STAGE / NANCY CHURNIN : A Few Stars, but Theater Ticket Sales Are Down

Despite a handful of hit shows such as the just-closed “Tommy” at the La Jolla Playhouse and the soon-to-close “Beehive” at the Theatre in Old Town, overall ticket sales are down in San Diego and theater administrators expect the trend to continue.

“Tommy,” which closed Sunday at the Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre, sold out every performance of its six-week subscription and eight-week extension, with a standing ovation after every performance.

That helped compensate for ticket sales falling below goals in other Playhouse shows. But Playhouse Managing Director Terrence Dwyer said there is only “a very slight chance” that the company will hit its single-ticket goals for the season.

He also made it clear that he doesn’t expect another “Tommy” in the near future. Next year, he plans to lower his expectations for single-ticket sales and work to increase the subscription audience.

“ ‘Tommy’ went beyond being a hit show, it became an event--it achieved a life of its own. You can’t expect that kind of thing more than once in a lifetime,” Dwyer said.

The Old Globe Theatre had that kind of box office success with “Forever Plaid” last year. Which is why the company is bringing it back Nov. 13. It has already sold out 70% of its first four weeks--even though it is not selling as quickly as it did last year.

But as with “Tommy,” Thomas Hall, managing director of the Old Globe, sees the success of “Forever Plaid” as an exception in an overall trend of declining sales.

“Anything outside a sure-fire hit like ‘Tommy’ or ‘Forever Plaid’ is suffering,” Hall said. “The entire economy is shrinking. I thought this was coming for two or three years, but I don’t know what the bottom is.

“The summer has been very healthy, but it’s not enough to make up for a decline in the ongoing subscription base,” Hall said. “The economy is so volatile that what you see in the news has an impact on ticket sales the next day. Even with big-selling plays, there would be a flat week if there was a lot of bad news. People just aren’t taking risks.”

Because of declining resources, Hall said, this year’s budget of $8.4 million is likely to flatten down to around $8 million next year.

Last year, San Diego Playgoers’ presentation of “Les Miserables” set national box office records when it sold out the San Diego Civic Theatre for two weeks, for a weekly gross of $871,000. This year’s two-week run, ending Sept. 26, dropped to 85% capacity for a gross of $741,188 for the first week and 65% capacity for a gross of $538,937 for the second.

But while precise figures are not available for the other shows in Nederlander Organization’s San Diego Playgoers series, “Les Miserables” has sold better than the others in the season, according to Dixie Burton, operations manager of San Diego Playgoers.

“Once on This Island” and “Meet Me in St. Louis” were major box office disappointments. “Meet Me in St. Louis” was panned, but “Once on This Island” was acclaimed. Its failure to draw may affect Nederlander’s presentation of similarly acclaimed shows without track records.

“I think that everyone is going to take not just a first look but a second look at what they’re booking, not just us and not just in San Diego but across the country,” Burton said. “I think that shows that are good but are not sure winners are not going to get booked.”

And yet, who can tell what the sure winners are? Maybe the success of “Tommy” could have been predicted, but “Forever Plaid”? Lamb’s Players Theatre packed its 1992 season with light comedies and musicals only to find that its one drama, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” did the best box office. This season, the Globe’s biggest hits were “Two Gentleman of Verona” and “Interior Decoration”--a rarely produced Shakespeare and a virtually unknown new comedy. That came as a surprise to Hall.

“If you asked me which play in the season was going to carry the season, I would have said ‘Lost Highway.’ It did fine,” Hall said, explaining that it just barely met budget, “but not what I would have expected. If someone asked me what has changed most in my job from last year to this year, it’s been an inability to predict from day to day what’s going to happen.”

Indeed, the only thing that anyone seems to be able to count on these days is the unpredictability of the times ahead.

“I wish we had a crystal ball,” Burton said. “Then we would all make money.”

The three characters in John Kelly’s “Divine Promiscue (Music While Waging Victory)” are Dagmar Onassis (the child Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis never had), Mona Lisa (yes, the painting) and an artist named Randy.

They are all played by Kelly in Sushi Performance Gallery’s presentation of his work tonight through Saturday.

