Laguna Playhouse’s Coming Season Will Offer the Unfamiliar

The Laguna Playhouse’s coming season won’t have an overly familiar ring. It consists of six shows not previously staged in Southern California, plus “Candida,” one of George Bernard Shaw’s less frequently mounted plays.

The 2001-02 season includes the U.S. premiere of “Moving On” (Oct. 30-Dec. 2), a revue of Stephen Sondheim songs that picks up where the popular “Side by Side by Sondheim” left off. David Kernan, the English actor who conceived “Side by Side” in 1975 and was in its original British and Broadway casts, will direct “Moving On” at Laguna.

Also in the offing is the West Coast premiere of Kenneth Lonergan’s “The Waverly Gallery” (Jan. 1-Feb. 3), a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in drama. Lonergan won many honors, including an Oscar nomination for best screenplay, as writer-director of the film “You Can Count on Me.” In “The Waverly Gallery,” a humor-tinged drama, he depicts a formidable woman’s drift into Alzheimer’s disease.

A.R. Gurney of “Love Letters” and “Sylvia” fame switches milieus to Japan with “Far East” (April 2-May 5), about a young American naval officer and his Japanese lover. The play, having its Southern California premiere, uses elements of traditional Japanese stagecraft drawn from Kabuki and Noh theater. An adaptation of “Far East” is scheduled to air May 20 in the PBS television drama series “Stage on Screen.”

Rebecca Gilman’s “Spinning Into Butter” (Sept. 4-Oct. 7), a Southern California premiere, was acclaimed last year for its treatment of political correctness carried to extremes on a New England college campus. Originated at Chicago’s Goodman Theater and seen at Lincoln Center, it is having its Southern California premiere.

The coming Laguna season also includes return engagements for two playwrights whose work was seen last year.

Richard Dresser follows up “Gun-Shy,” his comic play about divorce, with the West Coast premiere of “Wonderful World” (July 24-Aug. 26), a comedy about the strained relationship of two brothers. It was first seen at this year’s Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky.

Irish writer Bernard Farrell, whose sadly comic “Kevin’s Bed” had its U.S. premiere at Laguna, is represented by an earlier play, “Stella by Starlight” (Feb. 12-March 17), which was a hit in Dublin in 1996.

The skew toward newer work contrasts with the current Laguna Playhouse season, which included a well-known 1960s play “The Price” by Arthur Miller, and two more from the 1970s, “The Belle of Amherst” and David Mamet’s “American Buffalo.”

“I don’t think you can say we’ve changed our programming philosophy,” said Richard Stein, playhouse executive director. “It boils down to what you can get the rights to. We try to find things a little offbeat and not in the programming niche of the Taper and South Coast Repertory.”

In a marketing switch, the playhouse will sell all seven shows as a subscription series instead of offering a six show regular season and a separate summer production. Stein said that subscribers embraced the expansion three years ago from five plays to six in a season and that many will find the added cost of a seven-play subscription worthwhile.

Subscription prices for regular performances will remain unchanged on a per-show basis, ranging from $144 ($24 per ticket) to $287 ($41 per ticket). Opening night subscriptions cost $532 ($76 per show). Tickets to the three-show Youth Theatre series range from $39 to $48.

Stein said 10,049 people subscribed this year to the adult productions, a playhouse record. Information: (949) 497-2787.

The schedule:

“Wonderful World” by Richard Dresser, July 24-Aug. 26.

“Spinning Into Butter” by Rebecca Gilman, Sept. 4-Oct. 7.

“Moving On,” songs by Stephen Sondheim, Oct. 30-Dec. 2.

“The Waverly Gallery” by Kenneth Lonergan, Jan. 1-Feb. 3.

“Stella by Starlight” by Bernard Farrell, Feb. 12-March 17.

“Far East” by A.R. Gurney, April 2-May 5.

“Candida” by George Bernard Shaw, May 28-June 30, 2002.

Youth Theatre Season:

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll, Oct. 12-21.

“The Homecoming,” Christopher Sergel, adapted from the novel “The Homecoming” by Earl Hamner Jr., Dec. 7-23.

“The Good Times are Killing Me” by Lynda Barry, March 22-24. (Nonsubscription show recommended for kids 13 and older.)

“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” musical by Judith Viorst and Shelly Markham, May 10-19, 2002.