STAGE / NANCY CHURNIN : Artistic Differences Can Mean Change in Direction

If running a theater is a show in itself, the true star at center stage is always the artistic director. He is the one who gambles the company’s budget on shows, on talent and on the style of production deemed suitable. He then fields the cheers (or jeers) at the end of each season.

Of course, the flip side of living in the spotlight means that artistic directors can find themselves suddenly out of work, like Adrian Hall, former artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, whose contract was not renewed this year, months after he left the helm of the Trinity Repertory Theatre to work in Dallas full time.

The Hall story does have an upbeat tag line, though. He may be out of work in Dallas, but he already has commitments as a free-lance director for “Measure for Measure” at the Old Globe Theatre, running Aug. 31-Oct. 8.

Recently, Starlight Musical Theatre almost lost Bonnie and Don Ward, longtime co-artistic directors of the company, just days before the opening of “The Sound of Music,” now playing at the Starlight Bowl through July 16. Bonnie Ward confirmed Tuesday that she and her husband quit Starlight briefly last week due to artistic differences with Executive Producer Harris Goldman, now starting his first season with the organization.

“I think there was a lot of misunderstanding about how we would be proceeding throughout the season,” Bonnie said. “We had been working with a general manager (Leon Drew, whom Goldman replaced) who said, ‘Everything backstage is yours.’ We share the artistic dream (with Goldman). It’s just the manner in which we operate is so different.”

The differences, which both parties were reluctant to spell out, were evidently smoothed over, and both parties expect the Wards to at least finish out the season. Goldman described the matter as “an internal discussion” and not a resignation on the part of the Wards.

Goldman, a theater professional from West Norwalk, Conn., who has extensive experience in commercial and nonprofit theater, had been brought into the organization specifically to help Starlight grow in the direction of developing new musicals and “reconstructing” older, neglected American musicals. The plan to premiere a new musical as early as next year will also be the fulfillment of a longtime goal of the Wards, Starlight veterans who worked at the Bowl as performers years before they took the artistic helm eight seasons ago.

“Don and I have known for a long time that Starlight is not reaching its potential,” said Bonnie Ward, who has, with Drew and her husband, guided Starlight’s budget growth from less than $1 million to more than $2 million.

“We have a personal agenda. We really felt we were moving in the direction we wanted to move. But we have been operating in the bowl under handicaps that are unbelievable. It’s a tragedy that we are right in the airplane path,” she said, referring to the planes on their landing approach to Lindbergh Field that fly low overhead during performances.

“I think we were just wondering if it was time for us to move on. But our board and our staff didn’t think so. And we want to stay.”

In a smooth transition of leadership, Hollace Koman looked downright pleased as she stepped down as artistic director of the San Diego Gilbert & Sullivan Company, which she founded 10 years ago, to be succeeded by Leon Natker. Natker, who trained at Juilliard before moving to San Diego three years ago, has performed with Starlight and San Diego Gilbert & Sullivan, where he directed “Trial by Jury” and “Cox and Box” this spring. Natker said Koman will continue as the company’s musical director.

The upcoming season, said Natker, will include “The Mikado,” which he will direct, Sept. 15-24, and a new version of “London Is a Little Bit of All Right!” a musical revue of songs by Gilbert & Sullivan contemporaries that the company tried out successfully last year and which will run Sept. 29-Oct. 8. The season will conclude with what Natker promised will be an “innovative” production of “The Gondoliers” sometime in late March.

The company is now presenting “The Pirates of Penzance” through Sunday at Casa del Prado.

Technically, it is a day past the deadline for Old Globe subscribers to order tickets for the U. S. premiere of “Brothers and Sisters,” the Leningrad Maly Drama Theater production that promises to be one of the jewels in the crown of the Soviet arts festival during its Oct. 22-Nov. 19 run. But the Old Globe staff will still accept orders today and patrons are urged not to dally. There will be only 17 performances of this two-part, six-hour adaptation of a trilogy of novels about the devastating effects of World War II on a Soviet family.

The Globe plans to add seats in front of the front row of the theater and 16 standing-room-only spots to increase the 581-seat venue to serve 637. Even so, they will be able to sell only 60% of the tickets, which translates to about 6,000 seats, or about half the number of Old Globe subscribers.

The rest of the seats will be sold by festival organizers. Those tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis to those who call 1-800-245-FEST and request to be put on the list for mail-order sales. The mail-order forms go out at the end of July.

The Globe is also selling tickets for 20 performances of two shows by the Tbilisi State Puppet Theatre of Soviet Georgia, to be shown in the 240-seat Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre in Balboa Park on Oct. 24-Nov. 11. One show, “Alfred and Violette,” is based on the story “Camille,” and the other is a world premiere. The remaining performances will be sold by the arts festival.

The ticket prices through the Globe and the festival are the same. They range from $40 (for a preview night) to $125 (for opening night with reception and private tour of the Faberge Eggs) for “Brothers and Sisters” and $10 (for a preview night) to $15 for the Tbilisi puppets. “Brothers and Sisters” will be performed in Russian with simultaneous translation.