Bringing Rep to Riverside

For her 43rd birthday on Nov. 20, Peggy Shannon gave herself an unorthodox present: She hosted a board meeting.

It was the first gathering of the board of her new theater company, Riverside Repertory Theatre. By the fall of 1999, she hopes to open a season on an Equity contract, somewhere in Riverside, her birthplace and hometown. It would be the only fully professional theater company in the area.

In the meantime, the first program presented by the new company is scheduled for Saturday: “December in America: Stories From the Heart,” featuring Ed Asner, Shelley Berman, Meredith Baxter, Ted Lange, Steve Harris and Camryn Manheim in readings of contemporary, holiday-themed short stories.

“December” will be held at Riverside Municipal Auditorium, which is a potential venue for fuller productions of the new organization. The auditorium is slated to host a series of similar fund-raising events over the next two years, but Shannon isn’t sure about its feasibility as a permanent home. With 1,700 seats, it’s “way too big,” though it might work if the capacity could be reduced, she said. She’s also examining two vintage Riverside movie theaters as possible sites for conversion into a “legit” theater.

In her last staff job, as artistic director of A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, Shannon presided as that company moved into a building in downtown Seattle that had been renovated to the tune of $35 million. So she has some experience in raising money for such projects and seeing them through.

But she discourages anyone from becoming “fixated on the building” in Riverside. “Try to do the work first and then worry about the building,” she said.

Best known in L.A. for a two-year stint as associate producing director of L.A. Theatre Works, Shannon hopes to produce an eclectic menu at her new theater: brand-new plays, classics, plays that are fresh from Broadway or from tours, chamber musicals.

Growing up in Riverside, Shannon found the area “culturally barren”--despite her own experience as a young thespian at Ramona High School and as a pink-haired singer in a band called Urban Sprawl.

She considers the region a virtually blank slate for professional theater, and it became even more blank with the recent suspension of the nearby San Bernardino Civic Light Opera, which operated on a limited Equity contract.

“The big challenge is getting Riverside to see it’s not a town of 25,000 any more,” Shannon said. “People say ‘we don’t deserve a big professional theater.’ ”

One source who has produced theater in the area (but declined to be identified) wished Shannon luck but added, “let’s get real”--if the area’s residents wouldn’t support the familiar musicals that were offered by the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera, “how will they support plays?”

Shannon, however, cited an audience of 2 million people in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, some of whom travel to see theater in Los Angeles or Orange counties. While the rest may not have experienced professional theater, she plans to orient them to the experience with 45-minute pre-play talks and with educational programs in schools.

She acknowledged that Riverside is “fairly conservative.” She’ll steer clear of plays with extensive nudity or extreme violence or profanity, at least at first. However, she said a recent college production of “Angels in America” in Riverside was well received, and even in cosmopolitan Seattle, she encountered “people who canceled subscriptions because of the language in [Neil Simon’s] ‘Laughter on the 23rd Floor.’ ” Her goal, she said, would be “to stay ahead of the audience but not so far ahead that I alienate them.”

SELLING SEVEN SHOWS: International City Theatre in Long Beach has been producing shows in a small theater for 12 seasons and also in a mid-sized space for one season. Now the company is combining the two into one subscription package.

That’s a total of seven shows: three in the mid-sized Center Theater at Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, four in the company’s smaller venue on the campus of Long Beach City College. However, you also can subscribe separately to the small theater or the mid-sized one.

Artistic director Shashin Desai is so determined to get his subscribers into both series that he is planning to rent a city bus to take passengers from the smaller campus space to the larger Center Theater in downtown Long Beach for selected Sunday performances. That way, theatergoers can use the free and relatively convenient parking at the smaller facility instead of the paid parking garages near the downtown space. During the bus rides, Desai will discuss the show with his customers.

The season in the Center Theater: the musical version of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” Feb. 13-March 8; Lanford Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly,” June 26-July 19; Gerald Moon’s “Corpse!,” Sept. 4-27.

At the smaller space: Tom Dudzick’s “Greetings,” Jan. 16-Feb. 22; Kristine Thatcher’s “Emma’s Child,” May 8-June 14; Stephen Bill’s “Curtains,” July 31-Sept. 6; Lee Murphy’s Ovation-winning “Catch a Falling Star,” Oct. 6-Nov. 15.

MERCER NIGHT: Center Theatre Group’s sixth “Salon at the Taper” fund-raiser on Monday will salute Johnny Mercer in “Come Rain or Come Shine,” a program hosted by Michael Feinstein. Among the scheduled performers: Margaret Whiting, Alan Bergman, the Gerry Wiggins Trio, Harry Groener, Linda Purl, Charlayne Woodard and others. Tickets cost $250. Information: (213) 972-7660