STAGE : Latino Theater Company Aims for Cultural Diversity

Teatro Mascara Magica, San Diego’s first professional Latino theater company, may be about to metamorphose into a multicultural company.

The company plans to stage “La Pastorale” in December, as a co-production with the Old Globe Theatre, and will strive to integrate talent from the African American and Asian theater communities.

It hasn’t been easy for any of these groups to make it in the crowded, competitive world of San Diego theater. Now, instead of struggling separately, they hope to find strength in working together.

“La Pastorale” will run Dec. 12-22 at a venue still to be announced. The show has been adapted by Raul Moncada from traditional Christmas tales about shepherds fighting the devil on their way to the manger. Moncada is the multicultural program associate at the Old Globe.

Jorge Huerta, the artistic director for Teatro Mascara Magica, said the ultimate goal of the company is to fashion a season to reflect the input of four artistic associates: Huerta and William Virchis, who co-created Teatro Mascara Magica as a Latino company; Floyd Gaffney, who directs shows reflecting the African American experience for Southeast Community Theatre, and Anasa Briggs-Graves, an African American actress/producer/director who directed “State of the Art Heart,” playing at the Kingston Playhouse through Sept. 1.

“We’ve given Mascara Magica a couple of years now as a Latino project and I think we’ll be stronger if we combine with other communities that are disenfranchised,” Huerta said.

The Mascara Magica team has met with Maya Hu, executive director of the San Diego Chinese Center and the producer of the two Chinese theater projects that played at the Lyceum Space last year and this year. Huerta said he would like to integrate her group with Mascara Magica as well.

“We want to figure out how we can start working together,” Hu said. “Everybody is really excited about it.”

The ultimate plan of this gathering of theaters is to come up with a season of projects chosen alternately by the different artistic associates. “The Trickster of Trinidad,” a Don Juan tale to be directed by Virchis, will kick off that season in March at the Educational Cultural Complex.

In the meantime, each director is working on independent projects. Huerta will direct “Burning Patience” at a bilingual theater company in Washington, opening Sept. 26 in Spanish and Oct. 3 in English. Gaffney is directing the fourth annual San Diego Christmas production of Langston Hughes’ “Black Nativity” as a Southeast Community Theatre project at the Educational Cultural Complex, Nov. 29-Dec. 22, and Hu is producing a sequel of last year’s “The Monkey King,” called “ The Monkey King and the Spider Women” for a production in spring of 1992.

For the past few years, Starlight Musical Theatre has been warring within, trying to determine whether its mission is to present older or newer fare.

It looks as if the golden-oldie fans have prevailed.

On the board for next season are “West Side Story,” “My Fair Lady” and “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which just happened to be a box office record breaker when the company produced it last season.

According to an insert in Starlight’s current “Evita” program, the balance of the season will be chosen from “such great shows as ‘Gypsy,’ ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ ‘Grease,’ ‘Guys & Dolls,’ ‘No No Nanette,’ “Mame” and ‘Camelot.’ ”

The insert adds that there may be “an exciting surprise or two!”

But the way things are going, don’t hold your breath.

The hills are alive with the sound of memories: Barbara Crandall, who just happens to be the granddaughter of Maria Von Trapp, the central character in “The Sound of Music,” will attend the opening-night reception of the Christian Community Theatre production of the show tonight at the Kit Carson Amphitheater in Escondido.

Crandall, 41, lives in Poway. And she remembers her grandmother well. Maria died March 28, 1987, at 82 of intestinal problems. (Baron Von Trapp died in 1947 at age 67--before Crandall was born.)

Crandall, whose maiden name is Von Trapp (her father’s name was Werner, which was changed to Kurt in the play) was born in Vermont, where the Von Trapp family relocated after fleeing Austria. (For those interested in Trappmania, Maria and the baron had three more children after they got married. Their youngest now runs a ski lodge in Vermont.)

Crandall remembers that Maria “was definitely a lively person. She had a vitality. She loved to sing.” But she also remembers that when Maria made up her mind to do something, it was best not to try to stop her. Once when Maria was in a plane, she got a pilot to fly off course so that she could see a particular mountain.

Once, on a ship, she insisted that she get to cook in the kitchen and make dinner for the passengers--Austrian dumplings with sauerkraut. And when “The Sound of Music” was filmed, she insisted she would be one of the people passing by in it. She had Crandall, then 12 1/2, with her, when she went to Austria to talk the producer into letting her appear in the film.

“Against the wishes of the producer she got her way,” Crandall said. “She was a very strong-willed person.”

If you rent the movie, Maria is wearing a kerchief and an Austrian dirndl, carrying a basket and passing by just before Julie Andrews comes through the archways of the church singing “I have confidence in me.”

PROGRAM NOTES: The La Jolla Playhouse and The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center will present a free seminar called “The Ragtime Moment,” Monday at 7 p.m at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. The seminar will complement the current Playhouse production of “The Heliotrope Bouquet by Scott Joplin & Louis Chauvin” at the Mandell Weiss Forum. . . . Tickets go on sale Saturday at 11 a.m. for a pay-what-you-can performance of Athol Fugard’s “A Lesson From Aloes” on Aug. 31 at 2 p.m. at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre. Tickets can be purchased at either the La Jolla Playhouse or the Educational Cultural Complex. The next and final Playhouse pay-what-you-can performance will be for the musical “Elmer Gantry.” Tickets go on sale Oct. 18 at 11 a.m. for the Oct. 26 2 p.m. matinee.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

ATHOL FUGARD’S ‘A LESSON FROM ALOES’

Athol Fugard has developed a reputation for being the conscience of white South Africa. He has become internationally renowned for his plays about the high price of prejudice and the complex nature of the wrongs done in a country he clearly loves very much. When he writes a play, people listen to what that play says about the South African mind. And when he performs, it’s a good bet that he should be seen. Fugard makes his West Coast acting debut in the La Jolla Playhouse production of his play “A Lesson From Aloes,” which he also directs. The show opens Sunday at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre.