A ‘Sayonara’ for the ‘90s

It’s a musical about a love affair between an American soldier and an Asian woman, set in an Asian country.

“Miss Saigon”?

No, it’s “Sayonara,” scheduled to open next June as part of the California Music Theatre season at Pasadena Civic Auditorium. The show’s producers are trying to make sure their musical, set in Japan, doesn’t raise a ruckus similar to that surrounding the casting of a white actor in a Eurasian role in “Miss Saigon.”

“Our intent,” said co-producer Mikel Pippi, is to cast all of the Japanese roles, including the two female leads, with Asian or Asian-American actors--although “I’m not going to make anyone take blood tests.”

Most of the Japanese roles are for women. Auditions for 16 of the 17 Japanese women’s roles will be held at the Masonic Temple in Pasadena Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The second female lead has already been cast with Miho, the actress who created it in 1987 in the original production of the show at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J.

The number of Asian men’s roles in the Pasadena production won’t be known until the final version of William Luce’s script is ready in November, said Pippi. The men’s leads are not Asian roles.

In the New Jersey production, Asian and Caucasian actors occasionally doubled as members of each other’s race in order to fill out well-populated scenes, acknowledged Joseph McConnell, an official at the Paper Mill. “In one scene, we even had an Asian man and a Caucasian man doubling as Asian women,” he said.

“Sayonara” is “being refocused more for a ‘90s sensibility,” said Pippi. “Some people felt (the first version) was too old-fashioned. We’re talking about a more non-linear production.”

Authenticity is being sought in design as well as in casting. Japanese designer Hachiro Nakajima has been enlisted to supervise the Japanese design elements, to create the kimonos, wigs and props and to assist in the construction of sets and costumes.

Shochiku Co. Ltd. of Tokyo, a Japanese entertainment corporation that also produces the Grand Kabuki, has tentatively agreed to help finance the sets and costumes, said Pippi, who estimates these elements will cost $800,000, out of a $1.2 million budget. But their involvement is not yet a signed deal.

Shochiku officials were not available for comment. But Pippi said they were concerned that the production should not replicate design errors they had noticed in the 1957 film version of “Sayonara.” Ricardo Montalban played one of the Japanese roles in that movie.

The producers plan to open the show “somewhere in the West” in May, before moving to Pasadena in June. “I want to give it a break in time before it hits a major market,” said Pippi. He hopes the show will then go on to Canada, where co-producer Wayne Thompson of Headquarters Entertainment will organize a tour. Long-run plans also include Broadway and Japan.

George Fischoff wrote the music and Hy Gilbert the lyrics.

AHMANSON WATCH: The long-running debate over how to renovate the 2,071-seat Ahmanson Theatre has entered a new phase.

Theatre Projects, a New York consulting firm, has been hired to come up with a cost-itemized plan for the theater’s future. The Center Theatre Group and the Music Center Operating Company are splitting the $100,000 cost of the study.

The Ahmanson was created in an era that was “not a happy time for theater architecture,” noted Richard Pilbrow, the Theatre Projects chairman who will direct the Ahmanson project. The theater “can be a great deal more intimate and festive. You can wrap the audience closer to the stage.”

Pilbrow proposes “a new and smaller auditorium within the shell of the existing one” and a flexible seating capacity that could drop as low as 1300 for spoken drama or remain at the 2000 level for large musicals such as the current occupant, “The Phantom of the Opera.” But it’s too early to say how that would be done, he added.

Theatre Projects was one of four organizations that earlier this year submitted sketchier proposals for renovating the theater. The other three organizations, all architectural firms, are still in the running for the commission, said CTG board chairman Lawrence Ramer. If the Theatre Projects plan is approved, an architect will be hired to implement it. Theatre Projects has been asked to report within 60 days.