‘A Few Good Men’ a Likely Doolittle Candidate

“A Few Good Men” is likely to open at the Doolittle Theater in October, starring Timothy Busfield of “thirtysomething” fame and launching the 1991-92 Ahmanson at the Doolittle season, as well as the show’s national tour.

Aaron Sorkin’s military courtroom drama had been included on the short list of possibilities sent to Ahmanson subscribers earlier this spring. Although contracts have not been signed, the show’s general manager, Stuart Thompson, and a spokeswoman for Busfield said the booking is on. Theater officials declined comment pending the official announcement of the season.

Busfield appeared in the Broadway production of the play last summer, replacing the original cast’s Tom Hulce.

August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” is expected next at the Doolittle, opening early in January. Yale Repertory Theatre managing director Benjamin Mordecai said he hopes “Trains” will be a co-production structured “exactly the same” as the one for Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” which was a partnership among Yale, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson and Broadway’s Jujamcyn Theaters.

With “Lost in Yonkers” arriving at the Doolittle next summer, as previously reported, the remaining hole in the season is the spring slot.

One of the possibilities mentioned on the short list has been eliminated--a spokeswoman for Sir Peter Hall said that his staging of Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming” will not make the move to L.A. From the original list, that leaves only “Lucifer’s Child” and “A Great American Classic” as possibilities.

Paduafest: The 14th annual Padua Hills Playwrights’ Festival will present eight new plays in repertory, July 18 to Aug. 11, at the Art & Design Center, California State University at Northridge.

Making up series “A” (Thursdays and Fridays at 7 p.m.) will be Julie Hebert’s “The Knee Desires the Dirt,” Susan Mosakowski’s “The Tight Fit,” Leon Martell’s “Metro Claus” and Susan Champagne’s “Song of Songs.”

Scheduled for the “B” series (Saturdays and Sundays at 7 p.m.) are Murray Mednick’s “Heads,” Robert Hummer’s “Fetters,” John O’Keefe’s “The Promotion” and Kelly Stuart’s “The Interpreter of Horror.”

Conspicuous by his absence from that list is one of the most familiar faces from Padua’s past, playwright/director John Steppling. He’s taking his “Teenage Wedding”--which he introduced at the Cast Theater in 1989--to the Home for Contemporary Theatre and Art, an Off Off Broadway theater in New York’s Tribeca district, opening July 10. This will be Steppling’s New York debut--except for a workshop production “years ago that I’d just as soon forget,” he said.

Asked about his absence from Padua, Steppling said that “Padua might benefit from a break from some of the writers who have been there for years. Things get a little inbred sometimes.” He added that the break will probably be good for him, too, though he added that he remains a Padua supporter.

While Steppling may have hoped his departure might inject new blood into Padua, it didn’t--at least not on any significant scale. Only one of the eight playwrights in this year’s crop has never had work produced there.

Meanwhile, three previous Padua productions will be restaged Saturday at a benefit for Padua Hills at the Art & Design Center. Included on the bill are Nancy Larson’s “Imitations,” Hebert’s “True Beauties” and Mednick’s “Coyote IV--Other Side Camp.” Greg Hormel of the Blasters will perform during intermission, and slated to introduce the plays are Amy Madigan, Ed Harris, Michael Ontkean and Beth Henley. Tickets, including refreshments and cocktails, cost $100. Information: (213) 913-2636.

Princefest: The Music Center’s range looked narrower than usual during the past two weeks. On the north end of the Center was, of course, “The Phantom of the Opera,” directed by Harold Prince. On the south end was another romantic fantasy, Puccini’s “The Girl of the Golden West,” in a Music Center Opera staging by the very same Prince.

Though Prince has had three productions on Broadway simultaneously, he said he believed this marked the first time two of his shows have been up virtually side by side.

The only Prince-less part of the Center right now is the Mark Taper Forum, run by artistic director Gordon Davidson. “I wonder why Gordon hasn’t cooked up something for me,” quipped Prince. He hastened to add that he was, however, the original producer/director of “A Little Night Music,” a Davidson-directed version of which is playing in the Ahmanson subscription series at the Doolittle.

Puccini’s opera and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical even share a little of the same music. One orchestral motif, repeated several times in Puccini’s score, sounds remarkably like a surging phrase in “The Music of the Night,” up “Phantom” way.

“These things happen all the time,” said Prince, regarding the resemblance between the phrases. “I’m sure they’re unintentional.”

In the Lloyd Webber song, the Puccini-like phrase follows another phrase that sounds like a quote from “Come to Me, Bend to Me,” from “Brigadoon.” If the Taper had only hired Prince to stage a simultaneous “Brigadoon” this season, musical buffs could have had a field day comparing . . . notes.