‘Cats’ Will Try to Land on Its Feet Again in the Southland; : Tyne Daly, Charles Hallahan to Take Early Leave of ‘Sheba’

If cats have nine lives, how many will “Cats” have? We may find out as the second local incarnation of the show arrives next month.

A touring production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber extravaganza will make stops in Long Beach and San Diego. It will play San Diego Civic Theatre from June 23-28 and the Terrace Theatre of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center from June 30 through July 5.

These particular felines have been on tour since March 31, when they opened in New Haven, Conn. They will have played in a dozen cities before their arrival in San Diego.

The exigencies of touring have scaled this “Cats” down from the one that played the Shubert. The set is completely contained within the proscenium, instead of overflowing into the auditorium; the orchestra will be in the pit instead of offstage. However, we’ll still see the hydraulic tire rise and the flying pod descend.

San Diego ticket prices range from $17.50 to $37.50; call (619)278-8497. In Long Beach, tickets cost $23.50-$32.50; call (213) 436-3661 or (714) 740-2000.

Speaking of the Long Beach Terrace Theatre, the Long Beach Civic Light Opera has announced its 1987-88 season. First up, on Oct. 8, will be “42nd Street,” followed by “My One and Only,” “Dreamgirls,” and a “Wizard of Oz” with Cathy Rigby, to be co-produced with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. Information: (213) 432-7926.

Tyne Daly and Charles Hallahan will leave the cast of “Come Back, Little Sheba” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center a week before the run concludes May 31. Their understudies, Zoaunne LeRoy and Al Rossi, will take over the roles, beginning May 26.

Daly leaves to star in a CBS-TV movie, “Kids Like These,” to be co-produced by her own Nexus Productions and directed by her husband, Georg Stanford Brown. The film’s shooting schedule was moved up in anticipation of a possible Directors Guild strike. Hallahan will be making a film in Toronto that week. And Jonna Lee, who replaced Jami Gertz in the role of Marie on May 5, will also leave the show for a TV movie; she’ll be replaced by Laura Harrington.

LATC subscribers, but not single ticket buyers, may exchange their tickets for earlier performances. The run was initially scheduled to end May 24, but a one-week extension was announced on opening night, April 24.

Incidentally, the LATC’s formerly free parking now costs $2. “When the owners of the lots saw how many people we were drawing, they raised the rates they charge us,” said an LATC spokeswoman. “To us, it looks like a victory, keeping it at only $2.”

The Grove Shakespeare Festival’s summer season, to be held in the outdoor Festival Amphitheatre in Garden Grove, will open with a Jules Aaron staging of “Julius Caesar” from June 29 to July 18. Frank Condon will direct Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid,” for a run from July 24 through Aug. 15, and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will conclude the season from Aug. 21 to Sept. 12, directed by Thomas F. Bradac.

Information: (714) 636-7213.

The Mark Taper Forum’s “Roza,” which set a house record for opening week attendance and sales, has been extended a week, through June 21.

Richmond Shepard, who runs an active four-theater Equity Waiver complex on Santa Monica Boulevard, is leaving town to take over the management of the Harold Clurman Theatre, Samuel Beckett Theatre and the Actors and Directors Lab on West 42nd Street in New York. He also expects a New York production next September of “Designer Genes,” a play he co-wrote with John Sinclair.

His daughter, Armina Shepard, will take command of the Richmond Shepard Theatre Complex, which will expand into a fifth theater when another tenant moves at the end of May. No plans, though, to change the name to the Armina Shepard Theatre Complex.