Grove Festival Announces Expanded 7-Play Subscription Season for 1992

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 through June 13.

Still to be selected will be a summer musical in the Gem, July 8 through Aug. 8 (possibly “Nunsense” or “Beehive”), and “an American Classic,” also in the Gem (Oct. 1 through 31). Candidates are William Inge’s “Bus Stop,” Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” or Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge.”

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 through 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 through Aug. 22); and “Macbeth,” (Aaron staging, Aug. 27 through 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 through Feb. 16. Aaron is instituting a festival of staged readings of new American plays (Aug. 12 through 29). The season will conclude with the company’s annual holiday production of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” (Nov. 26 through Dec. 30).

Managing director Barbara Hammerman announced contributions from McDonnell Douglas ($3,000) and Pacific Bell ($2,000), while festival managing director Charles Johanson announced a $20,000 show of support from the city of Garden Grove.

Hammerman also said the company will offer a special production April 24 through 26 to tie in with the 400th anniversary of the first production of a Shakespeare play in London.

The Grove’s annual summer fund-raiser, “A Midsummer Night’s Eve at the Grove,” featuring scenes and readings by various company members and guest actors, will be held July 27.