STAGE

Play-ing in Long Beach: Long Beach Civic Light Opera’s promised play series will kick off at the Center Theatre June 4-23 with “On Golden Pond,” starring Charles Durning and Hope Lange. Barry Brown, artistic director of the LBCLO, notes, “My watch cry when I first came to Long Beach was ‘New Beginnings’ and it seems to me that is the cry of ‘On Golden Pond.’ ” A festival of staged readings of two new plays and two new musicals follows (Aug. 9-11), and David H. Bell’s musical adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” will conclude the series (Dec. 11-29). This marks the first theater activity to light up the 840-seat Center Theatre at the Long Beach Convention Center since 1981. LBCLO’s musicals play the adjacent 3,054-seat Terrace Theatre.