La Jolla Season Grows to 8 Plays : * Stage: Two world premieres are among the expanded offerings, added in honor of the playhouse’s 10th anniversary.

The La Jolla Playhouse, which has long hoped to expand its season, will do just that this year as part of its 10th-anniversary celebration.

The company will present eight plays in its 1992 season at the Mandell Weiss Theatre and the Mandell Weiss Forum on the UC San Diego campus, two more than in recent years. However, the length of the season--May 5 to Nov. 29-- will not change, because two of the productions will be performed in repertory.

The season includes two world premieres--”Le Petomane,” written and performed by The Flying Karamazov Brothers, and a new theatrical adaptation of Pete Townshend’s “Tommy”--as well as the American premiere of Athol Fugard’s latest work, “Playland.”

The West Coast premiere of playwright Jose Rivera’s “Marisol” and the Southern California premiere of Elizabeth Egloff’s “The Swan” will be performed in repertory.

“In order for this institution to fulfill itself, we need to expand our programming,” artistic director Des McAnuff said Wednesday. “This is an ongoing mission for artistic reasons, for economic reasons, for our audience and for our artists. We started in 1983 with three plays in one theater and now we’re at eight (plays) and two (theaters). And maybe one day it will be 12 and three,” he said, referring to the Playhouse’s long expressed ambition to build a third theater available year-round to the company, which now shares space with the theater department at UCSD.

The 1992 season also draws upon a mix of familiar Playhouse talent and fresh faces. Robert Woodruff, who has directed three works for the Playhouse, will direct “Le Petomane,” and Fugard, who has directed his own plays during the two previous Playhouse seasons, will return to direct his latest work.

Egloff and Rivera are new to the Playhouse, as is Townshend. The new work is mixed with classical offerings, from Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” to Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

“I hope this season will represent the Playhouse at its best,” McAnuff said. “We have the senior people and we have the young talent. And on top of all that we have the Karamazovs, who represent the new vaudeville tradition, and the rock ‘n’ roll songwriter (Townshend)--the outsider.”

The season opens with “The Glass Menagerie,” directed by Douglas Hughes, associate artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, from May 10 to June 14 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre.

Robert Woodruff then directs “Le Petomane,” conceived and adapted by The Flying Karamazov Brothers, June 14-July 12 at the Mandell Weiss Forum. “Le Petomane” is a cabaret fictionalization of the real-life story of baker and vaudevillian Joseph Pujol, told from his son’s point of view. Known in turn-of-the-century France as Le Petomane, Pujol’s performances outgrossed those of the legendary Sarah Bernhardt. The script, written by the Karamazovs’ Paul David Magid, will be performed by all four Karamazovs: Magid, Timothy Furst, Sam Williams and Howard Jay Patterson, the last of whom will play the title role.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers, who are neither Russians nor brothers and who have been known for their knock-about comedy routines since their 1973 debut, will also perform at the Mandeville Auditorium on April 9 in an unrelated show.

McAnuff will direct “Tommy” July 8-Aug. 9 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre, and Michael Greif, an alumnus of the UCSD graduate theater program, who is now resident director at the Public Theater in New York, will direct a yet-to-be-announced play July 26-Aug. 30 at the Mandell Weiss Forum. Greif directed “Pericles” at the Public Theater earlier this year, and in 1983 was the Playhouse’s first house manager. He has also served as assistant director to McAnuff on “Romeo and Juliet,” “Big River” and “As You Like It.”

Athol Fugard will direct the American premiere of “Playland” Aug. 30-Oct. 4 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre. Susan Hilferty will be associate director and will design the production’s set and costumes both in Johannesburg, South Africa, in June, where the play will debut, and at the Playhouse. Another longtime Fugard associate and friend, Zakes Mokae, will star in this two-character play about a black man and a white man. The show is set in an amusement park and deals with the realities of life in modern South Africa.

The two repertory pieces will be Elizabeth Egloff’s “The Swan,” Sept. 13-Oct. 18, and Jose Rivera’s “Marisol,” Sept. 16-Oct. 18, both at the forum. Both have a touch of the fantastic. “The Swan,” which had its professional premiere in 1990 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, tells the story of a swan who turns into a man and comes between a woman and her married boyfriend.

“Marisol,” which will have its world premiere at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in March, tells the story of an upwardly mobile, 25-year-old copywriter who is abandoned by her guardian angel, who goes off to fight a revolution in heaven. Rivera is the creator-producer of the NBC comedy series “Eerie, Indiana.” His play “The Promise” was done at the now-defunct Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1988, the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in 1989 and New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre in 1988.

The season concludes with “Much Ado About Nothing,” directed by McAnuff, Oct. 25-Nov. 29 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre.

“Le Petomane,” along with one of the shows in the repertory package, will not be sold as part of the four- or six-play subscription series, but will be offered at a discount to subscribers.