Theatre Corp. Expands to New Areas

Theatre Corp. of America, which operates the Pasadena Playhouse and Glendale’s newly restored Alex Theatre, continues to spread its wings--to Riverside and Thousand Oaks.

The company begins managing the 1,462-seat Riverside Municipal Auditorium on Tuesday. Because of limited fly space, Theatre Corp. won’t take its Pasadena plays or its Alex musicals there. Instead, the company will book the hall to others. The city of Riverside has pledged $500,000 in capital improvements and will receive 25 cents from each ticket sold, as well as 5% of non-performance rentals. The city and Theatre Corp. are continuing talks regarding the Fox Theatre, another Riverside venue that might eventually host Theatre Corp. musicals.

Meanwhile, assuming negotiations are completed, those Theatre Corp. musicals will play the new 1,800-seat Thousand Oaks Civic Auditorium. It’s expected to become the fourth link in the circuit that starts at the Alex and goes to the Spreckels in San Diego and the Warnors in Fresno.

Theatre Corp. edged out the Theater League, the Kansas City- and Phoenix-based company that brings such fare as “The Sound of Music” and “Les Miserables” to Pasadena Civic Auditorium, for the Thousand Oaks deal. “We opted to go with someone who’s more progressive, more innovative,” said Harry Selvin, the programming subcommittee chairman of the commission that runs the Thousand Oaks center. “We felt some of the more modern shows would be accepted more than the dinosaurs.”

Not that the Alex series is on the cutting edge of contemporary art. Its first three shows include the venerable “Mame” as well as two new musicals based on old properties: “Sayonara” and “Fame.” However, since the Theater Guild has booked the Pasadena Civic, its shows have all been very familiar.

Furthermore, Theatre Corp. will bring in six shows for two weeks each, while Theater League was proposing four shows, one week each, according to Tom Mitze, executive director of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

The Thousand Oaks hall won’t be ready in time to host the first or second series of Alex shows. But the third series will arrive in January, 1995, said Mitze. He also expects Theatre Corp. to present a special inaugural musical in November. Titles aren’t yet known.

Theatre Corp. reports early Alex shows are doing well. “Sayonara” attracted more than 20,000 theatergoers to the Alex, filling 81% of the seats. “Given that we had an earthquake, I’m very pleased,” said Theatre Corp. Chief Operating Officer Lars Hansen. There were 13,605 Alex subscribers at last count, plus nearly 7,000 at the Spreckels and 4,800 in Fresno.

In Thousand Oaks, Theatre Corp. will pay $5,000 a week in rent, plus 5% of the gross between $200,000 and $300,000 and 10% of the gross over $300,000. Although the parties have agreed on basic terms, said Selvin, conclusion of the three-year deal was delayed by the earthquake and the Alex’s opening.

OH SUSANA: Santa Susana Repertory Co., formerly of Simi Valley, is expected to become the resident professional company in the 400-seat Forum Theatre at the new Thousand Oaks Center. Artistic director Lane Davies plans to do “Man of La Mancha” (Sept. 16-Oct. 29), “A Christmas Carol” (Dec. 9-23), a to-be-announced play (Feb. 24-March 19, 1995) and “Little Shop of Horrors” (April 21-May 21, 1995). He’ll use a thrust stage, reducing capacity to 349 to qualify for an Actors’ Equity’s Small Professional Theater contract.

YET ANOTHER ‘PHANTOM’: “Phantom” fanatics, look out for Version No. 4. Riverside Civic Light Opera will present a “Phantom of the Opera” with a book by Bruce Falstein and songs by Lawrence Rosen and Paul Schierhorn, opening Friday for two weekends. It follows--and shares a set with--the Bakersfield Civic Light Opera production of the same show, which closed Saturday.

This “Phantom” was commissioned by New York real estate mogul Abe Hirschfeld, and played at his Miami Beach Clarion Castle hotel for four months in 1990.

The Riverside production, at Landis Auditorium in Riverside Community College, lacks an Actors’ Equity contract; this qualifies it as community theater, as opposed to a professional production.

A BITTER WOMAN?: Diana Gibson, who runs the Cast Theatre in Hollywood, is now on stage as well as off. She has taken over the role of the landlady, recently vacated by Ellen Ratner, in Justin Tanner’s dark comedy about apartment life in L.A., “Bitter Women.”

Most L.A. theater observers know Gibson only as a producer. But she took acting classes once a week throughout childhood. She appeared in dozens of USC productions on campus and at the Edinburgh Festival--John Ritter played her son in 12 different productions. She even got her Equity card in a production of “Feiffer’s People.” So she’s now expected to pay herself the token reimbursements required under Equity’s 99-Seat Theater Plan.*