DATE: Thursday, September 11, 1997          TAG: 9709090124

SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS         PAGE: 08   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: THEATER REVIEW 

SOURCE: Montague Gammon III 

                                            LENGTH:   73 lines

LITTLE THEATRE PLANS NOVEL SEASON

The drama started weeks before the first curtain rose this season at the Little Theatre of Norfolk. Rehearsals for opening show ``London Suite'' were well along when leading actor Don Chudzik learned that he wouldn't be in Norfolk for opening night. In fact, he wouldn't be in Virginia, or even in the United States, but navigating a Navy ship through Canadian waters.

So director Leslie Draper got experienced local actor Mark Woodard to take over the three roles that Chudzik plays, for that one weekend and tonight. Chudzik will return Friday to do the rest of the run.

The production marks an area premiere for this Neil Simon script. In fact, all but one of the theater's shows, from the opening of ``London Suite'' last Friday through the closing of the sentimental comedy ``Dancers'' next May, will be plays never before seen on local stages. Only Noel Coward's classic ``Present Laughter'' has a local history, and that was at the Little Theatre ``years and years ago,'' according to Phyllis Guinazzo, head of the theater's play reading committee.

Conversations with Guinazzo and the theater's artistic director, David Burton, keep coming back to the newness of these scripts. Once an institution dependent upon producing tried-and-true pieces, the Little Theatre has taken a new tack in the six years Burton has been at the helm. It is now intent, according to these two spokespeople, on tackling works that Tidewater audiences haven't seen.

Guinazzo points out that American audiences haven't seen ``London Suite'' anywhere but in New York. The Norfolk Little Theatre was the first community group to get performance rights for the play.

The theater's annual musical will be produced in October. Just last weekend the theater scrapped plans to do a show that some thought likely to offend audiences and is looking instead at a reasonably conventional romantic musical set in the 1940s.

The show will run weekends from Oct. 31 through Nov. 23.

``Design for Murder,'' written by George Batson in the suspenseful Agatha Christie vein, will take that stage from Jan. 9 through 25. In Burton's description, ``A young maid is killed, and suspicion falls on all the characters. After twists and turns, the play ends with the murderer ready to strike again, alone in the house with his intended victim.''

``Present Laughter'' is next, scheduled for March 6 through 22. The show was recently revived on Broadway for the 100th anniversary of Cowards' birth. The story features a pampered actor setting out for an extended tour. Dazzled by his fame, a star-struck girl tries to join his company. The actor's wife misunderstands, and the complications that ensue give Coward full rein for his erudite wit and sophisticated humor.

Michael Grady's bittersweet comedy ``Dancers,'' about two residents of a nursing home and the young man who befriends them, will close the season with performances from May 1 through 17. It's a story about the loneliness of the elderly, and about the poses that people adopt to protect themselves, and others.

There is some historical irony in this theater's devotion to novelty in its 71st year. It is the ancestor, directly or indirectly, of most of Tidewater's amateur and professional groups. Several began in rebellion against what was seen as the hide-bound conventionality of it and other established organizations. For several years the Little Theatre has been attracting new performing talent, and expanded audiences, with unfamiliar works that are enough like the old stand-bys to hold the interest of the most traditional loyalists.

There's more that's new in this Little Theatre season than in any other in 30 years. It's a lineup that piques curiosity, and encourages hope. ILLUSTRATION: Photos

Mark Woodard steps into three roles at last minute.

K.T. Carlson, left, Don Chudzik and Lisa Randasso are featured in

one of the ``London Suite'' skits. Chudzik had to bow out of the

opening weekend for a Navy deployment.

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