The Term ‘Theater Community’ Is More Wishful Thinking Than Fact in Disjointed Orange County

The words Orange County theater community come so trippingly off the tongue that it warrants belief, as though there really is some sort of extended family with common interests reaching from Fullerton to San Clemente.

In fact, the term is a convenient cliche, a form of wishful thinking and one to which this column pleads guilty. Because for all the theater troupes scattered across the county--and there are literally dozens--they rarely know each other’s work, let alone connect with it.

There is, of course, some overlap of artists and technicians among these theaters as there inevitably will be whenever talented people are ambitious and eager to work. Moreover, the Newport Theatre Arts Center took a stab at creating a spirit of community with a festival of 13 amateur troupes in July. But by and large, theater leaders have remained isolated from each other.

“It’s always been that way, at least in the non-professional theaters,” said Douglas Rowe, artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, the county’s largest, oldest and most accomplished amateur company. “When theaters are formed, it’s so much trouble to take time away from your own shop.”

The sense of isolation holds, though, even at the professional level. Thomas F. Bradac, who heads the Grove Shakespeare Festival in Garden Grove--the county’s second-largest professional company--noted that the artistic directors of South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa “haven’t been to see our stuff in years.”

At SCR, the county’s largest professional company, producing artistic director David Emmes acknowledged: “I haven’t seen a lot of Orange County theater. I probably see more in New York and London than I do in Southern California.”

The last production Emmes remembers seeing at the Grove was “The Tempest” in the summer of 1985. For his part, Bradac recalls seeing “Highest Standard of Living,” which opened SCR’s Mainstage season three years ago. He hasn’t been to a Mainstage production since.

“Last spring I was in the hallway at South Coast for a meeting on arts agencies,” Bradac said. “David was surprised to run into me. He asked, ‘Gee, what are you doing here?’ I told him, and he said in jest, ‘Oh good, you’re not recruiting.’ ”

There has always been some recruitment of talent between the county’s only two professional companies, given their proximity to each other and the relative scarcity of paid theatrical work. Guest director Jules Aaron frequently has worked at both places, for example, and so have composer Chuck Estes, scenic designer Cliff Faulkner, costume designer Shigeru Yaji.

The most recent instances of on-stage cross-fertilization, if you will, are Kamella Tate and Dennis Robertson. She co-starred as Roxanne in the Grove’s production of “Cyrano de Bergerac” earlier this summer and currently has a role in SCR’s “A Chorus of Disapproval.” He played last season in SCR’s “The Crucible” and recently co-starred in the Grove’s “Heathen Valley,” which closed Saturday at the Gem Theatre.

For that matter, there has been a backstage connection between the Grove and the professionally aspiring Alternative Repertory Theatre, which is going on its third season in a storefront operation in Santa Ana. Two founding members of ART--lighting designer David C. Palmer and makeup artist-scenic designer Gary Christensen--also happen to be Grove staffers.

But such occurrences tend to be the exception. Furthermore, the qualitative difference between the few leading theaters and the many smaller ones in their wake unfortunately works against mutual attraction and commonality of interest.

“When I go to the theater,” Emmes said, “I’m looking for new plays more often than not, and for their suitability for SCR. Generally speaking, the amount of new-play activity in Orange County is relatively minimal.”

Thus, while he is “glad to know there is some professionally aspiring theater in the county,” he hasn’t felt the need to check it out. He has never been to see an ART production, for instance. And though he cites Laguna’s Douglas Rowe as a crucially “important figure” on the local theater scene, he can’t remember the last time he attended a Laguna Playhouse production.

SCR casting director Martha McFarland, who sees as many actors as possible because of her job, said she tries to attend two shows a year at Laguna (where she has also directed) and one a year at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse. But, she conceded, “I don’t see a lot around the county because there aren’t a lot of professionals out there. The only things I’ve seen lately are the plays at the Grove.”

Indeed, if you ask various theatrical leaders where they go for their own playgoing pleasure, most tell you that they prefer to go to Los Angeles or San Diego and rarely mention any place local except SCR.

So the next time you read the phrase Orange County theater community in this column, consider it a sweet prevarication.

COSTUMES ANYONE? The Grove Shakespeare Festival has decided to sell off half of its costume stock, which goes back as much as a decade to the first production, “Anything Goes.” The company hopes to raise at least $5,000 through the sale on Oct. 14 at the Festival Amphitheatre in Garden Grove. The timing couldn’t be better for Halloween.

Meanwhile, the Grove just picked up a $5,000 grant from Wells Fargo Bank to sponsor Gregory Mortensen’s “The Scoundrel,” an updated rewrite of Ben Jonson’s Elizabethan farce, “The Alchemist.” The comedy opens Oct. 6 at the Gem Theatre and is set in 1850s San Francisco.

OLE: Tonight’s the night in Barcelona. The Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse is representing the United States at the International Amateur Theater Festival of the Mediterranean. The Playhouse production of William Gibson’s “Monday After the Miracle” goes on at 10 p.m. today (1 p.m. Pacific time).

“We’d heard the festival is not competitive,” producer Darlene Roth said last week as she and seven troupe members were preparing to leave. “But now we’ve overheard it is, which comes as a surprise. Whatever it is, we’ll perform as we planned.”