STAGE / NANCY CHURNIN : Nostalgia Plays Well in San Diego

A tale of two theaters.

The secret behind the success of The Theatre in Old Town’s “Beehive” and the Old Globe Theatre’s upcoming “Forever Plaid “ boils down to the three M’s.

Memories: Each show is a trip down memory lane, a look at the way we were, the all-male four-person “Forever Plaid” in the ‘50s and the all-female six-person “Beehive” in the ‘60s.

Motion: Both quick-moving shows put stock in audience participation, with the performers addressing the audience, running up and down the aisles, getting people to clap, getting them up on stage for a set number in each show.

Music: It’s rather like discovering that, after being told as a kid that comics were junk, those old Super Marvels are actually valuable after all. So the pop tunes of the ‘50s and ‘60s are proving to be more durable than critics at the time ever anticipated. Sure the “Forever Plaid” and the “Beehive” teams poke gentle fun at these golden oldies, but it doesn’t hurt that they sound great while they’re doing it.

“Forever Plaid,” which has already sold out over half of its available seats for its Nov. 13-Dec. 6 return run, including all the matinees, features such classics as “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” and “Three Coins in a Fountain.” The women of “Beehive,” now in its seventh month, take turns imitating the Shirelles, the Supremes, Connie Francis, Petula Clark, Tina Turner and Janis Joplin.

There’s nothing the least bit heavy about either show. “Forever Plaid” is a mayonnaise on Wonder Bread show that predates the Vietnam War, the generation gap, the sexual revolution and just about all the crises the country is in today.

“Beehive” covers more ground, as it surveys the music from the beginning to the end of the ‘60s, but a return visit last month revealed that it has shortened and softened the one segment that touched on the anger of the times (“And the Beat Goes On”) on opening night, in favor of getting on with the fun stuff.

“Forever Plaid” is a national sensation now; the company that played two separate sell-out engagements at the Globe last year, were featured on The Tonight Show on Tuesday. But “Beehive” has resurrected The Theatre in Old Town, packing the houses with loyal, repeat business and its director, Paula Kalustian, as a result, was named the theater’s new artistic director.

And curiously, important as a strong ensemble cast is to both shows, neither production is a star vehicle. The strong advance sales of “Forever Plaid” precede an announcement of who the cast for this Globe engagement will be. And the talented “Beehive” cast is composed of actresses previously unknown to San Diego audiences, half of them local.

Charlie Fedora is going about things a bit backward.

The founder and director of Mid-City Players is selling tickets to a show that isn’t even finished yet. Nor does it have an opening date or a venue.

The interest in Fedora’s new play, “Tenderfoot,” stems from the people he has been auditioning--in country-Western bars across San Diego.

It features an original script by Fedora with new songs plugged in by a variety of local country-Western composers. Fedora would not name any of the composers because the final score of 12 songs had not yet been decided, he said. The play, which is about an aspiring country-Western singer whose life is turned around by a girl he meets in a bar, is roughly scheduled to go up in February.

The key to this advance interest, he said, is in auditioning in bars like Mulvaney’s in El Cajon and Mavericks in Santee, where people like this music, rather than waiting for them to come to him. But Fedora still has yet to put his final team together.

“I’m still looking for band musicians, male and female singers and dancers and 10 barroom characters,” he said.

The next audition will be Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. at Leo’s Little Bit O’ Country at 680 West San Marcos Blvd. in San Marcos. Call 544-6451 for further information.

You can get your fill of Preston Sturges starting this weekend.

Sturges’ play “A Cup of Coffee” opens Sunday and continues through Sept. 20 at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts. Also on Sunday the Ken Cinema will present the show the movie was made into, “Christmas in July.”

It’s part of a Preston Sturges Film Festival set to run concurrently with the show, which should be a lot of fun if you can manage see both.

The film festival pairs “Christmas in July” 2 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. with Sturges’ best (in one opinion, anyway), “Sullivan’s Travels,” at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday.

It continues with “Palm Beach Story” 3:25 p.m. and 7 p.m. and “The Lady Eve” 1:30 p.m., 5:15 p.m. and 9 p.m. Monday; “The Great McGinty,” for which Sturges won an Academy Award for best screenplay in 1940, at 7:30 p.m. and “Easy Living” 5:45 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Tuesday; and “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek” 7 p.m. and “Unfaithfully Yours” 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Wednesday.

