McAnuff Sets Aside Films for Now to Oversee La Jolla Playhouse Season

Director Des McAnuff will put Hollywood on hold for at least a year and return to La Jolla Playhouse to supervise the 2001 season as interim artistic director.

McAnuff, who recently directed “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,” was the La Jolla artistic director when the theater was revived in 1983 after a period of dormancy. He served in that job until 1994. The board called on him again after the July 19 announcement that first-year artistic director Anne Hamburger had been lured away by the Walt Disney Co., where she will supervise the shows and spectacles at the Disney theme parks.

McAnuff said he was “genuinely excited” by his return to La Jolla and that he had been planning to direct a play soon. He will stage at least one production during the 2001 season he will plan, and he has “a fairly healthy list” of stage projects that he would like to direct or supervise as artistic director. However, he ruled himself out as a permanent artistic director, because he wants to continue working in movies.

Since he left La Jolla, McAnuff staged further versions of hits that originated at La Jolla--”The Who’s Tommy” and his revival of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” But he also directed another movie, “Cousin Bette,” in addition to “Bullwinkle,” and co-produced the animated movie “The Iron Giant.”

He hopes to finish writing a script for producer Jerry Bruckheimer before he devotes his full attention to La Jolla next fall--after Hamburger actually leaves--but for the next year after that, “other things will have to wait,” he said.