Cerritos Lines Up Eclectic 3rd Season : Performing arts: Among the center’s offerings for 1994-95 are ballet, Tony Bennett and the area premiere of ‘Barrymore.’

Performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and singing hoofer Liza Minnelli highlight the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts’ eclectic third season, unveiled today by center officials.

Shirley MacLaine will kick off the 1994-95 season on Sept. 16. Also among the 41 groups and performers coming to the center are Neville Marriner with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in its only Southern California appearance, the Vienna Symphony and soprano Leontyne Price.

Ballet star Julio Bocca with Ballet Argentino--making its United States debut--a touring ensemble with eight principal dancers from New York City Ballet and the traditional Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company of China headline the center’s dance offerings.

Randy Newman, Johnny Cash, Little Richard, the Chieftains, Art Garfunkel and Tony Bennett top an expanded pop menu.

In theater, the 18-month-old facility will present the national touring production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” starring Theodore Bikel, and the L.A.-area premiere of a national touring production of “Barrymore,” a play based on the late veteran actor John Barrymore’s life.

The RSC’s presentation, a U.S. premiere, will incorporate sections of the second and third parts of Shakespeare’s “Henry VI” trilogy and is subtitled “The Battle for the Throne,” a center spokeswoman said. The RSC and the Royal Philharmonic appearances are part of UK/LA 1994, a regional British arts festival slated for fall.

Center General Manager Victor Gotesman, who has vowed to lead rather than follow the community’s tastes, on Wednesday characterized the new season’s programming as “very mainstream.”

But, he said in a phone interview, “we’re still building our foundation and vision for the center” and educating a community “that’s never had a performing arts center. . . . We will eventually have more adventurous programming on the schedule.”

(One potentially challenging work, Philip Glass’s 4 1/2-hour opera “Einstein on the Beach,” which Gotesman had tried to book, turned out to be too expensive, he said.)

Results from the center’s current season, which completed its first full season on May 15 (it opened with an abbreviated season in early 1993), will not be available until July, Gotesman said.

A total budget of $8.3 million for the coming fiscal year has been submitted to the Cerritos City Council, which is expected to chip in $2 million, as it has annually, to bridge the expected gap between expenses and revenues, he said.

Attendance figures are not ready either, but the number of days that the facility was occupied last season by performances or with technical preparations was 135, Gotesman said. That figure is expected to rise to 179 or more in the season ahead, he said, as other productions are booked.