a total of $26,000 in royalty payments for a season of six plays, including two musicals.