S.D. Rep Upstages Gaslamp in Bid for ‘Heidi Chronicles’

The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company courted her but the San Diego Repertory Theatre got her.

Heidi--as in Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play, “The Heidi Chronicles”--was one sought-after lady.

Both theaters wanted to present Wasserstein’s chronicle of a woman’s passage from the 1960s through the 1980s during their 1991-92 seasons.

Sam Woodhouse, producing director of the Rep, refused to confirm whether his theater would actually produce “The Heidi Chronicles,” saying only, “It’s one of the plays we’re considering for next season.”

But Helen Sneed, director of professional rights at the Dramatists Play Service in New York, said both theaters applied for the rights and that the San Diego Rep obtained them.

Still, Sneed acknowledged that getting the rights does not necessarily mean the show will be produced at the Rep.

“The theater is a very tentative business,” Sneed said. “A theater can change its season. If they call and let us know, then we can give it to another theater.”

Sneed would not say why the Rep won out over the Gaslamp. But she did say that the usual factors considered in licensing have to do with theater size (a larger theater means potentially more box office, which translates into higher royalty payments) and, again, potentially, improved production values. The Rep has 561 seats in the Lyceum Stage and 250 in the Lyceum Space. The Gaslamp has 250 in the Hahn Cosmopolitan and 96 in the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company Space.

It’s not the first time such a drama has played behind the scenes here. The La Jolla Playhouse preempted the Gaslamp’s bid to do Lee Blessing’s “Eleemosynary” in 1989, at a time when the Playhouse planned to do the show. The Playhouse ultimately substituted a new Blessing play in its season, and the San Diego premiere fell to the San Diego Actors Theatre in 1990.

Similarly, the San Diego Repertory Theatre pulled the rights for the 1989 San Diego premiere of “The Marriage of Bette and Boo” from the Marquis Public Theatre and the 1988 production of “The Mystery of Irma Vep” from Diversionary Theatre, and the Old Globe Theatre pulled the rights for “Waiting for Godot” from the Marquis to present the play in 1989.

It’s the way of the theater world. Hypothetically, the decisions on licensing are designed, supposedly, to do the best for the play and the playwright.

But for the Gaslamp, it means there is a hole in the calendar for January, 1992. For a little while longer, “To Be Announced” will be all that fills it.

Meanwhile, the Gaslamp is forging ahead with its third annual Streisand Festival of New Plays, a series of Monday night staged readings on Jewish themes at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre Feb. 25 through March 18.

The plays, all new, include “Beau Jest,” by James Sherman, a story of a daughter’s desire to please her parents with the “perfect” husband, Feb. 25; “Black and Jew,” by Rusty Condieff, a satirical look at relationships between African-Americans and Jews (a project co-developed by the Streisand Festival and The Black Theatre Artists Lab at the Los Angeles Theatre Center), March 4; “The Model Apartment,” by Donald Margulies, a dark comedy about two Holocaust survivors who run away from their home to escape their daughter’s emotional problems, March 11; and “A Rosen by Any Other Name,” by Israel Horowitz, a comedy about a Jewish family during World War II that faces anti-Semitism, the Nazi scare, a shellshocked cousin and the most horrifying prospect of all--preparing young Stanley’s bar mitzvah, March 18.

At the San Diego Rep, sales are continuing strongly for the world premiere of “The Life and Life of Bumpy Johnson,” despite last week’s mixed reviews; the company is even talking about the possibility of an extension past the Feb. 16 closing date.

“We had one of our best sales days of the season last week,” Woodhouse said. “The response from the African-American community is great, and sales are slightly below the arc of ‘Burn This.’ An extension is possible, but it is an expensive show to run on a weekly basis.”

The Old Globe has received a grant of $155,000 from the Wells Fargo Bank, the largest corporate grant ever given to the theater.

The money will support three areas: $80,000 goes to the upcoming productions of “The Tempest” and “The Merchant of Venice” in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, $50,000 for the theater’s 1991 Teatro Meta In-Schools Program, a 14-week bilingual outreach program designed to assist teen-age students identified as being at risk of dropping out in 12 San Diego County schools and $25,000 towards the company’s $10 million advancement campaign for facility enhancement and financial stabilization.

What’s in a name? At the Elizabeth North Theatre, the smaller space run by the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company, the name was worth a $75,000 pledge by patron Elizabeth North. But North reneged on the last $35,000 of her pledge, and, after some negotiations and gratitude expressed by Board President George Saadeh for the contribution North did make, North and the Gaslamp agreed to take her name down from the theater. The theater will now return to its original name, the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company.

PROGRAM NOTES: Film and stage actress Annette O’Toole (“Superman II,” “48 Hours,” “The Kennedys of Massachusetts”) will come to the Old Globe Theatre to star in the world premiere of Larry Ketron’s “Sun Bearing Down,” directed by Old Globe Associate Artist Stephen Metcalfe opening March 9. Ketron’s four-character play about the lives of people frequenting a seafood restaurant, also stars Old Globe veteran Bill Geisslinger as well as Broadway actors James Harper and Adam S. Philipson, who will be making their Old Globe debuts. . . .

A documentary on the same subject as Lillian Garrett’s new play at the Old Globe Theatre, “The White Rose,” which tells the story of five German students who were killed during the Nazi era for defying Hitler, will air Saturday from 9-10:50 p.m. on KPBS-TV. The film, which was made possible by the Old Globe and AT&T; New Plays for the ‘90s project, will be followed by a panel discussion featuring playwright Lillian Garrett, leading actress Natalia Nogulich and director and executive producer Craig Noel. . . .

Given the tense feelings surrounding the Persian Gulf War, Teri Mitze Solomon, founder and producer of the Great American Children’s Theatre, said she is glad that she canceled her plans last August to bring “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” as part of a children’s theater tour to San Diego. . . .

“Necessities,” the new Velina Hasu Houston play about illegal adoption, part of the Old Globe’s summer season, will have a staged reading Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage. Houston and her director, Julianne Boyd, will discuss the play after the reading. . . .