‘Kentucky’ Grips Broadway Neophyte

David G. Richenthal has never produced on Broadway. His producer credits include one Off Broadway drama, “Remembrance,” and several Off Off Broadway showcases that, he said, he’d just as soon forget.

But now he’s taking on the Washington and Broadway premieres of the Pulitzer Prize-winning, $2-million, six-hour, two-part epic, “The Kentucky Cycle.”

Richenthal didn’t see the “Cycle” when it opened in Seattle or when it played at the Mark Taper Forum last year. But he did read the script, and that was enough.

“It’s the greatest American play written in 20 years,” he said. “The only reason I go to the theater is to be moved. It’s not for politics or lectures. And this gripped me on a gut level so instinctual, I can’t articulate why.”

His task won’t be easy. Last week, after Richenthal thought he was ready to announce a September opening at the Kennedy Center as the production’s first leg, Center managing director Lawrence J. Wilker protested that not enough of the details had been worked out. For example, only one-third of the Kennedy Center’s $750,000 contribution has been raised.

Indeed, a source said only a third of the entire $2-million budget has been found. But Richenthal, playwright Robert Schenkkan and Gordon Davidson of the Taper (which continues as a co-producer, though it won’t contribute any further money to the project) are confident the rest will be raised. And Richenthal said the Broadway venture would go on with or without Washington.

Actually, if the D.C. deal were to fall apart, Los Angeles audiences could benefit. The show’s transition from the Taper’s thrust stage to a Broadway-style proscenium stage must be sorted out somewhere, and many of the actors live in L.A. Last year, in fact, UCLA’s Freud Playhouse was targeted for a possible post-Taper, pre-East Coast “Cycle” workshop.

Those plans now look unlikely, assuming the D.C. production materializes. The two-part play is now expected to occupy the Center’s Eisenhower Theatre--and two of the Center’s subscription slots--next fall, followed by a Broadway opening on Nov. 11. Richenthal has begun talks with the Shubert Organization about a Broadway site, focusing on theaters that seat at least 1,000 and have stages at least 30 feet deep. Ticket prices haven’t been set.

Casting? “As far as I’m concerned, we’re offering the same cast their roles,” Schenkkan said. But according to Richenthal, “it won’t be the identical company.”

Even though the epic already won the Pulitzer, Schenkkan has revised “Which Side Are You On?,” the eighth of its nine short plays. As seen in L.A., “Which Side” was set in a union hall on one evening in 1954, but now Schenkkan has set it over several weeks in multiple locations. The style is closer to that of the preceding material. Davidson said Schenkkan has “brilliantly altered the means by which he tells the same story, so it doesn’t settle into a more plodding, realistic drama.”

A ROSE IS A ROSE?: If you read the small print in the ads for “Aspects of Love,” opening Thursday at the Wilshire Theatre, you’ll learn that top-billed star Sarah Brightman (who also happens to be the ex-wife of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber), will not appear at today’s preview matinee or at any of the Thursday and Sunday evening performances after opening night. Linda Balgord will play Brightman’s role of Rose Vibert at those performances. Balgord has been playing the role on tour.

It’s customary for the soprano in a Lloyd Webber show such as “The Phantom of the Opera” or “Aspects of Love” to play only six shows a week, according to a spokesman for the production. The roles are supposedly too demanding to sing them eight times a week.

But Angelenos must be forgiven if we’re not familiar with the custom, for the Christine in “our” production at the Ahmanson Theatre, Dale Kristien, who sings all eight shows weekly, is the one exception to the rule in all of the “Phantom” companies worldwide, said a “Phantom” spokeswoman.

PLAYWRIGHTS CAUCUS: All Los Angeles playwrights are invited to a meeting at the Matrix Theatre Wednesday to discuss the formation of a playwrights’ service organization, the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights. The Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theatre is sponsoring the event. Reservations: (310) 284-8965.