Ian McKellen’s Tony Plug Sends ‘Angels in America’ Flying

Ian McKellen, presenting an award at the Tony ceremony last Sunday, delivered the plug of the year.

The hottest ticket in London this season is for Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” he told the millions of potential theater ticket buyers who were watching the show on TV. “You wait until it comes here--it’s going to win every Tony.”

OK, it was a terribly premature prediction. No one knows if “Angels in America” will even be produced on Broadway, which is the first step required for Tony consideration.

The complete “Angels in America” will be produced for the first time at the Mark Taper Forum, opening Nov. 1. The London version that McKellen saw consisted only of “Millennium Approaches,” the first half of the two-part epic. A San Francisco staging of both parts last year was not complete.

Still, “we were thrilled,” said Joyce Ketay, Kushner’s agent. She thought McKellen’s plug was “phenomenal.”

No, McKellen has absolutely nothing to do with the production, except that he saw it and liked it, she said. “Maybe he wants to play Roy Cohn,” she quipped. One of the showiest roles in the production of that of Cohn, the controversial attorney who died of AIDS.

Isn’t there a danger that these advance raves could lead to the sort of expectations that can only be deflated? Ketay said she and Kushner recognize this possibility: “I said to Tony, ‘Let’s not do the play. Let’s just be a legend.’ ”

TONY WEST WATCH: This year’s biggest Tony winner, the splashy revival of “Guys and Dolls,” will begin a tour in September in Connecticut. But it’s not expected to reach California until next year, perhaps not until the fall of 1993.

The producers of two other Tony winners, “Dancing at Lughnasa” and “Falsettos,” are aiming at the Doolittle Theatre for their Los Angeles premieres, though the Doolittle’s 1992-93 season has already been announced without either show. “Maybe they’ll be able to shift something around and give us the Doolittle,” said “Falsettos” co-producer Barry Weissler.

OVI WATCH: Tony time always stirs up thoughts, among Los Angeles theater folk, about why there isn’t a similar awards ceremony in Los Angeles, sponsored by the theater producers themselves, as opposed to the various awards programs hosted by critics.

Three years ago, Theatre LA tried to plant the seed for such a ceremony by starting the Ovation awards. These weren’t actually comparable to the Tonys, inasmuch as they recognized long-term achievement instead of each year’s crop of new productions. But there was talk that the Ovis, as they were not so affectionately called, might engender some of the same sense of glamour associated with the Tonys.

Two Ovi ceremonies took place, in November 1989 and March 1991, at the Pasadena Playhouse. But plans for the third were put on hold last year by the prolonged illness of the show’s producer, Franklin Levy, who died earlier this year.

Now plans for the next Ovi ceremony are finally underway, guided by new producer Robert Norton of the Harmony Gold Theatre. Norton said the ceremony probably will be held in November, after the election. But the biggest roadblock right now is the venue.

The Pasadena Playhouse is no longer available. On Monday nights, the traditionally dark theater night when the Ovi ceremonies were held, the theater has been booked by workshops sponsored by the playhouse alumni association.

So Norton is searching for another suitable theater, preferably a larger one, because he expects this year’s ceremony to get “a lot more hype.”

One reason for his optimism is that the city’s mayoral-appointed Entertainment Council--the same organization that helps in the efforts to keep the Grammys in Los Angeles--has been enlisted in the task of promoting the Ovis. “We want to create the awareness that L.A. is an important theater city, just as New York is,” said Michael Solomon, the president of Warner Bros. International Television and co-chair of the Council.

His group has no money to spend on the project, he said, but it will contribute its expertise in such matters as TV syndication--which he believes should be an eventual goal for the Ovi ceremony. He also urged that Theatre LA hold the event as a fund-raising dinner instead of in a theater--an idea Norton resists.

“Over the next two or three years,” said Solomon, the Ovis “should definitely compete with the Tonys,” competition and all.