It Is Hard to Find an Original

Last week’s announcement that the Ahmanson Theatre will fill the fourth slot in its 1997-98 season with the season’s fourth import, a Royal National Theatre production of “An Enemy of the People,” raises the question of when Center Theatre Group plans to resume productions of its own at the Ahmanson.

CTG hasn’t produced a home-grown show at its largest theater since 1995, when “Candide” opened the first full season since the Ahmanson was renovated. When the current season was announced last year, Ahmanson artistic director-producer Gordon Davidson expressed his desire for CTG to produce a play next summer to cap a season that otherwise consisted of the imported musicals “Rent,” “Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk” and “Chicago.”

Wait till next season, Davidson said last week. He expects to deliver an indigenous production in 1998-99. “It’s a challenge,” he said, “because of the size of the theater”--which means, he explained, both the aesthetic and the box-office requirements of the Ahmanson, “but we’re looking to do home-grown Shakespeare next year.” This year, he said, the “star power” he wanted wasn’t available.

Of course, the theater isn’t necessarily as large as it used to be. One of the primary reasons it was renovated in 1994 was to make its capacity flexible enough to accommodate audiences of 1,600 for spoken drama, as well as the nearly 2,100 who fill it for musicals. So far, the imported dramas that have occupied the space have used the 1,600-seat configuration, and so will “An Enemy of the People.”

It’s clear, however, that Davidson wants even the spoken dramas to be big. Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” which depicts a civic conflict over a case of water pollution, often is done on just a living room set, but Davidson said Trevor Nunn’s staging--his first for the Royal National since becoming its artistic director last year--”has the whole town onstage and in the audience” and features a cast of 40.

DESERT SONG: A new professional theater company has arisen in Palm Springs.

The Palm Canyon Theatre is already halfway through a season of six productions in a city-owned, 230-seat theater in Frances Stevens Park, not far from the center of Palm Springs. The company uses Actors’ Equity’s Small Professional Theatre contract.

The idea for the company began when Bill and Joseph W. Layne, a father and son who were visiting the area, noticed the lack of a professional resident company.

Bill Layne, who teaches theater at Morehead State University in Morehead, Ky., invested his retirement savings and took out two mortgages to come up with the $300,000 required to get Palm Canyon Theatre off the ground. And Joseph W. Layne, who recently left a job as a set designer and technical director at a Florida theater, became artistic director.

The company is housed in the converted gym of a former elementary school and senior center, built in 1927. The Laynes turned it into a raked theater last summer, with new wiring, handicapped-accessible features and air-conditioning. The rent is 10% of the commercial rate charged nearby, said the younger Layne. “We got a discount from the city for bringing the theater to Palm Springs.”

The structure has a small stage, with “very little wing space and no fly loft,” said the younger Layne, “so we’re doing intimate shows.”

He uses the word loosely. The first production in November was “The Desert Song,” with a cast of 20. Sixty actors auditioned, including 30 Equity members. The operetta was followed by “A Dickens of a Christmas,” with a cast of 33. Next up was A.R. Gurney’s “The Cocktail Hour” and the current production of Shaw’s “Arms and the Man,” through March 8. Coming up are “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” March 21-April 12 and “Anything Goes” May 2-24.

So far, audiences have averaged only around 60, Layne said, but a few nights have sold out. The schedule includes five shows each week, Wednesdays through Saturday evenings, plus a Sunday matinee, with play readings on Mondays.