Couple’s Hopes Riding High on ‘Tales of Tinseltown’

Anticipation is high for “Tales of Tinseltown”--not just at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company, which is opening the West Coast premiere of this new musical tonight for a six-week run, but in the minds of commercial producers Sondra Gilman and Celso M. Gonzalez-Falla, who provided $60,000 enhancement money for this Paul Katz/Michael Colby show.

The enhancement money is in addition to the sets and costumes fashioned by Broadway designers from the show’s 1989 New Jersey production at George Street Playhouse. The two value the sets and costumes at $200,000 to $300,000. They also say they plan to spend additional money on advertising, which may prove critical to the success here given the Gaslamp’s modest subscription base of 1,700 for a 250-seat house.

The hope that Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla expressed in a Hahn Cosmopolitan conference room is that if this production is successful, the show will continue with either a West Coast or Midwest tour, with the ultimate goal being New York. If the same cast is kept, which Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla say is their preference, the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company will share a percentage of the net profits. If the cast changes and there is any subsequent production of this show in London, the United States or Canada in the next five years, the Gaslamp will share in the royalties, which are based on a percentage of the gross.

And if nothing else happens, because of the enhancement money, the Gaslamp still gets a $90,000 production (not counting those pricey sets and costumes) for its usual $30,000 in pre-production costs.

“Tales of Tinseltown” is now in its sixth year of development for Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla, who married one year into the project. The story about an innocent young girl and boy who set out to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood even has some superficial similarities to the story of Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla, who are relative innocents in the theater world. This is only their second project in 10 years and both are in it, they say, out of love for the project and each other.

Gilman scored a big success with her first and only other theater production, “Sophisticated Ladies” in 1981. Gonzalez, a tax lawyer, helped organize the backing.

“Sophisticated Ladies” began as a movie project Gilman was developing about Duke Ellington.

Gilman had produced three independent features up to that point: “The Orphan,” “Bad Timing” and “Take It From the Top.” But the more she worked on the Ellington material, the more she felt it cried out to be a theater piece.

Even though she had never done theater before.

“We were so stupid,” said Gilman with a smile. “We didn’t know what we were supposed to do. So we followed our own instincts and they turned out to be right.”

Because they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to use unknowns on Broadway, they went for talent rather than names, and in the process gave Gregory Hines his first big break as well as giving dancer Judith Jamison her Broadway debut.

Gilman opened “Sophisticated Ladies” on Broadway on March 1, 1981. It was an immediate success and is still in production, currently touring the United Kingdom. She also learned two valuable lessons from the show. One was not to take the critics too seriously. The one time she listened to the critics was in the out-of-town tryouts in Philadelphia when they told her that the show, a song-and-dance piece without dialogue, needed a story. She hired a writer and hated the results. So she dropped the script and opened the show the way she wanted it cold on Broadway.

“We were afraid we would be killed,” she admitted. But the ensuing raves renewed her self-confidence.

“When I went against my guts, I was wrong. I trust my instincts, I trust my feelings and we look at every situation as if it hasn’t been solved before. That’s what ‘Ladies’ did for me.”

The other thing she learned was that she loves theater.

“I felt the excitement,” she said. “I had no idea it would affect me so deeply.”

Gilman said she had been looking for another theater project since 1983, checking out at least two projects a month before she found “Tales of Tinseltown” at the Musical TheatreWorks in New York. She loved it from the start.

“I saw this as a sugar-coated morality play. Each individual in our show makes up his mind about how much of his individual ethics and morality he or she will give up to achieve his goals--fame, fortune, whatever. I felt it was saying something about the excesses of Wall Street when people sold their souls when they didn’t have to because of the seduction of enormous amounts of money.”

The connection between Gilman/Gonzalez-Falla and the Gaslamp was through Harris Goldman (no relation to Kit Goldman, managing director of the Gaslamp). Harris Goldman met the pair when he was executive producer of the Starlight Musical Theatre and was interested in having Starlight do “Sophisticated Ladies” as well as develop new musicals. When Harris Goldman left Starlight in 1989, he introduced Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla to the Gaslamp, where Goldman had signed on as a short-term consultant in 1990.

Not long afterward, Gonzalez-Falla told The Times he would like to see the Gaslamp produce the West Coast premiere of “Tales of Tinseltown” in May, 1991. He now says he is surprised at the accuracy of his prediction, given the fact that since his initial conversations with Kit Goldman, the Gaslamp had to shut down and reorganize to avoid bankruptcy in the face of a debt of about $1.2 million.

The Gaslamp, which reopened in November, 1990, after a six-month hiatus, is still fighting for its life, which Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla say they are well aware of. They also say they believe in the company and see “Tales of Tinseltown” as part of an ongoing relationship.

And now Harris Goldman also continues as part of an ongoing relationship with the couple --as the West Coast consultant for the “Tales of Tinseltown” tour.

PROGRAM NOTES: Movie, stage and film actor Kevin McCarthy will be coming to town to star in “Give ‘em Hell, Harry,” a one-man show about Harry Truman on June 22 at 8 p.m. at San Diego Civic Theatre. . . .

“Sugar Babies II,” a new production of the high burlesque “Sugar Babies” starring Jerry Lewis, Rip Taylor and Chita Rivera, is under consideration for the San Diego Playgoers season, according to Stan Seiden, president of the Nederlander Organization on the West Coast. But the once-talked-about “Meet Me in St. Louis” is definitely not coming here.