When Is a Tour Not a Tour?

People who like to subscribe to musicals in Long Beach may not have to wait too long.

With the Long Beach Civic Light Opera now kaput, Mark Edelman’s Theater League has moved in to book dates for musicals at the LBCLO’s erstwhile home, the Terrace Theater of the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center.

The plans aren’t final yet. Edelman, who already brings musicals to Thousand Oaks and Glendale, said his proposal requires Actors’ Equity’s permission to use the same Western Civic Light Opera contract that he uses at his other venues. The Equity board will take this up at its meeting Thursday.

The union committee overseeing that contract feels that Edelman’s shows should now be treated as tours--which would require that all cast members be covered by the contract, not just 75% of the cast as is required at Edelman’s other venues, said Equity Western Regional Director George Ives. Edelman’s operations “keep expanding,” Ives said. “He’s no longer working in individual WCLO theaters. If he can amortize over that much time, the committee feels it’s a tour.”

But Edelman contends that change would “create a hardship” that would require him “to fold up our tent . . . 75% in Long Beach is better than 0%.”

If Edelman gets Equity’s go-ahead, he hopes to bring “Fiddler on the Roof” to Long Beach in February (slated to star Jerry Stiller) and “Camelot” in May or June 1997 (with John Rubinstein and Dale Kristien). He also might book in one or two national tours (which have separate, Broadway-style touring contracts) in late 1996.

“Fiddler” and “Camelot” are already headed for Thousand Oaks, Glendale and Phoenix, as are two earlier Edelman productions--”The Will Rogers Follies” and “Godspell.” But Edelman couldn’t get Long Beach dates for “Follies” and “Godspell” that would adjoin the shows’ other local dates, so he won’t bring them to the Terrace.

The addition of Long Beach to Edelman’s circuit “would make each show more of a regional event,” Edelman said. “Right now the return of our advertising investment is curtailed by a lack of seating capacity” at only two venues.

Edelman’s plans are not likely to assuage some concerns voiced recently in Long Beach. LBCLO executive committee member Robert Schumacher said “the sad part is that Long Beach won’t get the community contributions” made by LBCLO in programs for students and seniors. Producers who aren’t based in the community “won’t give a darn about what happens” to those programs, he predicted.

“It’s true that we tend to concentrate on the production and less on the accouterments,” Edelman said, “especially at first.” Extras such as community service programs “come after musical theater stability. That stability is what they didn’t have in Long Beach.”

However, Edelman said he has experience in meeting community concerns. This would be the third time his organization moved into a local hall after another musical company collapsed or split, leaving subscribers with leftover tickets. Theater League did a season at Pasadena Civic Auditorium after California Music Theatre folded and took over Alex Theatre’s musicals after Theatre Corp. of America left.

“It takes time” to restore goodwill in such communities, he said. He offers former subscribers first crack at seating and discounts on subscriptions to the new series.