Starlight Season Includes S.D. Premiere of ‘Chess’

Starlight Musical Theatre will present the San Diego premiere of “Chess,” a musical with lyrics by Tim Rice about a match between an American and Soviet chess player at the center of its 1992 season, the theater announced this week. The season also will contain four other musicals.

“Chess” opened on Broadway in 1988 and is a pre-glasnost story rife with Cold War tensions. Starlight plans to do its own version, downplaying the politics and heightening the love story (a triangle between an American woman and the two chess players), according to executive director Bud Franks.

The company’s 47th season opens with “Gypsy” May 20-31, “No, No, Nanette” June 17-28, “Chess,” July 8-19, “Paint Your Wagon,” July 29-Aug. 9 and “Camelot,” Aug. 19-30.

“Gypsy” will be presented at the San Diego Civic Theatre and the rest of the season will be in the Starlight Bowl, the company’s outdoor venue in Balboa Park.

There will also be an indoor winter season at the Civic Theatre in 1992-93, Franks said. October and November dates have been reserved for 1992. Selections will be named when the summer season starts, he said.

“Eventually we’ll have a summer season in the Bowl and the winter season indoors,” Franks said.

Despite a disappointing turnout for last summer’s season, which Franks blames on unusually cold weather and the recession, the company’s own surveys suggest that there is an interest in year-round offerings, he said.

Also, the initial expense of mounting additional shows can, hypothetically, be more than made up for by additional revenue.

“When you have a fixed overhead, the more you can spread the fixed costs over more weeks of production, the better,” Franks said.

Franks also sees indoor venues such as the Civic and Spreckels theaters as more conducive to intimate, middle-size musicals than the sprawling Starlight Bowl, where the shows have to compete with the airplanes overhead.

Starlight had to scrap its earlier plan to produce “My Fair Lady” and to repeat “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 1992 because rights for national tours had been snapped up. The theater is also continuing to look for new musicals to produce, Franks said.

To that end, the company will resume its Prelude Series of staged readings in January.

“Like a lot of other people in the country, we’re trying to stimulate writers to write more material. Like other companies in the country, we will be trying to include a new musical in upcoming seasons,” Franks said.

Some theaters are finding that being sensitive with ticket prices can make a difference to the recession-battered ticket buyer. But just as important seems to be the very eclectic nature of the offerings that can strike an audience’s fancy.

Recession or no, the Old Globe, which reports this as having been its strongest summer season yet, has had no problem selling out the run of “Forever Plaid.” Four days after the announcement last week that the company was adding a performance to benefit Equity Fights AIDS, the theater sold out at $25 a ticket. The only tickets left for the entire run, ending Jan. 5., are for a 10 p.m. New Year’s Eve performance costing $17-$28.50.

But at Lamb’s Players Theatre, Tuesday’s opening-night performance of “Dickens, Dining & Song,” a dinner-theater package that was a sellout last year, had to be postponed until Wednesday because only six tickets were sold. Marketing director Lizbeth Persons blames the recession for people not wanting to pony up the price of the show: $43-$48. The show, which runs from Wednesday through Dec. 28, is selling, but not as well as last year.

In contrast, Lamb’s has already sold out 45 of its 48 performances of “A Festival of Christmas,” which opens tomorrow. Those tickets cost $15-$20. Persons said she believes that people are simply choosing the less expensive show over the more expensive one.

Blackfriars Theatre, formerly known as the Bowery, blames the recession for lagging ticket sales. Despite glowing reviews for Beth Henley’s “Abundance,” and ticket prices of $12-$20, the company played to houses two-thirds full--well below expectations. Much hope to lift the company out of the financial doldrums is pinned on “More Laughing Buddha Wholistik Radio Theatre,” opening Saturday. Blackfriars is also mounting an Emergency Auction Radio Night (EARN) on Friday the 13th to raise money.

At the La Jolla Playhouse, where tickets range from $24-$32 for the final performances of “Elmer Gantry,” closing Sunday, subscription sales are up, but a Playhouse spokeswoman blames the recession for an overall downturn in single ticket sales in 1990.

The San Diego Repertory Theatre is selling tickets for “A Christmas Carol,” opening tonight, at a faster clip than last year. But the company is also keeping ticket prices at the same cost as last year ($15-$25) and offering $5 discounts for children.

At the North Coast Repertory Theatre, where tickets cost $12-$14, Alan Ayckbourn’s acidic “Seasons Greetings” is selling out. Companies have also bought out four entire performances, including Tuesday and Wednesday.

Sledgehammer Theatre’s production of “7 Blowjobs” is also selling out at $12.50 a ticket. Executive director Ethan Feerst said he made a conscious decision to make the ticket prices competitive with movie prices. But the company, which has a hit-and-miss record, also seems to have struck a winning chord with this highly accessible world premiere by Mac Wellman that attacks the conservative politicians who have been attacking the funding practices of the National Endowment for the Arts.

As a result, “7 Blowjobs,” which was scheduled to close Dec. 22, may be extended into January.

The Playwrights Project, which annually produces scripts from the California Young Playwrights Contest for youth 18 and younger, has selected four winners this year--two from San Diego.

All will be produced Jan. 8-19 at San Diego State University’s Experimental Theatre, with two plays per evening on alternating evenings.

Local winners Elliott Kennerson and Leslie Grant are both 16-year-olds at La Jolla’s Bishop’s School. Kinnerson recently starred in “The Diviners” at the La Jolla Stage Company.

Last year’s winner Aaron Thomas, 18, of Rancho Cucamonga also won again this year, as well as 15-year-old Jim Knable of Sacramento.