STAGE

The Laguna Playhouse has hit a snag in its bid to expand to a second theater in Laguna Beach, stalling efforts to launch a professional season next spring for the first time in the theater’s 68-year history. Officials of the playhouse, which just opened its regular amateur season at the Moulton Theatre with “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” had expected to take possession of a building at 480 Mermaid on last Thursday for conversion into a 225-seat venue at a cost of $500,000. Soil and water contamination from an oil-tank leak under the building’s slab has prevented the signing of a lease, according to Tom Leweck, public affairs director of GTE California, which owns the building. “What this does,” said Laguna Playhouse general manager Jody Davidson, “is push back the opening of the second theater until the fall (of 1989).”