Starlight Prepares for Winter : Musicals: “Annie Warbucks” and “Phantom” will highlight the theater’s foray into year-round scheduling.

“Annie Warbucks,” the new Broadway-bound sequel to “Annie,” and “Phantom,” the Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston version of “The Phantom of the Opera” will be the highlights of the Starlight Musical Theatre’s first winter season.

Also on tap: “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Grease” and “Oklahoma!”

The winter schedule, which runs October through May in the Civic and Spreckels theaters, will allow Starlight to produce year-round for the first time in its 47-year history.

It’s all part of a gamble that, in the face of a recession and declining single-ticket sales, the key to survival lies in the expansion and evolution of Starlight into a producing and presenting organization.

Until this season, Starlight has had year-round overhead, but only a four-month summer season to earn ticket revenue. Executive Director Bud Franks describes the winter season as part of a master plan that includes two fully independent seasons, with a summer season that will include concerts by popular, non-rock performers.

The move will raise Starlight’s current budget of roughly $3.8 million (including the first part of the upcoming winter season through December) to about $4.5 million for 1993, Franks said.

“Show business is a gamble,” he said. “It’s a roll of the dice, and any time you do a new season it’s a roll of the dice times five.”

But the road to this gamble, Franks stressed, is paved with patron surveys in which audiences have repeatedly requested year-round fare.

“It’s my experience that the patrons don’t lie to you,” he said.

Moving indoors will also make more co-productions possible because there are more indoor than outdoor musical theaters with which Starlight can share sets.

Franks, who is president of the National Alliance of Musical Theatre Producers, said there are less than half a dozen outdoor musical theaters.

For “Annie Warbucks”--which will kick off the winter season Oct. 14-25 at the Civic Theatre--an indoor venue was a must. The piece, a co-production with four other members of the musical theaters alliance, is part of a West Coast premiere tour. The show made its debut to critical acclaim and box office success in Chicago’s Marriott Lincolnshire Theater on Feb. 5.

“Annie Warbucks,” which has a totally different story than that of the disastrously received 1989 “Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge,” tells of Annie’s search for a wife for Daddy Warbucks. And--leapin’ lizards!--the little tyke has to go back to the orphanage if Daddy doesn’t marry.

The season continues with “Fiddler on the Roof” Nov. 11-22 at the Civic and “Grease” Feb. 2-22 at the Spreckels.

The San Diego premiere of “Phantom,” not to be confused with the Andrew Lloyd Webber mega-hit, plays March 23-April 18 at the Spreckels. Adapted by the Tony Award-winning team of Kopit and Yeston, this elaborate version had a well-received world premiere in January, 1991, at Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars and has since played successfully at several houses across the country.

The season concludes with “Oklahoma!”--the musical is in its 50th year--May 26-June 6 at the Civic.

For subscriptions, call 235-6004; for more information, call 544-7827.

Monkeys will be climbing on the stage of the North Coast Repertory Theatre the next two Saturdays--or, rather, kids pretending to be monkeys in “The Monkey King,” North Coast’s new foray into youth theater.

The 50-minute show, which begins at 3 p.m. and features a dozen children ages 8 to 18, will be presented on the company’s Solana Beach stage. Screens will separate “The Monkey King” set from that of the company’s currently running “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.”

The story, Charles Jones’ adaptation of Chinese author Wu Ch’engen’s tales, is that of a magical king who is befriended by a family of monkeys. He protects them by outwitting spirits and demons and, in the process, learns the secret of living forever.

Youth productions are a popular part of programming at Moonlight Amphitheatre and Christian Community Theatre. It is also the sole fare of San Diego Junior Theatre.

Michael Pieper, the United States International University instructor who is directing the production, believes that such ventures will become increasingly popular in the wake of school budget cuts.

“I had been playing around with the idea because I heard about so many of the schools cutting their art programs. I made a proposal to Olive, and the theater went for it,” Pieper said, referring to Olive Blakistone, North Coast’s artistic director. “Hopefully, throughout the year it will be bigger and better.”

The children in the show were selected from the 35 students who enrolled in North Coast’s first acting classes for children. The classes, taught by Pieper, cost $90 for each six-week session. Four scholarships have been given out.

Blakistone intends to extend the program into the fall and may supplement it with acting classes for adults.

“I think it’s good for our theater because it reaches into the community and reaches for a new audience,” she said. “It fulfills our mission to be a cultural resource in the community.”

