Pasadena Plans Plays by Locals, Noel Coward

Two new plays by local writers, the U.S. premiere of an obscure Noel Coward play and the 1997 off-Broadway hit “As Bees in Honey Drown” are among the productions scheduled for Pasadena Playhouse in 2003.

The season will open Jan 24-Feb. 23 with the West Coast premiere of “Looking Over the President’s Shoulder,” by Santa Monica-based James Still. Based on the true story of Alonzo Fields, chief butler at the White House during four administrations, it was previously produced at Indiana Repertory Theatre.

Coward adapted his 1951 short story “Star Quality” into a backstage drama, but it was initially performed only in readings and on TV. Last year, Christopher Luscombe adapted and directed the play for the British stage. The Pasadena production of Luscombe’s adaptation, March 14-April 13, will be the U.S. premiere.

JoBeth Williams will star in the premiere of Gary Socol’s “Bicoastal Woman,” May 2-June 1, 2003. It’s a drama about a divorced woman in her late 40s, her best friend and a younger man.

Socol was one of 14 contributors to the sketch play “The Bar Off Melrose,” produced in L.A. in 1986. Another of his plays was produced in Massachusetts in 2000.

The Truman Capote and Harold Arlen musical “House of Flowers,” first announced as a Pasadena Playhouse possibility last year, will show up June 27-July 27, 2003, in its new adaptation by Charles Busch (“The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife”) and Kenneth Elliott, a longtime director of Busch’s plays. Set in a West Indies bordello, the new version is touted as having a more authentic Caribbean sound than the 1954 original.

Douglas Carter Beane’s “As Bees in Honey Drown,” Aug. 22-Sept. 21, 2003, will feature Peri Gilpin of television’s “Frasier” in its tale of a young man who is chosen to record a glamorous woman’s life story. “Bees” received a professional production in Santa Barbara in 2000.

A sixth play for the fall of 2003 will be announced later. Sheldon Epps, Pasadena Playhouse artistic director, also announced that this year’s December production will be “Plaid Tidings,” a revised version of last year’s holiday-themed edition of “Forever Plaid.”