Douglas Rowe Moves North for ‘Salesman’ Role

Whatever else 1996 will be remembered for, it will mark the departure of a prime figure from Orange County theater circles.

Douglas Rowe, the actor-director-manager who headed the Laguna Playhouse on and off from 1966 to 1991, has pulled up stakes in Laguna Beach and left for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to star as Willy Loman in a major revival of “Death of a Salesman.”

“I just couldn’t turn them down,” Rowe, 57, said recently of the plum role in Arthur Miller’s classic American tragedy.

The year-round Shakespeare festival in Ashland, Ore., is the nation’s largest and wealthiest professional resident theater company. It schedules productions for lengthy engagements--therefore, Rowe is moving his family with him--and offers several shows at a time in repertory on multiple stages.

“Death of a Salesman” will open in February and run until November (with a short break in summer) at the festival’s 600-seat Angus Bowmer Theatre.

Rowe, who was seen onstage most recently at South Coast Repertory in “The Taming of the Shrew,” has signed a one-year contract with the Oregon company. He will also appear in other plays, including several Shakespearean roles in “King Lear” and “Timon of Athens.”

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JURY’S OUT: Getting a play on its feet is no easy proposition. Mary Anne McGarry wrote “Lost and Foundling”--which is looking for its sea legs at Coolsville in Laguna Beach through Dec. 22--several years ago as a television script.

At one time it was picked for development by the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Conn., indicating that a panel of judges at one of the country’s more prestigious play-development programs thought it showed promise.

“We did parts of it there [in 1990] and got some of the stuff on videotape,” McGarry said. “But I never managed to finish the thing. That’s what I’m trying to do now.”

The more she works on it at Coolsville, she added, “the more I realize I can’t write, direct and produce it without guidance.”

So McGarry, who lives in Laguna Beach and works as an actor in Hollywood (last seen in a guest part on “E.R.”), is asking audiences for feedback.

The play, which is set in St. Louis, is billed as “a Christmas fable for grown-ups.”

What’s the verdict for the first couple of shows?

“People have been telling me it needs a second act,” she said.

* “Lost and Foundling” goes on at 6:30 and 9 p.m. today, and 5 p.m. Sunday. Ends Dec. 22. (714) 647-5506.

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STOCKING STUFFERS: On the day South Coast Repertory’s production of “A Christmas Carol” opened (Dec. 4), 96% of all seats were sold out for its 29 performances, a spokesman for the Costa Mesa theater says. With two weeks left before the final performance Christmas Eve, 98% of the seats have been sold. The theater has a capacity of 507.

In Laguna Beach, the Laguna Playhouse’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” at the Moulton Theater made 96% of its sales projection of 4,000 single tickets for the entire run of 31 performances by opening night (Dec. 5). That theater has 420 seats.

The playhouse has sold 95% of the seats through Christmas, a spokesman said, and is now looking to fill the remaining 1,200 seats for its final week, through Dec. 29.

* “A Christmas Carol” goes on at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and noon and 4 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 22. Also 7:30 p.m. Dec. 23 and noon and 4 p.m. Dec. 24. $19-$34. (714) 957-4033.

* “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” goes on at 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday (no show Dec. 24), 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Through Dec. 29. $20-$30. (714) 497-2787.