PROGRAM NOTES: Plans are afoot to bring “Falsettos”--William Finn’s critically acclaimed Broadway musical about a gay Jewish man, his lover, his ex-wife and his son--to San Diego in 1993. . . .

The internationally acclaimed mime, Marcel Marceau will perform at the San Diego Civic Theatre on Sept. 29. Call 236-6510 or 278-TIXS for further information. . . .

The La Jolla Playhouse’s upcoming productions of “Marisol” and “The Swan,” both to be performed in repertory, will not only share the Mandell Weiss Forum Stage, but a design team and a cast of Susan Berman, Micha Espinosa, David Fenner, Cordelia Gonzalez, Michael Harris, Robert A. Owens, Amy Scholl, Esther Scott and Joseph Urla. “Marisol” runs Sept. 16-Oct. 14 and “The Swan” runs Sept. 17-Oct. 18. Call 534-3980 for further information. . . .

The San Diego Theatre League continues its Sneak Preview series with the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company’s “Molly & Maze,” a mother-daughter story Sept. 15 at 8 p.m. Tickets will be just $5 apiece for this performance and are available at the Times Arts Tix Booth from 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday. Remaining tickets will be sold at the door. The show opens Sept. 17. Call 232-9608. . . .

Mayor Maureen O’Connor named last Tuesday Athol Fugard Day in recognition of Fugard’s making the La Jolla Playhouse one of his world theatrical homes, the playwright’s 60th birthday and his presentation of his latest work, “Playland” at the Lyceum Stage downtown. . . .

Meanwhile, the cast of “Tommy” at the La Jolla Playhouse knows how to have a good time on their day off. The bulk of them went to see a double bill of “Tommy” and the Who’s “Quadrophenia” at the Ken Cinema on Monday. “Tommy,” the stage play, continues to sell out by curtain time, but good seats are available now through its final Oct. 4 extension. . . .

The annual San Diego All-City Free Shakespeare Festival Season continues with “Romeo and Juliet” through Oct. 25 at Zoro Gardens in Balboa Park. Performances begin at 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. There will be no performances Labor Day weekend. . . .

Ruse, home of the All-City Shakespeare Festival and the Naked Theatre Club (formerly at the Marquis Public Theatre), will present Renee Taylor’s and Joseph Bologna’s “It Had to Be You,” about a single actress who kidnaps a TV commercial producer, Sept. 10-20. Also coming up at Ruse is George Spelvin ‘s “The Haunted Theatre,” a Halloween presentation Oct. 23-31. Call 295-5654. . . .

The La Jolla Stage Company’s 13th season season begins with “Night Must Fall” Oct. 23-Nov. 8 and continues with “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” Feb. 19-March 7 and “Black Comedy” April 16-May 2. Call 459-7773 for further information. . . .

Coronado Playhouse will bring back its production of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” Saturday-Oct. 10. Call 435-4856 for further information. . . .

The Sept. 5 performance of the Christian Community Theatre’s “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” will be interpreted for the hearing impaired as part of the San Diego Theatre League’s interpreted series. Call 588-0206. . . .

There are Courtesy Parking Attendants to assist patrons of the Old Globe Theatre and Starlight Musical Theatre in Balboa Park. The attendants, dressed in bright yellow jackets, monitor the Alcazar Garden, the Organ Pavilion, Spanish Village, Palisades, Federal Building and former Naval Hospital lots and are on-duty between 6:30 p.m. and the end of the final performance in the park.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

ROAD HANK TRAVELED

According to Times critic Sylvie Drake, “Lost Highway: The Music and Legend of Hank Williams,” based on the short, tragic life of the country legend, “takes too many detours and crams too much in” . . . but it does successfully sketch in “the poverty and religious fervor in which Williams grew up . . . the music’s the heart of the piece.”

Performances are 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays through Oct. 4. Tickets are $18.50-$30. At the Lowell Davies Festival Stage in Balboa Park, 239-2255.

Note: Mark Harelik, who co-wrote the piece with director Randal Myler, stars as Williams Thursdays-Sundays, and alternate Michael Bryan French plays the part Tuesdays and Wednesdays.