Rolling the Dice : Huntington Beach Playhouse Plans to Take Risks With Its New Black Box Productions

The Huntington Beach Playhouse has long been known as strictly a community theater--maybe better than some, but still devoted to the common denominator when choosing its shows.

That may be changing. Playhouse administrators say they will continue to appeal to patrons more accustomed to the mainstream than Mamet, but they also want to open up and take a few chances. They point to their new Black Box productions as a telling sign.

Malcolm Armstrong, the theater’s new executive director who said he once performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, said that an original play will be presented under the Black Box imprimatur each year.

The current offering is “Dates From Hell,” an “adult comedy” written by Karen Ann Knotts, the daughter of actor Don Knotts. It premiered last weekend and continues through Sunday.

“We’re trying to be a little experimental with it,” Armstrong said. “We know we won’t always please the ‘blue-rinse’ set.”

From now on, Armstrong said, the playhouse will accept original scripts from Orange County and beyond to be showcased in Black Box stagings. Although no formal searches are planned, he said the theater is open to submissions from across the country.

“Whether the new Sam Shepard will be discovered around here or elsewhere [by the playhouse] is something I don’t know,” Armstrong said. “But you never know . . . good, interesting things can come out of this.”

Black Box productions are presented in the playhouse’s relatively new theater which opened at the Huntington Beach Library complex last year. Armstrong explained that budget restrictions require the shows to be economically staged and, more often than not, should be considered works-in-progress.

He added, however, that the freshness of the plays (and the solicitation of the audience’s views after each performance) may make it an entertaining experience.

“We’re still defining the parameters” of the Black Box program and the theater’s regular season, Armstrong said, “and we probably won’t be on the real cutting edge. This one [‘Dates From Hell’] is fairly risque, though.”

Besides Black Box, Armstrong said he wants to increase the playhouse’s commitment to Shakespeare and possibly begin actor workshops and study classes.

Another commitment is to varying the season while not alienating a conservative audience. The 1996 season, Armstrong noted, includes a musical (“My Fair Lady”), a whodunit (“Murder by Misadventure”), Shakespeare (“Twelfth Night”) and a drama (“The Elephant Man”).

As for “Dates From Hell,” Knotts said it is based on her and her friends’ disappointing experiences on the romance trail. The world of dating services, not high on Knotts’ list of love-connection tools, is one of the playwright’s favorite targets.

“I’ve had dates from hell, sure I have, and I don’t have much faith in the services,” said Knotts, who lives in Studio City and started writing to supplement her acting career. “The bad dates aren’t funny when you have them, but they’re funny later.

“Basically, the message [of ‘Dates From Hell’] is that it’s OK to be single,” she said. “Don’t take dating too seriously [and] you have a better chance of finding someone.”

* Karen Ann Knotts’ “Dates From Hell” plays at the Huntington Beach Playhouse, 7111 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. (714) 375-0696.