Will ‘Sunset’ Album Be the L.A. Version?

Will there be an original cast album from L.A.’s American premiere production of “Sunset Boulevard”? Spokesmen for producer-composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and PolyGram Records say a decision is expected soon.

The double album from the London production debuted at 170 on the Billboard 200 in November but remained on the chart only one week--in contrast with the “Highlights” recording from Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” which has been on the Billboard 200 for 199 weeks. As of last Sunday, according to SoundScan, approximately 53,000 copies of the “Sunset” recording had been sold in the United States--15,000 of them in the L.A. area.

However, the L.A. production received stronger reviews than the one in London, and some customers might be waiting for the L.A. recording. Several dozen copies of a single of L.A.’s “Sunset” star Glenn Close singing “The Perfect Year” from the show sold out within a week at Tower Records in West Hollywood, according to a store spokesman, and a PolyGram spokesman said the New Year’s-themed song is doing well on adult contemporary radio stations.

A straight-from-L.A. album would seem fitting, since Lloyd Webber has said repeatedly that his initial preference was to stage the show here first because of its L.A. setting--a plan thwarted only because he didn’t feel the Shubert Theatre would be ready in time.

Does an American original cast album need whatever cachet the word Broadway still holds? “Sunset Boulevard” could be the best test case yet to see whether this principle still applies.

Not that an L.A. cast album would be totally unprecedented, according to Miles Krueger, president of the Institute of the American Musical. He noted that a recording of “The Great Waltz,” a 1965 musical that was done in California but never reached Broadway, was distributed nationally. A few other locally bred musicals have issued recordings that received limited distribution--but none got the attention that a Lloyd Webber show would get.

If the decision is made to go ahead and record in L.A., we’d like to suggest a tiny change in the Don Black/Christopher Hampton lyrics. It’s in the title song:

L.A.’s changed a lot

Over the years

Since those brave Gold Rush pioneers

Came in their creaky covered wagons.

The fact is, most of the Gold Rush pioneers rushed to the gold itself, which was in northern California, hundreds of miles from L.A. Many came by ship.

L.A.’s role in the Gold Rush, according to Los Angeles historian John Weaver, was to sell food to the ‘49ers up north. Weaver even came up with his own suggested lyric to replace the one that sounds so, well, fake. Here’s Weaver’s:

L.A.’s changed a lot

Over the years

Since hungry Gold Rush pioneers

Dined on the dusty cowtown’s beef .

Of course beef doesn’t rhyme with dragons, which forms a rhyme on wagons a few lines later. But it might be a good place to start.

One historical footnote: Gold was discovered a few miles north of L.A., in Placerita Canyon near present-day Santa Clarita, in 1843, before the Gold Rush up north. But L.A.’s gold created no real rush.

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S.T.A.G.E. WATCH: Speaking of original L.A. theater albums, a spring release is expected for MCA’s double CD, “George and Ira Gershwin: A Celebration,” recorded at last year’s S.T.A.G.E. (Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event), the annual theatrical fund-raiser for AIDS Project Los Angeles. Proceeds from the recording will go to APLA.

The recording will follow in the wake of this year’s S.T.A.G.E, the 10th. This year’s program will occupy the Embassy Theatre in downtown Los Angeles Friday, Saturday and next Sunday. It will be a “best of” compilation of highlights from previous years, each of which focused on the work of a major musical theater composer or composer-lyricist team. The performers include a long list of well-known musical theater talent. A special part of this year’s program will honor the previous years’ participants who have died of AIDS or other ailments. Information: (213) 386-8014.

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“HEAVENLY” ON HOLD: “I’m pretty sure it will be delayed,” said Mark Taper Forum producing director Gordon Davidson, referring to the Taper’s scheduled summer premiere of “The Heavenly Theatre,” a play by Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) with music by Mel Marvin.

Kushner’s agent, Joyce Ketay, said she’s “very sure” of the delay.

“It will be a postponement, not a cancellation,” Davidson said. Competing projects are claiming the writer’s time, including the “Angels in America” screenplay and an adaptation of “The Dybbuk” that Kushner owes to Hartford Stage Co. That “Dybbuk” commitment pre-dates “Heavenly Theatre,” Ketay said. Also, Kushner’s one-act “Slavs! (Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness”) will mark his debut at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s annual Humana Festival in March.

Does this mean an opening on the Taper schedule for “The Waiting Room,” the Lisa Loomer play that Davidson has said he wants to present as soon as possible? Possibly, Davidson replied, “though I may have a better spot for it, from my point of view, next season.”

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“TWILIGHT” CHANGES: One other task taken on by Tony Kushner recently: He’ll serve as dramaturge on the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Anna Deavere Smith’s “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” opening in March. The show, which premiered at the Taper last June, will be staged by festival director George C. Wolfe, and is expected to move to Broadway after the booking.

Smith is “reshaping” the show, said the Taper’s Davidson, who continues to have a hand in the production. The interviewer-monologuist-actress was in Los Angeles last week conducting “less than a handful” of new interviews, Davidson said. One was with an unidentified member of the so-called “L.A. Four” in the Reginald O. Denny beating case. Of course there is no assurance that the interviews will be used in the New York show. Smith did more than 100 interviews for the Los Angeles production--only 26 were used.