Pleasure Trip Turns Up a Job for USIU Student

SAN DIEGO — There may not be any San Diegans in “Anything Goes” at the Civic Theatre through Sunday, but across the Atlantic, United States International University junior John Barrowman is in rehearsal to assume a lead role in the “Anything Goes” that opened July 1 at the Prince Edward Theatre in London’s West End.

Barrowman, 22, heard about the opening when he was vacationing in Scotland before heading off for the three months of study in London that is a normal part of the USIU senior-year curriculum. He left for London early, however, when he heard about an audition for the role of Billy Crocker, replacing the American actor whose work permit had run out. Getting a work permit did not prove to be an issue for Barrowman, because he was born in Glasgow. Even though he did most of his growing up in Joliet, Ill., he retains dual citizenship in England and America.

After his videotaped audition was sent to the Broadway producers of “Anything Goes” for approval, Barrowman was signed for a 12-month contract. He opens Oct. 4, the same night his USIU classmates open in “The Mikado” at the Theatre in Old Town.

Barrowman had a message for his friends in that production, said Gordon Hilker, creative director of the School of Performing and Visual Arts at USIU.

“I’ve been two days in rehearsal, and it’s exactly what we do in our school, so there’s no change,” Barrowman said to Hilker. “We’ll be so many thousand miles apart, but it will be as if we were all on stage together.”

Hilker said he’ll announce the news about Barrowman’s new role to the audience on opening night. He figures that, since 83% of the theater’s 3,700 subscribers renewed their subscriptions of last year, many of them will remember seeing Barrowman in the somewhat more modest roles of Freddie in “My Fair Lady,” the padre in “Man of La Mancha” and one of the boyfriends in “The Boyfriend.”

Meanwhile, Barrowman’s 21 London classmates will also be spending a night in the theater Oct. 4. They all have complimentary tickets to his opening night.

The newly formed Del Mar Theatre Ensemble is presenting “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” through Oct. 1 at the new Del Mar Plaza. What’s odd is that there was no more vocal opponent to the construction of the shopping center, completed in June, than the theater’s founder and artistic director, Bonnie Tarwater.

“I cursed it every time I drove by,” Tarwater said of the project. “I was actively against the plaza because it would bring in more tourists and more people to do their shopping, and, when things are too big, you lose a sense of community.”

That was before she saw the completed plaza in June and fell in love with being able to sit by a fountain and look at the sunset over a spectacular view of the ocean. It only needed one thing, she decided: a theater. She convinced the plaza’s developers, Ivan Gayler and David Winkler, to provide a rehearsal studio and outdoor theater space for a company in which adult performers would present quality theater for children and their parents.

Tarwater, a graduate of La Jolla High School and UC San Diego who studied at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, acted Off-Broadway and in regional theaters across the country before she returned to Del Mar to marry. After six years, she began looking for a way to return to the theater without abandoning her husband and two children. Then the idea of starting a professional theater company for youngsters occurred to her.

Tarwater’s plans for the Del Mar Theatre Ensemble include a production of “Peter and the Wolf” and a possible Pushkin storytelling program to be offered in concert with the Soviet Arts Festival.

“I left the theater for my family dramatically, thinking it was an either-or thing. Now I feel like the luckiest woman alive. I have my family and a new theater.” She laughed when the subject of her budget for the upcoming shows came up. “Now all I need is money.”

Got a 10-minute musical in your top drawer? Producer Michael Koppy is interested in submissions for an anthology of musicals to be presented in a workshop production in San Francisco in January, followed by a more fully realized, second-step production in Los Angeles.

The first round of submissions, which elicited 150 entries based on classic or original short stories, produced 10 pieces scheduled for further development, including work by Christopher Durang (“Ubu Lear,” with music by Richard Peaslee) and Barry Manilow (“Away to Pago Pago,” co-written with Jack Feldman, Bruce Sussman and John PiRoman).

There is one parody in the current lot, “Suds and Lovers,” a takeoff on “Sons and Lovers” by June Siegel and Doug Katsaros, but Koppy said he prefers serious musical offerings. The shows run from 8 1/2 to 17 minutes, with a preferred range of eight to 14 minutes. That allows for an average of three to five songs, which will be performed by a three-piece musical group of percussion, bass and keyboards and eight to 10 performers.

The due date for the next round of submissions is March 1. Send to the Ten-Minute Musicals Project, Michael Koppy, Producer, P.O. Box 461194, West Hollywood 90046.

PROGRAM NOTES: Sledgehammer Theatre will extend its run of “Pre-Paradise Sorry Now” (Fridays and Saturdays at 10:30 p.m.) through Sept. 30. No more extensions after that, said executive director Ethan Feerst. Forty-eight hours after the last show, the site, at 420 1st Ave., is being torn down to make way for a 49-story residential and commercial complex being built by the Centre City Development Corp.’s Marina Redevelopment project. . . . Raul Moncada, the program director of the Old Globe Theatre’s Teatro Meta project, will not only have his translation of Roberto M. Cossa’s “The Granny” presented by the Old Globe in January, but it will also be presented by the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts in Los Angeles in February. . . . The San Diego Critics Circle has changed the date of the sixth annual San Diego Critics Circle Awards presentation to Sunday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. at the Abbey Restaurant in Hillcrest.