Off-Broadway Musicals, New Comedy Top Laguna Season

Two off-Broadway musicals, both billed as West Coast premieres, and the world premiere of a new comedy highlight the Laguna Playhouse’s 1997-98 season.

The five-play subscription season, announced Tuesday, will open with “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” a musical revue about love and relationships by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts that was nominated for a 1997 Outer Critics Circle Award and is still running in New York.

The season will continue with Giles Havergal’s adaptation of the Graham Greene comic novel “Travels With My Aunt,” about a bachelor bank clerk and his nonconformist aunt. The show won a 1993 Olivier Award in London and several prizes in New York in 1995. It is being billed as an Orange County premiere.

“The Boise Club,” a new comedy by San Diego writer Bernard Baldan, will receive its world premiere in January. The play revolves around a self-help group of middle-age white men who feel they are an “endangered species” and who gather to speak their minds.

Rounding out the season will be Neil Simon’s homage to Sid Caesar and the Golden Age of television comedy, “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” followed by “Inside Out,” a 1994 off-Broadway musical comedy rewritten from a 1989 version that originated in North Hollywood. The show, by Doug Haverty and Adryan Russ, focuses on six women in group therapy. It will be the West Coast premiere of the revamped version.

Subscriptions will range from $90 to $160 (up from $80 to $140 this season); single tickets from $18 to $35, (up from $16 to $30).

Playhouse executive director Richard Stein also announced two nonsubscription offerings as part of the 1997-98 season: “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” the Marc Camoletti farce adapted from the French by Robin Hawdon, and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” adapted from a Dylan Thomas story by Jeremy Brooks and Adrian Mitchell.

Both shows have been staged previously by the playhouse. “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” a hit in January, will be remounted with the same cast this summer.

The Playhouse’s Youth Theater also announced its four-play subscription season for 1997-98: “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” (Oct. 17-26), adapted by Richard Hellesen from the Grimm fairy tale; “The House at Pooh Corner” (Feb. 13-28), adapted by Bettye Knapp from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories; “Tuck Everlasting” (April 17-26, 1998), adapted by Mark Frattaroli from a story by Natalie Babbitt; and “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (June 12-21, 1998), a musical by Clark Gesner based on Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” characters.

Subscriptions for the Youth Theater series will range from $34 to $46 (up from $30 to $42); single tickets from $9 to $12.

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THE LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE

The ‘97-98 Season:

* June 27-July 27: “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” by Marc Camoletti, adapted by Robin Hawdon (non-subscription show).

* Sept. 2-28: “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts.

* Nov. 4-30: “Travels With My Aunt,” by Graham Greene, adapted by Giles Havergal.

* Dec. 9-24: “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” by Dylan Thomas, adapted by Jeremy Brooks and Adrian Mitchell (non-subscription show).

* Jan. 6-Feb. 1: “The Boise Club,” by Bernard Baldan.

* March 3-29: “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” by Neil Simon.

* May 5-31, 1998: “Inside Out,” by Doug Haverty and Adryan Russ.

All productions will be at the Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Information: (714) 494-2787.