Deal and Deficit at Long Beach CLO

The news is mixed from Long Beach Civic Light Opera.

First, the upbeat: LBCLO finally signed a new three-year contract with Musicians Assn. Local 353. Last fall, a contract dispute resulted in a reduced, non-union orchestra for “Hello, Dolly!�--and informational leaflets passed out to theatergoers by the union. But after the National Labor Relations Board scheduled hearings on the matter for next month, the two parties came to terms. The new contract requires LBCLO to use 41 union musicians during the rest of this season, then to use 16 per show or 70 per season during the next two seasons (assuming a four-show season).

Now the downbeat: A $700,000 deficit from last season means that LBCLO won’t be able to repeat last year’s experiments at doing non-musical plays in the Center Theatre, the more intimate house next to the gargantuan Terrace Theatre where the group’s musicals are staged. Nevertheless, Artistic Director Barry Brown said he does plan to repeat last year’s staging of “A Musical Christmas Carol� in the Center Theatre.

About that deficit, “nobody planned for a war and a recession,� said Brown. And he attributed half of the deficit to one-time-only costs incurred when he arrived at LBCLO and scrapped the previously announced season.

Meanwhile, LBCLO’s next production has changed its title from “Ballroom� to “Queen of the Stardust Ballroom�--which was also the title of the teleplay that inspired the original Broadway show in 1978. Brown said that a new book and choreography and six new songs have resulted in “a show that’s much closer to the original� TV movie than was Michael Bennett’s Broadway version. Brown doesn’t want anyone to think this is the same show that flopped on Broadway.

“Queen of the Stardust Ballroom� opens on Feb. 29, starring Tyne Daly and Charles Durning.

TAPER READINGS: Admission is free to a series of readings announced for this spring at the Taper Too, the Mark Taper Forum’s venue at the John Anson Ford Theatre in Hollywood.

Three plays by two African-American writers begin the series this week: “Haints, Conjurmen and Leaving� by David Lee Lindsey on Tuesday, Steve Carter’s “Pecong� on Wednesday, and Lindsey’s “The Dream Gone Wild� on Thursday. “Pecong� had been scheduled for a full production in May at Los Angeles Theatre Center, prior to the collapse of the LATC company last fall.

Latino writers take the stage with Maria Irene Fornes’ “And What of the Night� Feb. 24, Eduardo Machado’s “In the Eye of the Hurricane� March 5 and Oliver Mayer’s “The Tears Will Tell It All� on a date to be announced.

Elizabeth Egloff’s adaptation of Dostoevsky’s “The Devils� (March 3), Erik Ehn’s “Gravity’s Drain� (April 3) and Tony Kushner’s “Perestroika� (May 30-31) are also on the list, with more announcements expected later.

On the surface, the series looks like the Taper Lab New Work Festival held at the same place each fall. But unlike the New Work Festival, with its “clear mandate� to offer brand-new plays a first reading free of critical pressure, this series has “many different agendas,� said Corey Beth Madden, the staff producer who’s coordinating the series. Some of the plays are Taper commissions, others are products of the Taper’s mentor playwrights program, others have already received full productions elsewhere.

Reservations are required: (213) 972-8038.