Laguna Playhouse Will Have ‘Company’ for ‘96-97

A somewhat revised version of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Company” will open the Laguna Playhouse’s 1996-97 season at the Moulton Theater.

Playhouse executive director Richard Stein said Tuesday that the revival will have an expanded song list and a slightly different script. Composer-lyricist Sondheim and book writer George Furth are “making changes based on their recent experiences with ‘Company’ revivals in New York and London,” Stein said. “We should have their changes in August. We’ll be doing the Southern California premiere of the new version.”

“Company,” originally produced in 1970, was one of the landmark musicals of its time, the first of a half-dozen groundbreaking shows that Sondheim did with director Harold Prince. In addition to the title tune, this marriage-themed, revue-like show features such songs as “Another Hundred People,” “Barcelona” and “Being Alive.”

The playhouse’s season also will include a revival of the comedy “Room Service,” an adaptation of Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” and a pair of lesser-known plays, “Don’t Dress for Dinner” in its Southern California premiere, and “Joined at the Head.”

“A Child’s Christmas in Wales” used to be a perennial offering at the long-gone Grove Shakespeare Festival and has had staged readings around the county since the Grove shuttered. But in recent years, this poetic holiday show has had a spotty production history.

“Room Service,” which originally bowed on Broadway in 1937, is perhaps more widely remembered as a zany 1938 Marx Brothers movie with Lucille Ball and Ann Miller. It’s a farce about two-bit producers trying to avoid eviction from their hotel room while hustling backers to finance their show and get it on the boards.

“Don’t Dress for Dinner” is a British translation of a French sex farce involving mistaken identities and secret love affairs, to wit: A husband tries to hide his mistress from his wife. The play, by Marc Camoletti (who also wrote “Boeing-Boeing”), has been a commercial hit in London’s West End.

“Joined at the Head,” by Catherine Butterfield, is a drama from 1992 about a tortured friendship that develops between two Maggies. Maggie 1 is the lonely, best-selling novelist, and Maggie 2 is the cancer-stricken wife of Maggie 1’s high school sweetheart.

The Playhouse also announced a four-play Youth Theater season.

Plans for a companion season at a second theater--in a bank building that the Playhouse purchased for renovation--have been postponed. The Playhouse had hoped to launch a season of professional productions this summer but still needs a $1 million naming gift for the theater, Stein has said, before renovations can proceed.

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THE LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE

The 1996-97 season:

* “Company,” by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. Sept. 24-Oct. 20.

* “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” an adaptation by Jeremy Brooks and Adrian Mitchell of the story by Dylan Thomas. Dec. 3-29.

* “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” by Marc Camoletti. Jan. 7-Feb. 2.

* “Joined at the Head,” by Catherine Butterfield. March 4-30.

* “Room Service,” by John Murray and Allen Boretz. May 6, 1997-June 1.

The Youth Theater:

* “The Velveteen Rabbit,” by Margery Williams. Nov. 8-17.

* “The Adventures of Stuart Little,” adapted by Joseph Robinette from a story by E.B. White. Feb. 7-16.

* “Little Women,” adapted from a novel by Louisa May Alcott. April 11-20, 1997.

* “Cinderella,” adapted from the fairy tale. June 6-15.

All productions will be staged at the Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Subscriptions: $80-$140. Information: (714) 497-2787.