‘Gem of the Ocean’ in troubled waters

Performances have been canceled through Nov. 14 for “Gem of the Ocean,” August Wilson’s new play, as its producers continued to scramble for the nearly $1 million needed to open the show on Broadway.

Tickets are still on sale for all performances beginning Nov. 16, five days after “Gem” originally was to have opened at the Walter Kerr Theater, Michael Hartman, a production spokesman, said Tuesday.

A new performance schedule as well as a new opening date will be announced shortly, Hartman said.

The money, half of the show’s reported $2-million production costs, is being sought by Jujamcyn Theatres and the Araca Group, the new producing team for “Gem.” They joined the project after the show lost a major investor, just as the production was finishing a tryout engagement in Boston.

“We’re working diligently to find replacement funds to make up the shortfall,” Michael Rego, one of the principals in the Araca Group, said Tuesday. “We are cautiously optimistic.”

Rego said the goal is to begin preview performances Nov. 16 and open sometime after that.

The producers may have a difficult time finding an available date. November is a particularly busy month on and off-Broadway with most of the desirable opening nights before Thanksgiving taken by such high-profile plays as Michael Frayn’s “Democracy,” Woody Allen’s “A Second Hand Memory,” Sam Shepard’s “The God of Hell” and one-person shows starring Whoopi Goldberg and Dame Edna.

“Gem of the Ocean,” set in 1904 Pittsburgh, opens Wilson’s ambitious 10-play cycle depicting the black experience in America in the 20th century, one play for each decade. Although it begins the saga, “Gem” was the ninth play in the cycle to be written, following such well-received efforts as “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Fences” and “Jitney.”

The story focuses on an ancient spiritual healer named Aunt Ester, played by Phylicia Rashad, and her dealings with a young man (John Earl Jelks) in need of redemption.

Although a production of “Gem of the Ocean” played at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles last year, this staging has had its share of backstage problems. Three weeks into rehearsals for the Boston engagement, its director, Marion McClinton, fell ill and withdrew. He was replaced by Kenny Leon, who guided the Sean Combs revival of “A Raisin in the Sun” to its Broadway success last season.

Then actor Delroy Lindo, citing creative differences, quit the show before it began performances. Anthony Chisholm, who had played the part in previous productions and who had a smaller role in the current production, took over.

Wilson, meanwhile, is working on “Radio Golf,” the final play in his 10-play odyssey. The drama, set in the 1990s, will have its world premiere next spring, April 22 through May 15, at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Conn. In it, Aunt Ester’s house is slated for demolition when a stranger arrives and claims ownership.