GroveShakespeare to Add Performances This Season

GroveShakespeare of Garden Grove will introduce a late-night show and add 20 additional performances to its alfresco Shakespeare in the coming season, theater officials announced Monday.

The season in the outdoor Festival Amphitheatre will open with Alan Mandell as “King Lear” (June 19-July 23), directed by Grove artistic director W. Stuart McDowell.

Next up will be a psychedelic ‘60s version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (July 31-Sept. 4), directed by Jules Aaron, followed by a “Romeo and Juliet” (Sept. 11-Oct. 16) set in contemporary L.A. McDowell called this last item “R & J/L.A.”

The smaller, indoor Gem Theatre season will open with McDowell’s staging of Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” (April 17-May 15), starring Terra Shelman and Wayne Alexander, who starred as “Hamlet” at the rival Shakespeare Orange County last season. It will open just five days after Orange County’s largest professional company, South Coast Repertory, opens its own Coward production, “Hay Fever.”

Also at the Gem, Ron Campbell will play 38 characters in a solo show by Carol Wolf, “Monsieur Shaherazad” (opens April 23), to be performed at 10:40 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays as well as Saturday matinees. It grew out of a series of Grove workshops held in 1992.

The summer show at the Gem will be Aaron’s staging of “Suds” (June 5-July 3), a laundromat musical that uses ‘60s music.

As usual, the season will end with “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” (Dec. 4-31).

The company ended 1992 with a $100,000 operating deficit and has projected a $985,000 budget this year, but officials warn that additional cuts are expected.

Among the devices to be used to address the deficit is a new graduated gift-giving plan centered on a “Bard Card,” which will enable cardholders to receive discounts at area businesses.