THEATER : A New Lineup for ’94 : * Valley productions will include ‘Mame’ and a musical about Al Capone as well as works by William Inge and Arthur Miller.

San Fernando Valley theater hops into high gear in the next couple of weeks as holiday fare makes way for a wide selection of stage work--dramas and musicals, dark and light, old and new. A sampling:

In January, the big news is the re-emergence of Actors Alley at El Portal in North Hollywood, with the dual openings of Elliott Nugent’s and James Thurber’s classic comedy “The Male Animal” and the premiere of Peter Lefcourt’s “The Audit.”

Also in North Hollywood: The new musical “Big Al” (as in Capone) opens at American Renegade Theatre and “Ryder,” a world premiere by Michael Holmes about 20th-Century American painter Albert Ryder, opens at Chandler Studio. The Odessa Theatre sets up camp at the former Gnu Theatre with the company-created piece “Accents”--about a day in an amusement park, stuck on a Ferris wheel. Later in the month, the group presents two pieces by company co-founder James Kennedy: “Slow Death,” set on a prison bus, and the story of a photographer and eight subjects in “The Session.”

In Burbank, the Apex Playhouse (site of the old Golden Theatre) serves up Rick Abbott’s backstage comedy about amateur theater, “Play On.” The autobiographical “Across from Cindy’s Corner” opens at the Gene Bua Theatre, and a revival of Jonathan Daly’s gentle story of a retarded man, “The William,” ends winds down its run at the Burbank Little Theatre.

On a big scale--meaning the new 1,460-seat Alex Theatre in Glendale--comes the musical version of “Sayonara.”

February marks the debut of Sage Allen’s drama about women’s friendships, “Cut Flowers,” at the Victory Theatre in Burbank, and Christopher Lecich’s story of three Vietnam veterans’ friendships, “After the Harvest Remain the Trees,” at Actors Forum in Studio City. Family dramas weigh in with a revival of William Inge’s “Picnic” at the Richard Basehart Playhouse in Woodland Hills and Robert Anderson’s “I Never Sang for My Father” at The Group Repertory Theatre in North Hollywood.

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Also in February, North Hollywood’s Interact Theatre Company at Theatre Exchange offers a New Works Festival, and Van Nuys’ Road Theatre Company will feature the premiere of Ken Hanes’ dark treatise on the price of beauty, “Freak of Nature.” On a younger front, the Lancaster Performing Arts Center presents Mummenschanz and a children’s production of “Hans Christian Anderson.”

In March, Glendale’s prestigious classical company, A Noise Within, kicks off its spring season with a revival of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons,” while Eric Ehn’s family drama “A-OK, or, Anarchy in Oklahoma” premieres at Two Roads Theatre in Studio City, and Bertolt Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera,” comes to the Odessa Theatre.

April brings such diverse fare as Juliet Prowse in “Mame” at the Alex Theatre, Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well” and Moliere’s “The School for Wives” joining the repertory at A Noise Within, Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” at American Renegade, “Pirates”--about female pirate Ann Bonney and her contemporary counterparts--at Road Theatre, and Michael Learned in Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center.