THEATER NOTES : What to Do With the Doolittle?

Is the Doolittle Theatre about to become a do-little establishment?

No one is sure what’s going to happen at the Doolittle after the Center Theatre Group ends its current tenancy there in September. But everyone seems to agree that a dark Doolittle would be another big blow for the Hollywood theater district, which has already been suffering from subway construction and earthquake damage.

Six years ago, the Ahmanson Theatre’s subscription series moved to the Doolittle when “The Phantom of the Opera” opened at the Ahmanson. After the long run of “Phantom” closed, Ahmanson shows remained in Hollywood while construction crews renovated the Ahmanson. But now the Ahmanson has reopened, and Ahmanson subscribers are seeing their last regular show at the Doolittle, “Laughter on the 23rd Floor.” After a special run of “Angels in America” at the Doolittle in late summer, also under Center Theatre Group auspices, the Ahmanson series will return to Downtown L.A.

UCLA owns the Doolittle. The university’s executive director of public arts, Cynthia Cooper, said she is “optimistic” that Center Theatre Group will stay at the Doolittle in some form and that talks are being held to discuss that possibility.

“We would welcome that possibility,” said CTG artistic director/producer Gordon Davidson. But he wouldn’t discuss details other than to say that “it would be a different kind of arrangement.” He acknowledged that it would be difficult to raise money for a new round of programming at the Doolittle at the same time that he wants to raise money for a hoped-for mid-size theater.

Cooper said she needs to resolve the possibility of CTG’s continued use of the Doolittle by July 1. If the talks yield no results, she’ll have to search for alternatives and hire a theater manager.

UCLA Center for the Performing Arts, which presents a wide variety of arts programming, might be able to use the Doolittle occasionally, Cooper said. For example, she cited the upcoming return of “Stomp,” Sept. 5-Oct. 15 at the Wadsworth Theater, as the kind of show that might have gone to the Doolittle. However, most of the Center for the Performing Arts presentations would be less suitable for the Doolittle, she said. Short runs are less expensive at the Wadsworth, which is closer to the UCLA campus. And the Doolittle was designed for plays, not for dance or music.

Cooper said several inquiries about renting the Doolittle for individual shows have come in, but “no one has come forward and said, ‘I want to lease your theater for seven years.’ If that happens, you won’t need the phone to hear me.”

TONY TALK: A scene from “Master Class” at the Mark Taper Forum will be taped next week for use on next Sunday’s Tony Awards telecast. “It will be the first scene they’ve shown from a play [as opposed to a musical] out of town--or I should say out of their town [New York],” said Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson. “It’s not out of my town.”

In recent Tony telecasts, the idea of including excerpts of plays that aren’t musicals has lost favor. “They tend not to work,” agreed Davidson. However, “this play has music, to begin with, and with the nature and dynamics of it, I think it’ll work like gangbusters.”

Asked if he was bothered that inclusion of the scene might make the Taper look like just a pre-Broadway tryout house, Davidson replied that “I would be [bothered] if we were just starting out.” But he pointed out that three of the four nominees for the best play Tony last year had previously played the Taper and “to them [New Yorkers], it’s news that another one of our shows is going to New York.” “Master Class” is scheduled to open on Broadway in early November.

LA MIRADA PLANS: McCoy/Rigby Entertainment’s 1995-96 season at La Mirada Theatre will open with a revamped “Radio Gals” (Nov. 3-19), the show about a small-time radio station in the 1920s, seen recently at Pasadena Playhouse. Series producer Tom McCoy said he wants to take “Radio Gals” to Off Broadway but it needed “some tweaking” first. When “Radio Gals” veered away from the radio-program-within-the-play, “it sometimes missed the point,” McCoy felt. The show’s co-creator, Mike Craver, is rewriting, McCoy said, and will also continue to appear in the show, as will all but one of the Pasadena cast.

Also coming up in the McCoy/Rigby series are a revival of “The Rainmaker” (Jan. 5-21) and Sherry Glaser’s “Family Secrets” (Feb. 23-March 10), although Glaser’s availability to perform in “Family Secrets” isn’t yet known. Another actress would take the role if Glaser can’t.

The season will close with co-producer (and McCoy spouse) Cathy Rigby in “Annie Get Your Gun” (June 7-23, 1996). Rigby toured in a McCoy revival of the show in 1993, and this will be the same “politically correct” version, McCoy said. “I’m an Indian, Too” was replaced by “a fairly authentic Indian number” and Annie is “more in control of her destiny at the end.”*