Musical Theater Group Expands to Include Long Beach

The musical theater scene in Long Beach is undergoing another transformation.

The Kansas City, Mo.-based Theater League will add the 3,062-seat Terrace Theater of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center to its circuit next season, replacing the Pace Theatrical Group’s series of musicals at that venue--which is best known to musical fans as the longtime home of the defunct Long Beach Civic Light Opera.

Although Theater League has previously presented series at Pasadena Civic Auditorium and the Alex Theatre in Glendale, the group’s only current Southland home is Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza’s 1,800-seat Kavli Theater, where it is in the midst of its fifth season.

The company will offer a subscription package in Long Beach consisting of four Terrace Theater shows plus a bonus show in the smaller, adjacent Center Theater. Two of the four shows in the big theater will play in Long Beach for a week, then move to Thousand Oaks for an additional week. The other two will be different from the shows presented in Thousand Oaks.

Long Beach is “far enough away from Thousand Oaks that it’s a very distinct audience,” said Theater League President Mark Edelman. “But it’s still part of [the] Los Angeles [market].” So Theater League will advertise in market-wide media more than in the past, and it will provide the actors in the locally produced shows--99% of whom live in L.A., Edelman said--two weeks of rehearsal and two weeks of performance within driving distance of their homes, before the tours continue to Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz.

Pace Chairman Miles Wilkin said his company’s series in Long Beach “was not economically viable,” in spite of support received from the city and the convention center. He declined to speculate on what went wrong. Pace arrived in Long Beach in 1996 and presented three seasons there.

The Theater League’s schedule in Long Beach: “A Chorus Line” (Sept. 17-19), “Lord of the Dance” (Oct. 19-24), “The Who’s Tommy” (Feb. 11-13, 2000) and “Fiddler on the Roof” with Theodore Bikel (May 12-14, 2000). Subscribers also will receive tickets to this spring’s run of “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh,” April 19 to May 2, in the Long Beach Center Theater.

The company’s schedule for 1999-2000 in Thousand Oaks: “A Chorus Line” (Sept. 21-26), “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” (Nov. 16-21), “The Who’s Tommy” (Feb. 15-20, 2000) and “West Side Story” (April 29-May 7, 2000). Subscribers also will receive tickets to this summer’s revised version of the Carole King revue “Tapestry” in the smaller, adjacent Scherr Forum Theatre (where Theater League’s “Hello Muddah” will open Saturday).