A Revamped ‘Ballroom’ for Long Beach

When “Ballroom” opens at Long Beach Civic Light Opera on Feb. 29, it won’t be the same show that flopped on Broadway in 1978-79.

Tyne Daly will star in “a substantially revised” version of the musical about an aging couple’s romance at a Manhattan dance hall, said producer Barry Brown.

Writer Susan Dworkin is beefing up the original book by Jerome Kass, which was based on his teleplay “Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.” And composer Billy Goldenberg and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman are replacing four or five of the old musical numbers with new ones.

According to Brown, “the book got short shrift” in the Broadway version, which was produced, directed and choreographed by the late Michael Bennett. He wants “more balance” between the book and the dancing.

Brown co-produced Daly’s last Broadway outing, the “Gypsy” revival that also played the Music Center and Orange County Performing Arts Center. But “we haven’t even talked about” taking this new “Ballroom” beyond Long Beach, he added.

“FIRE” PLACE: Plans to present “The Substance of Fire” at the Mark Taper Forum next season are still simmering.

Playwright Jon Robin Baitz recently pulled the rights to his play from the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego because of an ongoing contract dispute between the Dramatists Guild and the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), of which the Old Globe is a member.

The Taper is also a LORT member. But unlike the Old Globe, the Taper is on a Dramatists Guild list of LORT theaters that issue playwrights’ contracts deemed sufficiently similar to the standard guild contract--a contract that LORT, as a group, has refused to adopt. Baitz and the Taper’s Gordon Davidson confirmed that a Taper “Fire” is still on its way.

Of the four Southern California LORT members (La Jolla Playhouse and South Coast Repertory are the others), only the Taper is on the Guild’s list of approved theaters.

Meanwhile, the Old Globe replaced Baitz’s play with a new Richard Wilbur translation of Moliere’s “The School for Husbands,” to be directed by Edward Payson Call, Jan. 23-March 1.

Moliere is not expected to complain about his contract.

DOOLITTLE DOLLARS: The audience for the Ahmanson-at-the Doolittle series is growing. Total attendance at the most recent four-play Doolittle season was up 3.8% over the previous year, to 339,538. And the gross shot up by 11%, to $10,015,204.

“The Heidi Chronicles” was last season’s highest-grossing show, followed by “Sarafina!,” “A Little Night Music” and “The Vortex.”

“CONSPIRACY” CONTINUES: “The Chicago Conspiracy Trial,” one of the biggest hits from L.A.’s old Equity Waiver era, has found a new life in the city where it’s set.

Frank Condon re-staged the 1979 Odyssey Theatre adaptation of transcripts from the “Chicago 8” trial at Chicago’s Remains Theatre. It will play through Nov. 24.

Richard Christiansen of the Chicago Tribune cited the show’s “commendable clarity and force” and “tremendous rush of emotion.” Though Hedy Weiss of the Sun-Times was less impressed, reviews from Variety and smaller papers were almost entirely thumbs-up.

BLOWIN’ IN THE “WIND”: Remember the plan to present “Inherit the Wind” in a real downtown courtroom, starring Jason Miller?

It’s finally happening--but in Philadelphia, not Los Angeles. Miller is starring in the courtroom classic there in a production by Scranton Public Theatre, of which Miller is the artistic director. The production did an initial tryout in a Scranton courtroom.

L.A. producer Leonard Grant said he still hopes to raise $150,000 to do the production in a Los Angeles courtroom, but so far he has been “disconcerted and disappointed” by the response.

SCR COMPETITION: South Coast Repertory’s annual California Playwrights Competition is again seeking previously unproduced scripts of at least 90 minutes length, by California writers. Top prize is $5,000 and a reading. Information: (714) 957-2602, Ext. 216.