Alan Ayckbourn

TOM STOPPARD recently turned 70, and the BBC is celebrating with radio productions of the playwright's most recent London hit, "Rock 'n' Roll" (scheduled for its U.S. premiere this fall in New York), and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," the 1966 show that launched his career. "Rock 'n' Roll," about how rock music served as a soundtrack and battering ram for Czechoslovakia's liberation movement, began streaming last Sunday on the "Drama on 3" weekly play series' website (www.bbc.co.

Kevin Spacey already has two Academy Awards and heads London's Old Vic theater. Now he can add a new title: Oxford University professor. The Hollywood star has been named Cameron Mackintosh visiting professor of contemporary theater at Oxford's St. Catherine's College, officials there announced Friday. Spacey will succeed Shakespearean actor and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" star Patrick Stewart when the new academic year starts in October. Previous holders of the post, endowed by theater impresario Mackintosh, include composer Stephen Sondheim, playwright Alan Ayckbourn and actress Diana Rigg.

"Morning's at Seven," which made its debut on Broadway in 1939, has been announced as the opening production of South Coast Repertory's 30th anniversary season in September. Paul Osborne's droll but elegiac comedy about the lives of a small-town family in 1920s America will premiere Sept. 10 on the SCR Mainstage.

Peter Tinniswood, 66, a prolific author of plays for radio, stage and television, died Thursday of cancer in a London hospice, the BBC announced. Tinniswood was best known for "Tales From a Long Room," a series of stories about cricket, a lifelong passion, and the BBC sitcom, "I Didn't Know You Cared." Born in Manchester, England, Tinniswood began his career as a journalist in Sheffield and Liverpool but increasingly turned to writing drama.

South Coast Repertory on Wednesday named three more revivals for its 1993-94 season in Costa Mesa. Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" has been added to the four previously announced for the SCR Mainstage; Athol Fugard's "Playland" and Joe Orton's "Loot" have been named for the SCR Second Stage. Theater officials say the 1993-94 SCR Mainstage schedule is to run as follows: * Sept. 10 to Oct. 1O (previews begin Sept. 3): Paul Osborn's "Morning's at Seven," to be directed by Martin Benson. * Oct.

Joe Spano, best known as Lt. Henry Goldblum of "Hill Street Blues," will lead the cast of Alan Ayckbourn's "A Chorus of Disapproval," the opening production of South Coast Repertory's 1989-90 season. The British comedy, to be directed by SCR's Producing Artistic Director David Emmes, will run on the SCR Mainstage from Sept. 8 to Oct. 12, with discount-priced preview performances beginning Sept. 1.

Newport Beach native Mark Rucker, an associate artist with South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, was awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Theatre Artist Residency Program, South Coast Repertory officials announced Thursday. The money will allow Rucker to help lead the Pacific Playwrights Festival, June 10-20, and participate in other season and long-range planning for SCR. Rucker is slated to direct two SCR productions in the 1999-2000 season and two in 2000-01.

The fun in farce sometimes depends on the number of doors on stage for the characters to whiz in and out of. Alan Ayckbourn, that trickster of British comedy, does it with beds in his popular "Bedroom Farce." Don't get the wrong idea. The play could almost have a G rating. The beds are only the squares for the diligent efforts of Ayckbourn's comedic pawns to keep Trevor and Susannah from breaking up their marriage. On Long Beach Playhouse's Mainstage, director Ashley Carr Jr.

It's laughs with Alan Ayckbourn and the Hilarions, heartbreak in "The Pawnbroker" and "Amadeus"--and a lot in between--in this month's theater openings. The roster includes: Today: Writer-performer Barry Yourgrau brings his collection of oddball tales to Cafe Largo in West Hollywood in "More Yourgrau! at Largo," tonight and May 12.

Farce, by definition, depends on how many doors are on stage for the characters to whiz in and out of as the action accelerates. Alan Ayckbourn, that trickster of British comedy, does it with beds in "Bedroom Farce." Don't get the wrong idea. The play could almost have a G rating. The beds are only the squares where Ayckbourn keeps switching his comedic pawns in their efforts to keep Trevor and Susannah from breaking up their marriage or, at least, to get them home together in one piece.