How Dudley Moore Came to Tread the Boards at LATC

How can the struggling Los Angeles Theatre Center afford movie star Dudley Moore, who will appear in “The Lay of the Land” at the downtown theater, opening next month?

Specific salaries are confidential, said artistic director Bill Bushnell. Then he added that the theater has “a policy that all actors are paid Equity’s LORT C scale--and that policy has never been violated.” That translates to a salary of $480 a week.

“I remember getting more money when I was doing shows 30 years ago,” Moore said. But he’s not complaining: “I’m not going in there to bring LATC even more to its knees. I’m not looking to get rich.” He’s doing Mel Shapiro’s comedy about middle-aged marrieds because he likes it--and “there is no substitute for enjoyment of a project.”

Moore said he has seen only one production at LATC--”Beyond the Fringe” (1986), a show which he co-created in 1960. He has never contributed money to LATC.

Of course Moore’s name may lure theatergoers who have never been to LATC. Asked if this was a factor in the decision to hire him, Bushnell replied, “I never discriminate against stars.”

However, the play is being done not because of Moore’s name but because it’s “exceptionally timely” as baby boomers face their midlife crises, Bushnell said, and because “it fits perfectly into our eclectic programming pattern.”

‘SHOW’ MUST GO ON: It was around 3 p.m. on, yes, Friday the 13th, when director Gary Davis got the bad news.

Van Johnson was too sick to go on as the star of “Show Boat,” scheduled for final previews that night and the following afternoon before a Saturday night opening. The show is California Music Theatre’s debut at its new home, Pasadena’s Raymond Theatre.

Davis quickly called on Alan Young, who appeared in the same role of Cap’n Andy in a Davis-directed production in Long Beach in 1983--and Young was in the theater by 5:45.

Still, he couldn’t go on cold. So on Friday night, while Young sat in the third row taking notes, Davis himself played Cap’n Andy.

Davis is smaller than Johnson, but the costumers were able to send over clothes that fit, after pinning and hemming. As the director, Davis knew the blocking. He carried a script in a couple of scenes where Cap’n Andy carries a script in the story, but otherwise he was “off book.”

He thought he knew his lines well enough so the other actors could at least pick up his cues. He told them before going on: “If you hear a line that sounds familiar, figure that’s as good a cue as you’re going to get.” It was his first acting in public since he can’t remember when--probably the early ‘80s.

Young performed on Saturday, using scripts supposedly disguised within props. Young’s first patter song “did not come easily,” acknowledged Davis, and a soft shoe routine was deleted. But by Sunday, Young was largely “off book.”

“He saved our bacon,” said Davis.

Young will do the rest of the run; doctors decreed Johnson’s infection too serious for him to return. Refunds will be issued to those who bought tickets only to see Johnson, said Davis. But he added that “Show Boat” was advertised before Johnson was attached to it, so most of the subscribers bought the show instead of the star.

One caller to The Times obviously disagreed. “The (later) ads said ‘Van Johnson in Show Boat,’ ” she pointed out, not “Show Boat with Van Johnson.” Demanding a refund for the $116 she spent on three tickets, she declared: “It’s like buying a Donna Karan suit and bringing it home and finding Liz Claiborne in the box.”

MISS NAGASAKI: Last year Asian-American activists condemned the casting of a Welsh actor in a Eurasian role in Miss Saigon.

Now at the Music Center, we see the prototype of “Miss Saigon,” “Madama Butterfly,” with the non-Asian Maria Ewing in the title role of the Japanese bride. Yet no one has audibly renewed the anti-”yellowface” protest. What gives?

“Verisimilitude demands in opera are perceived to be less important,” said “M. Butterfly” playwright David Henry Hwang, one of the original critics of the casting of Jonathan Pryce in “Miss Saigon.” “More license is given to use metaphor.” As a result, opera has a long history of multiracial casting--and “this greater openness to cross-casting means there is no particular need to protest a Caucasian playing Madama Butterfly. In the theater, for whatever reason, there is not the same equality of opportunity.”

HWANG INSTITUTE: A new writers’ institute at East West Players, funded by foundations, is named after Hwang, who’ll occasionally teach there. Information: (213) 666-1929.

“SPUNK” TWO-FERS: Bring a non-perishable food or household item to the Mark Taper Forum box office beginning Wednesday, and you can buy two tickets to the Oct. 2 performance of “Spunk” for the price of one (cash only, subject to availability). All items will be donated to the “Necessities of Life” program of AIDS Los Angeles.

FIRST OF FIVE: A play reading series by the Asian Pacific American Friends of the Center Theatre Group will begin Oct. 7 with “Arthur and Leila” by Cherylene Lee, at the Music Center Annex. The series of five readings is designed to bring more Asian Pacific Americans into “mainstream theater,” said the group’s chairman Yet Lock. Admission is free but reservations are requested: (213) 972-7373.