Grove Fest Plans Expanded ’92 Season

The Grove Shakespeare Festival will launch an expanded seven-play subscription season in 1992 with the first Orange County production of A. R. Gurney’s “Love Letters,” which recently closed a 16-month run at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, theater officials announced Saturday.

Three other plays to be featured at the Grove’s indoor Gem Theatre include actor David Birney’s adaptation of Mark Twain’s “Secret Diaries of Adam and Eve,” to star Birney and Joan Van Ark. It will run in repertory with “Love Letters,” May 7-June 13. Still to be selected will be a summer musical in the Gem, July 8-Aug. 8 and “an American classic,” also in the Gem (Oct. 1-31).

As previously reported, a three-Shakespeare-play outdoor season at the Festival Amphitheatre next summer will consist of “The Tempest,” directed by Jules Aaron with Alan Mandell as Prospero (June 18-July 18); an adaptation of “Henry IV, Parts I and II,” to be staged, Aaron said, by the Grove’s yet-to-be-appointed artistic director (July 23-Aug. 22); and “Macbeth,” (Aaron staging, Aug. 27-Sept. 20).

Among three non-subscription offerings, Aaron will direct actress Salome Jens in the world premiere of her one-woman “Falling in Love Again: An Evening With Marlene Dietrich” Jan. 16-Feb. 16. Aaron is instituting a festival of staged readings of new American plays (Aug. 12-29). The season will conclude with the company’s annual holiday production of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” (Nov. 26-Dec. 30, 1992).

Managing director Barbara Hammerman announced contributions from McDonnell Douglas ($3,000) and Pacific Bell ($2,000). Information: (714) 636-7213.