A Muscular New Season in La Mirada

The 1,264-seat La Mirada Theatre is assuming a more prominent position on the theatrical landscape.

For 15 years, the theater has hosted a “Broadway” series, but the selections usually consisted of scripts that had already been produced in at least one of the area’s first-string theaters. While the series attracted stars, subscribers and grosses, it never attracted much attention from outside the immediate community.

This is likely to change during the coming season. La Mirada’s “Broadway” series will present the world premiere of a new musical and the local premieres of two Broadway plays. And it will bring Craig Lucas’ “Prelude to a Kiss” back to Southern California in the re-written Broadway version, which is substantially different from the one that played at South Coast Repertory in 1988.

The season will open with the Los Angeles premiere of Ken Ludwig’s farce, “Lend Me a Tenor,” Nov. 5-24, starring John Astin. It was just a few weeks ago when the Los Angeles premiere of the same play was announced as the opening production of the next Pasadena Playhouse season, Jan. 19-Feb. 23. But in fact, La Mirada beat Pasadena to the “Tenor,” confirmed a spokesman for Samuel French, the company which licenses the play.

When Pasadena officials subsequently sought the play, they requested area-wide exclusivity along with the rights, added the spokesman, but they were notified that the play had already been licensed for a production at La Mirada. Pasadena’s executive director Lars Hansen did not respond to questions about why he went ahead and announced that Pasadena would produce “the Los Angeles premiere.” (In fact, neither theater is in the city of Los Angeles, but both are in Los Angeles County).

Next up at La Mirada will be “Club of Hearts,” Jan. 7-26, a re-titled version of Ivan Menchell’s “The Cemetery Club.” A comedy about a group of widows whose camaraderie is ruffled when a widower enters the scene, the play had an unsuccessful run on Broadway in 1990. Nanette Fabray, who played one of the roles in Cleveland in 1989, will also appear at La Mirada. Herb Rogers, executive producer of the La Mirada series, said he insisted on a new title: “I thought ‘The Cemetery Club’ was a downer.”

“Prelude to a Kiss” will come to La Mirada with Tom Poston as the play’s mysterious old man, Feb. 18-March 8. It will be followed by the season’s one familiar entry, “Other People’s Money,” March 31-April 19.

The season is slated to end with the series’ first world premiere ever, “The Tin Pan Man,” a musical about the first half-century of Tin Pan Alley, April 28-May 17. The book is by Fred Searles and Jerry Cutler; the music is from the era.

“There was a time when all we could do was Neil Simon,” said the series’ artistic director Scott Rogers. But recently “we’ve been moving toward more artistic choices” and “a little bit away from the star syndrome.” He added that it doesn’t cost more money to get rights to the more recent plays, “it’s a matter of going after them more ambitiously.”

A TRIAL BALUN: The Itchey Foot restaurant, home of the Mark Taper Forum’s literary cabaret, will look like an extension of Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Latino Theatre Lab during the next five Sundays.

The lab’s director, Jose Luis Valenzuela, will stage a reading of “Balun Canan: The Nine Guardians” using a five-actor cast, four of whom are also in the LATC Lab.

It was, however, a Taper staffer who came up with the idea. Josephine Ramirez, program manager/producer for the Taper’s Improvisational Theatre Project, was already working on an adaptation of Rosario Castellanos’ short stories and poems when she found a copy of the Mexican writer’s 1957 novel, “Balun Canan,” in the public library.

A saga of the changes in post-revolutionary Mexican society, seen through the eyes of the daughter of a wealthy landowner, “Balun” was translated into English by Irene Nicholson, and Ramirez adapted that translation. “Balun Canan” is the name (in the Tzeltal language) of a southern Mexican town where the action takes place.

Ramirez asked Valenzuela to direct “Balun” because “he is from Mexico, and there is a real understanding he can bring” to the book, which won several Mexican literary prizes. (Performances begin today and continue Sundays through Oct. 27 at 6 p.m.)

Jose Saucedo, who earlier this year became the Taper’s first Latino artistic associate, was quoted in The Times in February as being an advocate of Taper-LATC collaboration. Saucedo has been “in on the process” of “Balun,” said Ramirez, but was prevented from taking a more active role by his work on the Taper’s upcoming New Works Festival.

‘DAYS’ RETURNS: “Those Were the Days,” a Yiddish/English musical revue that played the Westwood Playhouse last year and later earned two Tony nominations, will return there for a Dec. 3-Jan. 5 run.