THEATER NOTES : Stages Seasoned With Will Rogers, Nuns, Scrooge

Notes from all over . . .

Christmas productions have taken over the county’s stages--not totally but almost.

The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts is one of the few places where you can catch a show unrelated to the holidays. It has the national touring company of “The Will Rogers Follies,” beginning Tuesday.

This swanky revue will be slightly different from the version that played the Orange County Performing Arts Center 13 months ago. It won’t have baby-faced Mac Davis reprising his Broadway performance in the title role. This time Bill O’Brien is starring as Will Rogers. Still, he’ll be surrounded by the company’s usual bevy of long-stemmed, Vegas-style showgirls. (310) 916-8500.

Though the center in Costa Mesa will be hosting a few Yuletide concerts--the Fiesta Navidad mariachi program on Sunday and subsequent concerts by the Master Chorale of Orange County, the Pacific Chorale and the Pacific Symphony--it has booked the national touring company of “The Sound of Music” for two weeks, beginning Dec. 27.

Marie Osmond, starring as the singing nun Maria, got positive notices when this Rodgers and Hammerstein chestnut played the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles in August. You might wonder if they were a fluke. Apparently not. Osmond has received raves in lots of cities around the country. (714) 556-2787.

And now for some of those seasonal offerings . . .

My favorite is the Laguna Playhouse production of “Inspecting Carol” at the Moulton Theatre in Laguna Beach. It is a backstage farce that satirizes a down-at-the-heels theatrical troupe in rehearsal for their perennial offering of “A Christmas Carol.”

Fresh, topical and outrageously funny, “Inspecting Carol” has just set a playhouse attendance record for a non-musical (surpassing “Teacher’s Lounge”). And it’s still running, with the last performance set for Dec. 18. (714) 494-8021

“La Posada Magica,” a new play by Octavio Solis that has its premiere at South Coast Repertory on Wednesday after previews tonight through Sunday, will run through Dec. 24. In addition, the production will tour to Santa Ana High School (Tuesday), Estancia High School in Costa Mesa (Dec. 17) and the Don Wash Auditorium at Garden Grove High School (Dec. 20, hosted by Santiago High School). These low-priced touring performances have been sponsored by a $15,000 grant from Target Stores.

“The intent of these performances,” an SCR spokesman said, “is to make it easy for people to attend in their local communities.” (714) 567-4930 for Santa Ana; (714) 760-3571 for Estancia; (714) 663-6268 for Santiago.

Over at Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton on Saturday, the Fullerton Civic Light Opera has Shirley Jones celebrating Christmas with a concert of holiday tunes. Jones also will reprise some of the Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes from shows that helped make her famous: “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from “Carousel” (she co-starred in the movie version with Gordon MacRae); “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man” (she co-starred, again on screen, with Robert Preston); and songs from “Oklahoma” (she made the movie with MacRae). (714) 879-1732. Meanwhile, the Fullerton Civic Light Opera has signed its first full-scale contract with Actors Equity. This means the company will hire two dozen union-professional performers, in addition to Equity stage managers, when its 1995 season begins in February. The contract is a step up the ladder, putting the company at the level of other major West Coast light opera companies. The Long Beach Civic Light Opera and the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle operate on the same contract.

The Fullerton company’s 1995 budget is also higher than ever, projected at $1.3 million. Four musicals at Plummer will cost $1 million to produce (the Yeston-Kopit “Phantom,” “Brigadoon,” “The Secret Garden” and “West Side Story”). And $300,000 will finance outdoor summer shows at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center, also in Fullerton.

On Monday and Tuesday, for the second year in a row, the Garden Grove Historical Society will present a reading of Dylan Thomas’ Yuletide story, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” It will feature Gary Bell, Marnie Crossen and Danny Oberbeck, who starred many times in the annual stage version that used to be produced at the Gem Theatre. Bud Leslie will direct. Chuck Estes will produce. Refreshments will be served. (914) 530-8871.

Shakespeare Orange County begins its annual Christmas celebration, “A Shakespearean Christmas,” on Thursday. The show, which will run through Dec. 22 at Chapman University’s Waltmar Theatre in Orange, gives company actors the chance to offer seasonal poetry and prose and to relate their personal memories of the holiday. Pieces will include selections from Shakespeare, Dickens, Robert Frost, e.e. cummings and others, as well as traditional carols. You’ll even get dessert. (714) 744-7016.

Incidentally, during its regular summer subscription season, the company will stage “Richard III” (with Ron Campbell in the title role) and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (with Daniel Bryan Cartmell featured as Bottom). Dates have yet to be announced. A third show, to open the season, is still to be chosen.

Oh yes--”A Christmas Carol.” Who could forget that Dickensian chestnut?

South Coast Repertory is doing Jerry Patch’s adaptation on the Mainstage for the 15th consecutive year. It continues through Dec. 24. (714) 957-4033.

If you want to see a different production of “A Christmas Carol” for a change, you might consider the Nebraska Theatre Caravan’s musical stage version of Dickens’ 1843 story. It will be offered Dec. 17 at Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre in Costa Mesa.

The Caravan is the professional touring wing of the Omaha Community Playhouse, one of the nation’s major community troupes. The first tour was launched 18 years ago in the Midwest. Other tours were added in 1982. Separate Caravans now serve various regions of the country. The show, which travels with 36 performers and technicians, is playing this season in more than 60 towns.

Christmas carols featured in this production “stand apart from the text,” says playhouse executive director Charles Jones, who wrote the adaptation. “Each carol has been chosen for the dramatic atmosphere. The songs are traditional, but the scoring is contemporary.” A four-piece chamber ensemble accompanies the cast. (714) 432-5880.

Finally, a non-holiday note . . .

The Vanguard Theatre Ensemble in Fullerton has announced seven plays for its 1995 subscription season: A. R. Gurney’s “Love Letters (Jan. 6-28); Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” (Feb. 17-March 12 at Brea’s Curtis Theatre); Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology” (March 24-April 15); Arthur Miller’s “After the Fall” (May 12-June 10); David Hirson’s “La Bete” (July 7-Aug. 5); Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer” (Sept. 8-Oct. 7); Brandon Thomas’ “Charley’s Aunt” (Nov. 3-Dec.9, 1995). (714) 526-8007.