Kelly, 34, is new to the West Coast but highly acclaimed in New York, where he has received two New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards, two Obie Awards, an American Choreographer Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

“Divine Promiscue,” like his other work, combines music, dance and film to tell a story. In this work, he harnesses all these elements to tell a tale about AIDS, without overtly mentioning the subject.

“Randy is an artist,” Kelly said from San Francisco, where “Divine Promiscue” closed Sunday. “He sits at the table and does his work. He finds inspiration, he doesn’t find inspiration, he gets bored, goes to a club and looks for love, doesn’t find it, finds it and it turns sour. His work is the one thing he comes back to. There are references to AIDS and HIV that I don’t spell out, but they’re quite obvious. I wanted to do a piece that was about it, but wasn’t about it. It’s about life, it’s about getting on with life.”

Dagmar Onassis is Randy’s muse. The Mona Lisa appears in a dream he has of wanting to become a great artist.

Kelly came up with the idea of Dagmar Onassis not long after he discovered and fell in love with the music and the presence of Maria Callas. He was 17 and he had never even heard classical music before. He was born into an Irish Catholic family in Jersey City, New Jersey. His parents, he said, hoped he would become a dentist.

Instead he studied ballet, then painting, lip-synced in drag and eventually began to use his own voice. All that, it turns out, was preparation for his work as a performance artist, which began in 1983.

“Divine Promiscue” debuted in New York in July and completed a run at San Francisco’s Life On The Water before coming here.

Part of the reason for coming west is to expand his audience.

“The reason I perform is to communicate with people, and the more audiences I reach the better. My main concern has always been to find the best way of expressing myself in whatever form it took and that’s still my credo. I’m doing the work out of necessity because it’s what I love.”

PROGRAM NOTES: The next show for The Theatre in Old Town will be “The All Night Strut!,” a musical revue featuring songs of the 1930s and 1940s, opening Dec. 5. Interestingly, the show played as a not-very-successful rental at the theater in 1990. The theater ends its long-running “Beehive” Oct. 31 with a benefit performance for the theater Nov. 1. . ..

San Diego Playgoers will not present Michael Crawford in “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber” Dec. 1-6 as previously announced. Crawford plans to end his national tour in the show in Chicago on Oct. 25. No one seems to know why the show is stopping in Chicago. . ..

The San Diego-based Playwrights Project has received a $15,000 grant from Citibank to stage a Los Angeles production of plays by teen-agers at the Odyssey Theatre. The Playwrights Project, which annually produces plays by students competing in the California Young Playwrights contest, will also produce plays at the Old Globe Theatre’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage Dec. 10-19. . .

Jose Rivera, playwright of “Marisol,” playing at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Forum, will speak with students at Chula Vista High School at 11:30 a.m. today. . . .

The San Diego Theatre Foundation’s 1992 season of interpreted plays concludes with the the Coronado Playhouse’s production of “The Dresser” Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. Call 435-4856 for tickets. For information about the 1993 series of interpreted performances, contact the Theatre Foundation at 701 B St., Suite 225, San Diego, 92101 or call 238-0700. . .

Starlight Musical Theatre has changed its name back to San Diego Civic Light Opera. San Diego Civic Light Opera is now the umbrella organization that operates the Broadway indoor season (opening with “Annie Warbucks” Oct. 15) and the Starlight Musical Theatre outdoor season in the Starlight Bowl. . .

Alec Baldwin, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and Randy Newman were some of the celebs that checked out “Tommy” before it closed.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

A DEVASTATING ‘DELTA’

It takes three remarkable actresses in “From the Mississippi Delta” to tell the remarkable and true story of Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland, the prostitute who was inspired by her mother and the Civil Rights movement of the ‘60s to go to school and become a professor and a playwright.

Actresses Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Saundra Quarterman and Pamala Tyson don’t change an item of clothing as they play the parts of Holland’s mid-wife mother, an old drunk man, a burlesque queen and an 11-year-old girl about to be raped. There isn’t much in the way of prop changes either. This is acting, pure, simple and unforgettable, telling a story that needs to be told.

The Old Globe Theatre has extended “From the Mississippi Delta” through Nov. 1. Performances are 8 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday with Sunday matinees at 2 through Oct. 25. Performances for the Oct. 29-Nov. 1 extension are 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday with Saturday/Sunday matinees at 2. Tickets are $21.50-$30 depending on performance. At the Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Balboa Park, 239-2255.