Sugar and Spice

There was a time--1965--when Neil Simon had three hit shows on Broadway: “Barefoot in the Park,” “The Odd Couple” and the musical “Sweet Charity.”

The last of those, “Sweet Charity,” is the current production at Moorpark College, under the direction of Les Wieder.

Charity Hope Valentine calls herself a “social consultant”; in fact, she’s a dance-hall girl who tends to fall in love too easily and too often. Bob Fosse directed and choreographed the original production (his wife, Gwen Verdon, starred); and Dorothy Fields and Cy Coleman wrote the score, which included the hits “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “Big Spender.”

It may be Simon’s simplest script, and the songs--other than the hits--are nothing to sing about. Moreover, the show is so stuck in its time that several gags from the then-hit TV show “Laugh-In” may puzzle those too young to remember.

Yet the show is something to see, good-natured as all get-out but with a dark edge and a terrific central performance by Jessica Freund in the title role.

Freund, who starred in the college’s recent production of “Once Upon a Mattress,” is still very reminiscent of a young Carol Burnett, and her rubber-limbed, gamin-like presence works very well here.

The excellent supporting cast (keeping in mind that this is the definition of a star vehicle) includes Brian Donohue and Shane Van Dyke as two of the men in her life; Allison Lowry as the woman in one of their lives; and Rita Petile and Morgan Tachco as a couple of other dance-hall girls (“Big Spender” is theirs).

Sayhber Rawles contributed the choreography: She largely avoids directly imitating Fosse, but when Charity is given a hat and cane, what’s a girl to do? And there’s a nice bit of the Batusi in “Rich Man’s Frug.”

Theater League Season: Theater League, the Kansas City-based organization that brings touring musicals to the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, has announced its coming season, even before the current season concludes in May with Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit’s “Phantom.”

The 1999-2000 package opens Sept. 17 with “A Chorus Line,” continues in November with “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” brings the Who’s “Tommy” in next February and concludes with “West Side Story” in April 2000. The group will also stage “Tapestry,” a revue of Carole King songs, this August in the Civic Arts Plaza’s Forum; admission will be free when season tickets are purchased (call 449-2775), but tickets are also available separately.

Last year, Theater League shows debuted in Thousand Oaks before moving to Arizona, Kansas and other locales. For the new season, some plays will originate in Long Beach the weekend before moving to Thousand Oaks.

“We had been rehearsing in a Burbank facility,” League president Mark Edelman explained last week, “and now we can rehearse in Long Beach. . . . If you’re going to spend money on a rehearsal room, you might as well use a theater.”

Casting Call: The Santa Paula Theater Center will hold auditions Saturday by appointment only for its upcoming productions of Ronald Harwood’s post-World War II courtroom drama, “Taking Sides.”

Actors should be able to affect a German accent. For further information, call 525-3073.

The Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival Company will hold open auditions in Thousand Oaks on Sunday for its summer apprentice program. Apprentices will work on the festival’s productions of “Macbeth” and “Comedy of Errors,” attend master classes and receive one college credit and a weekly stipend of $75 for the program’s eight-week duration. For more information, call 493-3415.

DETAILS

“Sweet Charity” continues through March 6 at the Moorpark College Performing Arts Center, 7075 Campus Road. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, with matinees at 1:30 p.m. today and March 4. Tickets to all evening performances are $10; $8, students; and $6, seniors and children. All matinee seats are $5. For reservations or more information, call 378-1485.