Tickets to “The Monkey King” are $3 for children, $5 for adults. Call 481-1055.

PROGRAM NOTES: Performers Yareli Arizmendi and Sergio Arau offer a satiric take on contemporary Mexico and U.S.-Mexican relations in “Penny Envy,” described as “an Aztec-rap, postmodern rock cabaret,” Aug. 21-22 at the Centro Cultural de la Raza. Tickets are $7. Call 235-6135. . . .

UC San Diego’s 1992-93 University Events season will feature The Pickle Family Circus at the Mandeville Auditorium on Oct. 20 on campus, followed by the Chicano comedy troupe Culture Clash on Oct. 28. Storyteller Jackie Torrence plays the Mandeville on Jan. 20, and the Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis presents an original musical adaptation of “The Jungle Book” on Jan. 31. On April 15, the Reduced Shakespeare Company condenses the Bard’s best and on April 16 will offer an all-new “Complete History of America,” abridged of course. Call 534-6467. . . .

Cheryl Lynn Bruce, who starred in “From the Mississippi Delta” at New York’s Circle in the Square and performed in “The Grapes of Wrath” at the La Jolla Playhouse, on Broadway and at the National Theatre of Great Britain, has been cast in the play at the Old Globe Theatre. Television veteran Saundra Quarterman and film and stage actress Pamala Tyson will co-star in Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s autobiographical tale of how a onetime prostitute became a professor. Seret Scott will direct. The show opens Sept. 9 at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage. Call 239-2255. . . .

There’s no need to go into the Old Globe’s production of “The Winter’s Tale” unprepared. The Globe is offering a five-session intensive study of the play and the Globe’s approach to it beginning at 7 p.m. Sept. 8 in the Conference Room of the Globe’s Creative Center. The five sessions cost $50. For an additional $40, you can receive one unit of credit from San Diego State University. Call the Old Globe’s Education Department at 231-1941. . . .

Diversionary Theatre’s “Healin’ Dirt Diner,” a musical about women who love women but worship Patsy Cline, has been extended through Saturday. Call 574-1060. . . .

Election Day comes a little early at Moonlight Amphitheatre this year. The administration will offer its audiences a ballot during “The Sound of Music,” opening Wednesday, with choices for next year’s lineup. The nominees are: “A Little Night Music,” “Barnum,” “Big River,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Kismet,” “Me and My Girl,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Oklahoma!” “Singing in the Rain” and “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”. . . .

New Image Teen Theatre is looking for a new name reflecting its Planned Parenthood philosophy, its audience and its mission. Winners will receive recognition at New Image Teen Theatre’s opening-night performance at the Lyceum Theatre on Oct. 19, reserved seating at the performance, a framed poster and a T-shirt with the new name and logo. Submissions must be received by Friday by Nola Butler Byrd at the Planned Parenthood’s New Image Teen Theatre, 2100 5th Ave., San Diego 92101, or call 231-6760. . . .

The Fritz Theatre will present the Pandora Stage production of “A Cold Day in Hell,” described as “an evening of deeply disturbed short plays,” Aug. 18-Sept. 2. The selections include Christopher Durang’s “Naomi in the Living Room,” Peter J. Smith’s “Overwrought, Overbooked and Underdressed” and Lanford Wilson’s “Abstinence.” Next up is “Zombie Sex Mutants--An Environmental Love Story,” originally scheduled to open at The Insomniac. Instead, it opens Aug. 24 at the Fritz, where it will be performed Monday nights at 8 and 9:30 through Sept. 14. Call 233-7505.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

‘BEEHIVE’ GETS BETTER

“Beehive,” The Theatre in Old Town’s solid-gold hit of golden oldies from the 1960s, just keeps getting better over the course of its long run (which began in February!).

The six women who make up the cast seem to pour extra sass into their takeoffs of an ever-smiling Annette Funicello (walking around with that ever-present Skippy jar) and ever-weeping Leslie (“It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To”) Gore. From the moment the cast segues from the opening “Beehive” number to “The Name Game,” it also becomes a participatory event. Be ready to clap your hands and stomp your feet. And, if you are determined to sit in an aisle seat, you might want to practice up on how your name fits into “The Name Game.”

Performances are at 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday indefinitely. Warning: Weekday performances can sell out days in advance, weekend performances weeks in advance. At 4040 Twiggs St., Old Town. Call 688-2494 or 2496.