O.C. THEATER / JAN HERMAN : ‘Quilters’ Warms Up the Season : The frontier musical, opening this weekend at the Muckenthaler’s new amphitheater, ushers in the return of alfresco dining at the Fullerton cultural center.

Although summer hasn’t arrived officially, the first outdoor production of the summer theater season has.

“Quilters,” a frontier musical with an ensemble of six women, opens this weekend in Fullerton at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center’s newly constructed amphitheater.

Presented by the Fullerton Civic Light Opera, which is bringing alfresco dinner theater back to the Muckenthaler for the first time since 1989, the show has taken on “a new life and looks better than ever,” says producer-director Teri Ralston.

“Doing it outside is really wonderful,” she noted in a recent telephone interview from her home in North Hollywood. “It’s an adventure. And I’m just thrilled with this company.”

Adventure is a nice word for taking a chance.

In the many years Ralston has been associated with “Quilters,” this is the first time she has had to deal with the nearby sound of passing trains or the not-so-distant boom of Disneyland’s fireworks.

“Happily, the fireworks come during the intermission,” she noted. “They may be a little distracting, but not too much.”

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Ralston, a Broadway veteran from the original cast of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” has had experience with “Quilters” on both sides of the footlights.

She appeared in the first professional production of the Barbara Damashek-Molly Newman musical at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, toured Ireland with it, and played in it again at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

As a producer-director, she staged it for the first time at the Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theatre in 1988. That version went on to win a national community-theater competition, took various awards at an international competition in Ireland, and was remounted at the Moulton in 1990.

That version, which Ralston produced the following year at the Las Palmas Theatre in Los Angeles, is what drew the attention of both the FCLO and Muckenthaler officials. And, except for several cast changes, it is essentially the version being presented at the Muckenthaler’s new 246-seat, $740,000 amphitheater.

For FCLO chief Griff Duncan, who customarily produces an indoor season at Fullerton’s 1,300-seat Plummer Auditorium, the risks of staging an outdoor “Theater on the Green” series in the small venue are somewhat different from Ralston’s.

“It’s hard earning your money back with so few seats,” he said, adding that the FCLO’s subscription campaign hasn’t been easy either.

“We were hoping to fill 70% of the seats with subscribers. They’re only 50% filled right now. We were looking for 3,000 subscribers. We got 2,200.”

“It looks like we’re going to have to build an audience there. But it’s a beautiful ambience at the Muckenthaler, and I’m optimistic.”

Griffin said the FCLO will spend $180,000 on the three-play summer series, which includes a comedy and a drama--”Lend Me a Tenor” and “Foxfire”--in addition to “Quilters.”

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BACKING THE BARD: Also looking to build an audience, Shakespeare Orange County has drawn 725 subscribers so far for its second summer season at Chapman University’s 256-seat Waltmar Theatre in Orange.

“We think we’ll be down about 5% from the 850 we had last year,” SOC artistic director Thomas Bradac said earlier this week. “But we still have time before our first show goes up, and we may do better than that.”

SOC will stage “Much Ado About Nothing” in July and “Julius Caesar” in August on a budget of $150,000, Bradac said. Last season the classical troupe did “Twelfth Night” and “Hamlet.”

In the meantime, SOC has begun to build a partnership with the university. Chapman has agreed to become one of the professional company’s backers. It will provide $15,000 worth of goods and services this season, Bradac said.

To raise additional funds, SOC is holding a benefit titled “Shakespeare and Me” on June 19 at 8 p.m. at the Waltmar. Kamella Tate, who performs in the company and doubles as SOC associate producer, is staging the event. Chapman president James Doti will host a pre-show reception.

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PERMITS, PLEASE: With its final performances of Moliere’s “Tartuffe” this weekend, the Alternative Repertory Theatre closes out its sixth season in Santa Ana.

So how are they doing?

“It’s been erratic,” company spokesman Gary Christensen said. “One weekend it’s up. Another weekend it’s down. It’s been like that all year, and it doesn’t seem to be based on anything we could figure out.”

The fast-growing A.R.T., which operates a 61-seat storefront theater in a commercial mini-mall, had 500 subscribers for the season, up about 25% over last. And it is already 60% re-subscribed for next season, Christensen said.

Nevertheless, plans to move to a larger space have been put on hold in part because of the troupe’s unpredictable single-ticket sales.

“We feel we’re better off staying put,” he noted. But it’s not just a question of ticket income that has given A.R.T. pause. It’s dealing with bureaucracy.

“We had a place in mind and looked into the permits,” Christensen said. “It’s a lot different now from when we started up in 1987. All we needed then was a variance to use all the parking spaces out front. Now we’d have to get permits approved by 14 different city departments.”