STAGE WATCH : Celtic Arts Center Books ‘Gunman’ Into Ivar : It’s the first legitimate booking for the former Hollywood burlesque house in almost 20 years--and a gamble for An Claidheamh Soluis.

The Ivar Theatre returns to life as a bona fide playhouse next week. An Claidheamh Soluis Celtic Arts Center will move its production of Sean O’Casey’s “The Shadow of a Gunman” into the 262-seat Hollywood theater on Feb. 1.

It’s an audacious move for An Claidheamh Soluis, which has operated out of a 68-seat space on Hollywood Boulevard for five years, presenting “Shadow” there last fall in “a production that put us into the black for the first time,” said the center’s artistic director, Brian o h-Eachtuigheirn.

Enough money has been raised to keep the show open at the Ivar for two weeks, at $25,000 a week, and it will be extended if box-office returns warrant it, said O h-Eachtuigheirn. He added that “the subject matter is very topical. It deals with people in a war, it deals with nationalism.”

The production will employ six actors (playing 11 characters) under Actors’ Equity’s new Hollywood Area Theatre contract--which was designed to encourage production in such long-neglected mid-sized houses as the Ivar.

Although the Ivar has been the site of burlesque shows, it reportedly hasn’t hosted a run of a real play since late 1973. The building’s owner, the Inner City Cultural Center, plans productions of its own at the Ivar in the fall--and eventually hopes to expand the balcony so that the theater can seat nearly 500.

Orpheum Watch: Speaking of long-dormant theaters, was it premature to pull the plug on “Sarafina!,” which was to have opened Wednesday at the Orpheum, a vintage downtown movie palace?

Bob Stein, who books live events into the theater, thinks so. Based on advance sales, he said that “if it was my show, I would not have been thrilled, but I would not have been panicky either.”

Local “Sarafina!” producer Joan Stein reported “significant group sales” of between $100,000-$200,000. But she added that the weekly break-even point for the run would have been $325,000.

“It was uncanny. When the war hit, particularly when Israel was hit, single-ticket sales came to a screeching halt,” said Judith Weston of the International Exchange Foundation, one of the show’s local presenters. “We took a real hard look and decided that a better time would be a few months from now”--when the public’s preoccupation with the war presumably will have subsided.

Weston said she hopes “Sarafina!” can be rescheduled at the Orpheum for a May or June run.

“We’re all dedicated to bringing it to L.A.,” said Jackie Schrock, president of Roadworks, the company that books the “Sarafina!” tour. “It’ll be just as good, if not better, in the spring.” She said the engagement could be “as early as April” but declined to comment on the possibility that the show might play in a theater other than the Orpheum. She agreed with Weston that “the decision (to cancel the scheduled run) needed to be made. . . . People are sitting glued to their television sets.”

The Orpheum isn’t totally unbooked. The Famous People Players will appear there April 8-12, doing two shows each morning, primarily to school audiences. The group is a troupe from Canada that uses life-sized puppets and fluorescent props under ultraviolet light. Most of the performers are developmentally handicapped. Their show “A Little Like Magic,” played Broadway in 1986.

Ebony in Trouble: Another inner-city theater that’s having financial problems is the Ebony Showcase on Washington Boulevard. Its owners, Nick and Edna Stewart, are trying to raise $150,000 for a mortgage payment by Feb. 1.

The theater, with one 300-seat hall and another 99-seat space, has been used primarily for rental productions since 1984, when expensive earthquake renovation began. “But now they’re going after funding and trying to get back to where they were,” said a spokesman for the Stewarts.

CMT Watch: Laura Zucker, co-producer of the now-dormant Back Alley Theatre in Van Nuys and chairwoman of Associated Theatres of Los Angeles, has joined California Music Theatre in Pasadena as interim managing director. She replaces James Blackman, who moved to Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera as vice president, managing director. . . . Noel Harrison will play Henry Higgins for the first time since his father--Henry Higgins creator Rex Harrison--died, in the CMT “My Fair Lady” at Pasadena Civic Auditorium March 6-24.