Familiar Musicals to Get Encores in Long Beach

The Pace Theatrical Group, which produces the Broadway series at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, will be producing a similar series of nationally touring shows at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center.

Except for “Deathtrap,” a nonmusical that would not fit OCPAC’s Broadway agenda--all of the shows set for Long Beach have been presented in Costa Mesa, some several times and two as recently as last season.

“I don’t think it will affect us at all,” OCPAC spokesman Greg Patterson said Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s going to affect anyone, really.”

Victor Gotesman, who heads the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, would beg to differ. One of the shows slated for Long Beach, “A Chorus Line,” had been slated for the same dates at Cerritos. On Monday, the Cerritos Center filed a lawsuit over the conflict.

The new series, intended to fill a programming gap at the Long Beach center’s 3,062-seat Terrace Theater caused by the collapse of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera earlier this year, will include six shows for 1996-97:

* “Jesus Christ Superstar” (Oct. 15-20);

* “Cats” (Nov. 12-17);

* “Deathtrap,” with Elliott Gould and Mariette Hartley (Dec. 17-22);

* “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” (April 29-May 4;

* “A Chorus Line” (May 13-18);

*”Damn Yankees” with Jerry Lewis (dates not set).

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Don Shirley.