Grove Loses Its Hold on Yule Classic : Theater: Laguna-based company buys rights to ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales,’ which had been a seasonal tradition at the Gem.

High Octane Productions, an entertainment company based in Laguna Beach, has acquired the professional stage rights to “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”

“It’s a done deal,” Bradford C. Moseley, president of the company, said late Tuesday. “This is it. We are very pleased. We have the exclusive rights.”

Thus, High Octane has wrested control of the show from GroveShakespeare, which has produced it for the last seven years as a Yuletide tradition at the Gem Theatre in Garden Grove. GroveShakespeare recently announced it would do so again later this year.

High Octane has been granted “production stock rights to produce/perform” the show from Dec. 1 to Jan. 15, according to a letter Moseley received last week from the Dramatic Publishing Co., which licenses the Adrian Mitchell-Jeremy Brooks musical adaptation of the Dylan Thomas story. Professional rights to a play customarily exclude other productions within 50 miles of the theater where it is staged, and Moseley confirmed he is paying for that right.

Moseley has said he wants to book “A Child’s Christmas” into the 450-seat Norris Theatre in Rolling Hills Estates in early December and into the 750-seat Irvine Barclay Theatre in late December. He also said he is looking into the possibility of a booking at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Earlier this week he met with Irvine Barclay president Douglas Rankin, who said Wednesday that Moseley’s proposal impressed him “positively” and had been forwarded to the theater’s programming committee for a decision within a month.

Rankin said Moseley’s proposal called for an unusually large cast--23 actors, including 12 union-professionals from Actors Equity--and a considerably larger physical setting than the production that has been staged at the 172-seat Gem.

The three mainstays of the Grove’s traditional offering--Gary Bell, Marnie Crossen and Danny Oberbeck--have been invited to star in the High Octane production.

Each has said that, despite their love of the Gem building, their “first loyalty” is to the show and that they “would go wherever the professional rights go.”

Margie Murphy, who handles professional rights for the licenser, did not return numerous phone calls from The Times. She said two weeks ago the Grove had shown little interest in renewing the rights.

As late as Friday, however, Grove artistic director Stuart McDowell maintained that he and the Grove board felt “a substantial commitment” to doing the show. Earlier this month, he had rated its chance of happening as “60-40.”

Not actively pursing the rights was “entirely a financial matter,” McDowell said.

In addition to owing at least $2,200 in disputed royalties from last year’s production, the cash-strapped Grove would have had to come up with an advance of $1,500 against future royalties to obtain the rights.

Further, McDowell said, “we were told by the licenser that even if we paid the royalties and the advance, we would more than likely not get an exclusive this year.”

McDowell earlier indicated that in the event GroveShakespeare lost the rights to “A Child’s Christmas,” “there are a lot of other wonderful seasonal properties out there that the company would have an interest in doing.”