Preview House Hopes to Go Legit

A new mid-sized theater for Hollywood is in the works.

The owner of the former Preview House, at Sunset Boulevard and Stanley Avenue, plans to convert the facility--best known as a place where test audiences register their reactions to new commercials and pilots--into a 400-seat “legit” theater.

The new theater might represent one of the most substantial infusions of Hollywood money into Los Angeles theater. The building’s owner, Harmony Gold USA, a television miniseries production and distribution company, could spend as much as $2.2 million converting Preview House into a real theater.

One use foreseen for the theater would be as a different kind of preview house. “Our focus would be to use it as a tool to develop projects for film and TV,” said Robert Norton, Harmony Gold’s executive vice president of legal and business affairs, adding that stage productions are a “relatively inexpensive” way to test film and TV ideas.

However, another use for the space is also being talked about: as a home for an already existing nonprofit theater group. Norton said the two uses could coexist, with his company testing film/TV ideas in stage productions during part of the year, and a nonprofit tenant using the theater during the rest of the year--possibly with Harmony Gold getting first crack at screen rights to anything developed by the nonprofit company.

Harmony Gold might even form an alliance with Center Theatre Group to use the new theater as the long-sought mid-size “second space” for the Mark Taper Forum. “We’ve had a lot of interest from CTG,” said Norton.

“I know some of our people have looked at it,” said CTG president Lawrence Ramer. “But it has not gone very far.”

The biggest obstacle is zoning. The location’s current zoning will not permit a theater. (Although audiences regularly filed into the Preview House, it was regarded as a research facility, not a theater, said Norton.)

Harmony Gold applied for a zoning change six weeks ago, but the process could take a year and cost $200,000 in legal fees, estimated Norton. The city council eventually would have to approve the zoning change.

“There are some concerns of nearby residents about traffic and noise,” said a spokeswoman for City Councilman Michael Woo, who represents the neighborhood. “But we’re actively working to resolve them.”

Harmony Gold has already cultivated contacts that could help pave the way for its project. In recent months, the company has co-sponsored seminars, with Theatre LA and Mayor Tom Bradley, about media coverage of theater.

‘Fella’ En Route?: A revival of the Frank Loesser musical “The Most Happy Fella” may become part of the Ahmanson-at-the-Doolittle season.

The production is at Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn. It opened there in April and closes next Sunday. Twin favorable reviews by the daily and Sunday critics of the New York Times prompted talks about taking it to Broadway, sometime next spring, via Los Angeles in the fall. And a source at the Ahmanson said the booking was on.

However, Goodspeed executive director Michael Price emphasized that the deal has not yet come together: “We want it to happen, but it’s something that could fall apart as easily as it could go together.” Ahmanson officials declined comment, pending the announcement of the entire season.

Another ‘Strangers’: Look for L.A.’s first Equity-contract production of “Lovers and Other Strangers” to open at the newly refurbished Ivar Theatre in Hollywood next winter.

A collection of four one-acts by Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna, “Lovers” played briefly on Broadway in 1968, but it became best known from the movie version released in 1970. A fifth one-act was added after the movie.

Unless film or TV jobs interfere, Taylor and Bologna plan to appear in the production as the mother and father of characters they played in the movie.

Producer April Shenandoah said she hopes to open around Valentine’s Day, in keeping with the “lovers” theme, and rotate celebrities in and out of various roles in the play, a la “Love Letters,” during an open-ended run. Broadway is the eventual goal.

Taylor said she and Bologna plan to update the script with “very minor changes.”

Box-Office Watch: The combined L.A./Orange County gross of shows that report box-office figures to Variety hit a new high of $2,626,328 during the week of June 24-30, thanks to a house-record $874,007 for “Les Miserables” at Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Still, L.A.’s big new musicals, “Grand Hotel” and “City of Angels,” weren’t doing as well. The former grossed only about one-third of its potential that week, while the latter grossed only about one-half of its potential.

Only seven productions reported figures to Variety; among the holdouts who never report are Los Angeles Theatre Center, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Westwood Playhouse and South Coast Repertory.

Bruno Memorial: Playwright Anthony Bruno, who died of AIDS on June 14, will be remembered at a memorial service today at 2 p.m. at the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Also an actor and critic, Bruno wrote the long-running 1987-88 play “Soul Survivor,” which was produced in the same Complex where the service will be held. “Soul Survivor” was about a man who dies from AIDS--but then returns to his lover’s life as a sort of blithe spirit.